MISSISSIPPI CHAPTER

This upcoming event on November 2nd will highlight how climate action brings together business, community and environmental interests by highlighting German-American climate leadership in the business sector, creating jobs and fostering economic well-being in Mississippi. Millsaps College is hosting the event. The discussion will support climate change mitigation efforts, and will increase awareness of climate change and its impacts on our collective future among audiences not primarily exposed to the issue REGISTER HERE

Want to lower your energy bill and eliminate the need for another dirty, expensive power plant like Kemper? Utilities like Entergy Mississippi are trying to stall progress by delaying the new energy efficiency standards until 2020! Submit your comment today. Tell the PSC commissioners to reject any further delays in implementing energy efficiency policies.

Your comment to the PSC will go a long way to ensuring we get strong energy efficiency programs here in Mississippi.

NEWS ABOUT AN UPCOMING EVENT FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BUFFALO PEAK AND BACKPACKER MAGAZINE:
Hello! I'm Alison with Backpacker Magazine and I wanted to reach out to all of you because our road tour, the Get Out More Tour is coming to your area next week on October 19th at 6:30pm, at Buffalo Peak Outfitters in Jackson, MS.

WHEN: Saturday, September 23rd, 2017, 8:00am
WHERE: Choose from over 30 locations! Cleanup teams will be deployed along the Pearl River Watershed from its Headwaters in Nanih Waiya, Mississippi, downriver through the Ross Barnett Reservoir, along the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, all the way to Pearlington on the Gulf Coast.

FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST
7/11/2017
BY Mary Anne Hitt, Contributor
Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign/
Co-written by Louie Miller, director of Sierra Club Mississippi.

These three truths became well known to Mississippians put on the hook for the so-called Kemper “clean coal” gasification experiment. Touted as the flagship for the future of coal, and backed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the heavy-hitter utility, Southern Company, what could go wrong? As many predicted from the very beginning, costs soon spiraled out of control; what started out with a $1.8 billion price tag ended up at $7.5 billion plus, giving Kemper the dubious distinction of being the most expensive power plant ever built in the United States. READ MORE

FROM THE CLIMATE INVESTIGATION CENTER
By Dan Zegart
In a historic vote this morning, Mississippi state regulators slammed the brakes on the Kemper coal power plant, saying they will refuse to ask utility customers to pay anything for Kemper's non-functional multi-billion dollar "clean coal" gasification technology and will re-designate the plant as a natural gas facility. The PSC's decision on the power plant, located near DeKalb in eastern Mississippi, was hailed by consumer and environmental groups. "I applaud the commission for doing what needed to be done, and driving a stake through the heart of this so-called clean coal project," said Louie Miller, the Sierra Club's statewide director. "I think this is the beginning of the end of a long nightmare for Mississippi Power customers. This is a boondoggle that should never have been built in the first place." READ MORE

JUNE 21, 2017

FROM THE MISSISSIPPI BUSINESS JOURNAL
MAY 12, 2017 BY RICHARD SUN
In a recent column, Bill Crawford asserted that the issue with Kemper is prudent fuel diversity. It is not and never has been. The issue has always been whether the rate payers of Mississippi Power should bear the risk of unproven technology and a long-shot side bet on natural gas prices.

Bill Crawford uses natural gas fuel price uncertainty as the justification for diversifying with Kemper. He cites a high gas price at Henry Hub of $18.48; that was a one day price on February 25, 2003; the day before and the day afterwards the price was below $12.00. The annual average that year was $5.47. Since there is a very predictable seasonal winter peak in natural gas prices, the annual average is more relevant.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY

BY KENDRA ABLAZA, REPORTER/MISSISSIPPI TODAY
MAY 3, 2017
The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office now has a guide for Mississippi home and business owners about how they can navigate installing solar panels. The guide, titled the Consumer’s Guide to Solar Power in Mississippi,, launched Wednesday at the same time as Attorney General Jim Hood announced the guide at a news conference in his office.

GROWING MISSISSIPPI'S CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY
Jackson, MS -- Today’s filing by Pattern Energy Group LP before the Mississippi Public Service
Commission is a step in the right direction for the State of Mississippi. Pattern’s transmission project, known as Southern Cross, will deliver up to 2,000 megawatts of abundant, affordable, and clean wind energy from Texas to Mississippi and the Southeast. The project is expected to generate significant economic benefits and jobs to the State of Mississippi.