Published

1 month ago

April 7, 2025

Alice Rush

At a March 25 meeting convened by the Southeastern Regional Transmission Planning organization (SERTP), a large group of people met—as they do four times a year—to discuss the region’s power needs and whether the grid needs to be expanded to accommodate them.

As the meeting began, SERTP issued an increasingly common directive to those of us in attendance: We will not be discussing Order 1920, so don’t bother asking.

Some background on what this means may be important.

While most grid planning in the southeast is done by utilities within their own footprints, SERTP was created in response to a 2010 order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) aimed at increasing the number of high-voltage power lines going across state boundaries and between utilities. These transmission lines are like highways for electricity: they may not be organically built by local communities, but they are essential to moving things at high volume.

A slow start

SERTP has never built or even planned a regional transmission line in more than a decade of its existence. Last year, FERC issued another rule, Order 1920, to address this ongoing failure of regional transmission.

SACE has previously broken down the details of Order 1920. The order requires utilities to start planning over a longer time horizon (20 years) and consider a number of potential benefits of new power lines that are left out of current analyses. (These include mitigation of extreme weather events, reduced energy loss on the lines, and a number of other virtues of having more space for power on the grid.)

As SACE has previously written, utilities in the Southeast have yet to announce any plans to comply with Order 1920 and have made several procedural moves to delay the deadline for legal compliance. The most recent and significant of these is SERTP’s request—now granted by FERC—to extend the deadline by a year, to June 2026.

Holding a meeting is not the same thing as taking action

What SERTP has been doing to prepare for Order 1920, and what it will do with the additional time it now has, is something of a mystery. According to the extension request it filed with FERC, SERTP’s efforts thus far have included “extensive working group meetings” between its member utilities (Duke, Southern Company, Dominion Energy, and others) as well as “outreach to neighboring regions.”

The output of these conversations is not known to SACE or to the public. Since Order 1920 was issued, SERTP has declined to address it in any of its stakeholder meetings, except for two:

An “educational session” on December 6th, 2024, which broke down the requirements included in Order 1920 but provided no information about what SERTP was doing to meet them.
A “stakeholder engagement meeting” held on January 29th of this year, in which regional nonprofit groups and other stakeholders were invited to offer feedback and suggestions on what SERTP might do to improve regional transmission. SERTP members made it clear during the course of this meeting that they were there only to listen and would not be taking questions.

It is, of course, possible that the conversations held between the utilities who run SERTP have been deep and substantive. But the extension request paperwork—which is the only information available to anyone outside of the utilities themselves—indicates that a number of critical decisions have yet to be made. Among the things these utilities have not decided are:

whether or not new software will be needed to examine the benefits of new power lines
who might supply that software, if needed, and for what price
what new planning procedures might be needed to meet the new federal standards
how those new planning procedures might be integrated with current ones

If these relatively fundamental questions remained undecided after more than six months of conversations among the member utilities, it’s fair to ask what has been decided. But stakeholders have been advised not to ask, and in any case, no answers have been given.

Holding meetings is not the same thing as listening

The community of advocates has been more than willing to offer ideas for what these processes might look like. Utilities outside the southeast, particularly those in the region known as MISO, have developed planning processes that meet many of the Order 1920 standards. We know that SERTP is aware of this because we presented it to them in some detail at the stakeholder engagement meeting.

At the March 25th meeting earlier this week, I asked SERTP when, if ever, the stakeholders might hear back about the suggestions we have already shared. They offered no promise that we would get such an explicit reply and added that future stakeholder meetings may be delayed.

In fact, holding meetings is not necessarily anything

SERTP is within its legal rights to behave this way. Its meetings occur on schedule, its papers are in order, and the entity that regulates it—FERC—has given its blessings. But fifteen years after SERTP was formed to plan regional transmission, it cannot claim sole responsibility for a single new pole in the ground.

Transmission can be arcane, but it matters. A well-planned and coordinated regional grid can be the difference between a manageable monthly bill and a shocking one; between a system that crashes in extreme weather and one that keeps people from shivering at home on Christmas Eve; and most starkly, between a livable climate and a hostile one. At some point, if we want these things, another meeting is not going to do the trick. Someone’s got to pick up a shovel and start to dig.

The post Ten months after it was issued, the latest federal rule on transmission is mostly theoretical appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Ten months after it was issued, the latest federal rule on transmission is mostly theoretical

Renewable Energy

“86”

Published

13 hours ago

May 17, 2025

Alice Rush

When my brother and I were little, our father took great delight in amusing us with lingo he learned in basic training, prior to his being commissioned into the Army Air Force as a bomber pilot in WW II.

One term I remember his making frequent use of was “86,” meaning to be out of something. E.g., “Sorry boys, no pancakes this morning. We’re 86 on flour.”

I bring this up to suggest that James Comey was probably simply urging his nation to get rid of Trump by some legal means. Of course, asking to the GOP to act fairly in a case like this is like expecting your dog to play the violin.

“86”

Renewable Energy

Rejecting the Modern-Day Republican Party

Published

16 hours ago

May 17, 2025

Alice Rush

When boomers were young, we were almost exclusively Democrats, but it’s common now to see people under 30 gravitate to the Republicans. What changed to make this possible?

In a word, I would say anti-intellectualism. It used to be cool to be smart, compassionate, and involved. Now, the opposite is true: it’s cool to be rich, and uninterested in the well-being of other people. Where Trump would have been regarded as a laughable pig just a decade or so ago, now he’s an icon for the “might makes right” generation that cares about nothing other than money.

Re: the meme here, do I see this happening? No, but things could change.

Rejecting the Modern-Day Republican Party

Renewable Energy

Media Sourcery, Everpoint Transforming Turbine Blade Recycling

Published

1 day ago

May 16, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Media Sourcery, Everpoint Transforming Turbine Blade Recycling

Larry Ketchersid, CEO of Media Sourcery explains the company’s partnership with Everpoint Services to improve the process of recycling turbine blades and solar panels. Using blockchain technology to create verifiable proof of proper recycling, companies can get the processing and documentation they need – along with peace of mind.

Listen to the entire interview here

Wind and solar energy continue to expand worldwide, as more countries realize their tremendous potential, but a major blind spot looms: decommissioning renewable energy assets doesn’t always go according to plan. Wind turbine blade recycling has had some bad press lately, and solar panels, too, can disappear from job sites, only to reemerge in landfills, abandoned lots, or worse—dumped in unknown locations with no accountability. The problem undermines renewable energy by mocking its “green” label, and it threatens regulatory trust.

Enter Larry Ketchersid, CEO of Media Sourcery, and his collaboration with Everpoint Services, a renewable waste recycling company. Together, they’re leveraging blockchain and low-power IoT trackers to bring proof, transparency, and accountability to the renewable waste chain of custody.

Turbine Blade Recycling – Where’s the Accountability?

Despite increased public scrutiny, turbine blades and solar panels are frequently stockpiled rather than properly recycled. The renewable sector faces a critical perception issue: lack of verifiable documentation that assets are disposed of responsibly. Once a blade leaves a wind farm, how can operators—and regulators—be sure it reaches an approved recycler?

“You don’t know what people are doing with it. There’s a lot of dump sites where stuff gets put. It’s not the circular economy we’re trying to promote,” Ketchersid said in our interview.

Media Sourcery, Everpoint Transforming Turbine Blade Recycling

Blockchain-Backed Proof of Recycling

Ketchersid explained that Media Sourcery’s system was originally developed to track the cold-chain integrity of COVID-19 test kits during the pandemic. Today, their platform tags and tracks renewable assets throughout their decommissioning lifecycle, from dismantling and transport to grinding and reuse.

Key elements include:

Low-profile “sticker trackers”: Thin, GPS-enabled devices affixed to turbine blades or solar panel pallets. These send location data at defined intervals, and are cheap enough to destroy during grinding.
Geofencing and smart rules: Trackers are idle while on-site to conserve battery; once assets leave the site or enter a recycling zone, they ping updates more frequently.
Decentralized public ledgers: All tracking metadata is hashed and stored on the blockchain, ensuring tamper-proof documentation for regulators or stakeholders.
NFT-backed verification: Upon completion of the recycling process, all lifecycle data can be minted into a non-fungible token (NFT), providing an immutable record of recycling proof, with potential carbon offset market value.

A Practical Use Case in Renewable Demolition

Everpoint Services integrates this tracking system into its demolition workflows. As part of one a recent project, 460 pallets of solar panels were fitted with sticker trackers. A shared dashboard visualized their movement from site to recycler, with geofences marking transition points, allowing operators, OEMs, or insurers to confirm in real-time that recycling actually occurred.

If a tracker went missing, fallback data from truck-mounted diagnostic trackers and GPS logs filled in the gaps—ensuring continuous verification.

From an accountability standpoint, “The goal is to provide as much evidence as possible.,” Ketchersid said. “We know what went on the truck. We know what got ground up. We know where and when it happened.”

The Next Challenge: Downstream Material Tracking

Currently, most tracking ends at grinding. But after that, companies want to be able to prove that blade shreds or panel fragments are being reused in construction materials or elsewhere – not quietly dumped.

Media Sourcery is exploring several solutions, including:

Chemical fingerprinting: Originally tested in medical cannabis, a spray-on marker embeds a unique chemical signature into the material. It survives processing and can later be identified via spectrometry to trace final use.
Vision AI at recyclers: Cameras with built-in machine learning monitor dials, shredders, and throughput, ensuring data integrity even when trackers are destroyed.
Secondary tagging: Select Gaylord boxes or processed material bags can be tagged to verify downstream shipment and reuse.

Why Use Blockchain When Recycling Turbine Blades?

Storing this lifecycle data on the blockchain offers two vital benefits:

Immutability: Once hashed and stored, data can’t be altered—critical for regulatory proof or insurance audits.
Tokenization: NFTs created from the recycling data can later represent carbon offset credits, enabling participation in voluntary carbon markets.

Ketchersid’s team is working with DOE labs like Oak Ridge and Sandia to validate the full greenhouse gas (GHG) savings from verified recycling, potentially linking these NFTs to measurable Scope 3 emissions reductions.

Can Blockchain Proves that Wind Energy is Truly Green?

More than solving a waste problem, “We’re trying to promote a circular economy,” Ketchersid said. “This technology is how we make that real.”

Transparent, verifiable recycling builds trust with regulators, communities, and investors. And with the rise of carbon markets and ESG reporting, proof of authenticity isn’t just helpful; it’s becoming necessary.

Additional resources:

See working demos of wind turbine blade recycling and other projects and learn about blockchain-backed recycling tracking at https://proofofauthenticity.net

More in the Podcast: Applications Beyond Renewables

While wind and solar are the current focus, – Ketchersid said the potential extends to tracing balsa wood in turbine blades, ensuring sustainable sourcing, or verifying bio-based composites – in addition to green energy, Media Sourcery has applied similar techniques to: