In this case, the anomaly is not that Turner, a longtime
environmentalist and philanthropist, and Southern, owner of the nation’s three
largest greenhouse gas-contributing coal plants, are working together. It’s
that all but one of these solar projects are in the Southwest, far away from
Georgia and the Southeast where Atlanta-based Southern’s utilities operate.
This means Georgians won’t benefit directly from Southern’s
investments in solar, a non-polluting source of electricity that is fast
becoming cost-competitive with traditional sources of fuel such as coal and
natural gas. Southern-owned Georgia Power has slowly shifted away from using
coal to provide electricity, but environmentalists say the use of cleaner,
renewable sources of fuel such as solar remain a long way off in this state
because of legislative and regulatory boundaries."
