Public Service Commission candidate talks about Plant Vogtle, other hot-button issues

April 01--ALBANY -- The Georgia Public Service Commission is a quasi-executive, quasi-legislative state body responsible for regulating Georgia's public utilities. The PSC's mission is to exercise its authority and influence to ensure that consumers receive safe, reliable and reasonably priced telecommunications, electric and natural gas services from financially viable and technically competent companies.

The commission is composed of five popularly elected members who serve staggered, six-year terms.

John Noel, a candidate for Post 3 on the commission, who is being billed as the state's "solar-powered Democratic candidate," was in town to meet with The Albany Herald and talk about why he wants a seat on the commission, as well as some important, largely undiscussed issues surrounding nuclear power, Plant Vogtle, utility economics and politics, and the future of renewable energy/solar power.

Albany Herald: Mr. Noel, you are being billed as the "solar-powered Democratic candidate." As a professional who has taken energy efficiency to heart, opening your own energy efficiency company, Energy + Environment LLC in 1999, outfitting your home with solar panels and driving an electric car, it seems you are a little ahead of the game. Can you tell me a little bit about your history and your philosophy as it pertains to renewable energy resources such as solar power?

John Noel: Well, first I would recommend that you watch my YouTube video, "Sticking it to the Man," and that will get it for you. It's had about 60,000 views. The video describes very well what my environmental and energy ethic is. It is essentially that we can be energy-independent with the combination of solar and batteries. The video shows my first Tesla power wall in my home, and I think, really, it's about the integration of new technology, of clean technology, and the getting away from dinosaur thinking and dinosaur fuel, literally, coal and natural gas, and going to a new way of thinking. It doesn't just have to be production. I mean, solar is sexy and solar is great, but wouldn't it be cool if we saved the power instead of using/wasting it? That's the advantage that I bring in this contest. Everyone else running, and even the incumbent, has less experience in the energy field than I do. Forget my challengers, who almost have no experience in the energy business. It is my experience in the energy field that differentiates me from the entirety of the Public Service Commission. And that's what has been lacking. It has been lacking a knowledge of energy, it has been lacking a knowledge of how to save energy, and how to be a good steward of the energy we are using. That translates to the bottom line for people. So when you get a power bill and wonder why it is so high, part of it is because your utility rate is too high and part of it's because you used too much power. It's not just a one-way street. Now I love to beat up on the utility companies, because I think there is plenty of beating up to do, since they have been beating up on us a lot. But that's only half the equation. The other half of the equation is that we use too much power. We need to figure out how to use less and get more from it.

AH: Wow, that is refreshing to hear a politician talk about responsibility. Too often citizens/consumers seem to be fed the old spill about we need more, more. We need more power plants, we need more to satisfy the demand, or we need sustainable growth, which in itself seems counter-productive to a healthy environment don't you think?

Noel: What is sustainable growth? All sustainable growth is, is the sustainable growth of Georgia Power, or rather Southern Company's dividend. That's not the sustainable growth that I'm after. The fact that they have never had a decrease in their dividends in decades is a wonderful thing, but that is easy to achieve when you have a monopoly. The job of the Public Service Commission is to be the arbiter for the independent and, unfortunately, that has not happened. The regulators have become the regulated. The power company runs the show, and that's not the way it's supposed to be.

AH: Let's talk about safety. Nuclear accidents are rare, but they do happen with terrible consequences. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, crippled in 2011, is still leaking radioactive contamination into the Pacific Ocean with no foreseeable end in sight. The Ukrainian people are still dealing with extremely long-term and devastating side effects, such as millions of mutated birth defects in people and animals, from the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986. I don't think most people realize that there is a 1,004-square-mile exclusion zone around the Chernobyl site. If that happened at Plant Vogtle, more than a fourth of the United States would be uninhabitable. In the stated mission of PSC, one of its main duties is to provide "safe" access to electric services, but with all that has transpired with Plant Vogtle, the cost overruns, multiple years past its completion deadline, the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the developer of the AP1000 nuclear technology being used by the new units, how, in your opinion, is that a safe investment for Georgia when there is a potential risk for catastrophic environmental disaster should anything go wrong?

Noel: Your are exactly right. It would be bye bye Augusta, and there wouldn't be anymore Master's. You are correct. As with anything that is radioactive, it is inherently less safe than something that is not radioactive. So the question before us is what is more safe? Is it a field of solar panels or is it a large bulls-eye for terrorists or an accident or anything else as far as a power plant goes? Now I'm not going around the state making an anti-nuclear argument. In fact, the truth is you could be agnostic on nuclear (dangers), but you can't be agnostic about the economics. The economics have completely overtaken the argument. And that's where it doesn't even matter if the environmentalists or the pro-nuke people are right. I, myself, am somebody who cares a lot about the planet, but whether we know we are right or wrong on the safety remains to be seen. But what we know we are right on is the economics. The economics have gotten so out of whack. The Senate Republican Finance chairman said when this thing comes online it is going to be three times the cost of comparable solar power. Even Georgia Power said that when it comes online, if it comes on line on time, which it won't, and if it comes in on the new budget, which it won't, it never does, but if those things happen, for the privilege of getting a power plant, which you do not need, and I will tell you why in a second, it will be a 10.5 percent increase to our rates. This came out in late December. So we have a power plant that was conceived in 2008 to provide power for all this extra usage that we were going to have because when the economy grows the power demand grows, but my business, for the last 20 years, has been about driving people's demand down. My whole career/job has been to drive people's power bills down. I am not the friend of the utility companies from that perspective, and I don't care. I am the friend of the consumer. So what has happened is that people have kind of caught on. It's not just the me's of the world going around doing this. People are catching on. They are going to Lowe's and replacing their old incandescent light bulbs with newer more efficient LED bulbs. Demand is down.

AH: If energy demand is down across the state, why do we need a new $25 billion nuclear power plant?

Noel: By the way, it's not $25 billion, because they say that it's $25 billion, but it's actually $28 billion. They say that it is $25 billion because they apply the $3 billion that they got from the settlement from Toshiba. So, they are already playing funny numbers with the game. They got $3.6 billion of free money in a settlement. Kudos to Georgia Power's lawyers. They took it out of Toshiba, which was Westinghouse's mothership. And we get, as mentioned in the story you wrote recently, we get a paltry little return in the $100 million range. We get something from the federal tax reduction, big deal. And this is supposed to ameliorate us for the average person paying upward of $100 per year in advance of this power plant. So I would argue that the economics don't work, the rationale doesn't work, and our energy consumption, thanks to efforts of me, thanks to efforts of people going to Home Depot and replacing their incandescent light bulbs, energy use is down in the state of Georgia, which has created a situation where we don't even need the power. So there is a net decrease in the state of Georgia for power, which makes you scratch your head and say, "Why do we need this new generation of power plant?"

AH: Let me ask your opinion about the future of solar power. I had the opportunity last year to cover the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the solar power plant in Plains at former President Jimmy Carter's farm. It is an impressive facility. So my next question is really two parts: First, do you see the development of utility company-owned solar farms, which are more environmentally friendly than a coal-powered plants but are the same business model where an individual homeowner or consumer would be beholden to the utility for all of their energy needs and be subject to demand-based rate hikes. Do you see that as the future of solar power? Or, second, do you believe a more individualized approach, where the consumer/individual, much like you have done at your home, could outfit their home with solar panels and generate electricity for themselves? Do you believe that to be the model of true energy independence? My fear is that the utility companies, which can lobby massive amounts of money to influence legislation, could ultimately prevent individuals from generating their own power, if they so desired.

Noel: You know, I juiced up on solar before I came. (Noel drives a Tesla electric car.) How cool is that? But the only problem is that the utility companies don't make money from that. That's why it's never getting pushed, because we have never had a public service commission that cared about the people. They're caring about the utility company and they are incentivized to do so, because they get 95 percent of their contributions from the people that they are regulating.

AH: Then how do we make the leap from fossil fuels, or even nuclear power, to clean, safe, abundant renewable solar power?

Noel: That's a good question. So, here's the good news. Renewables have a downward pressure on rates. Take Texas for example. Residential people in Texas are paying a fraction of what we pay in Georgia, because they don't have coal plants, and coal clean-ups, and natural gas and over-priced nuclear plants, like we have. But they have tons of wind and solar. Wind and solar are cheap on the utilities scale. So we are in a position now where we can have a downward pressure on rates, which, I think, is an advantage. It's all in the economics. The key here is that Vogtle is changing the metric. Vogtle is blowing up the cost of everything. Vogtle has distorted and will continue to distort the cost. That's the problem.

For more information about John Noel, visit noelforpsc.com.

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