Atlanta-based Southern Co., the US’s third-largest utility, will terminate around 55% of its coal fleet by 2030. Southern Co. is working toward achieving net zero by 2050.
Coal shutdowns in Georgia and Alabama
Units at the US’s two largest coal-fired plants will be closed. That means around 3,000 MW of coal will be removed in Georgia.
Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., plans to shut down two out of four units at the 3,450 MW Plant Bowen in Euharlee, Georgia.
It will also close one unit at the 3,520-megawatt Robert W. Scherer Power Plant in Juliette, Georgia, which is the largest coal plant in the US. Shutting that single unit at Scherer by 2025 will slash the electricity generated by coal at that power plant in half.
E&E Newsnotes that Southern “once operated 66 generating units of coal, producing 20,450 megawatts [MW] across its southeastern territory. It now operates 18 units producing 9,799 MW, according to the company. Once these additional units are closed, that figure will fall to roughly 4,300 MW at eight units, [Southern CEO Tom] Fanning said.”
The coal shutdowns stem from federal wastewater regulations for power plant discharges, which can contain high levels of toxic chemicals like mercury, arsenic, nitrogen, and selenium.
Electric companies across the country were required to tell EPA last month whether they will spend money to keep their coal units running, close them or do enough upgrades to meet the federal standards so they can operate roughly 10% of the time.
Alabama Power, which is also a subsidiary of Southern, plans to remove roughly 3,000 MW of coal, including four units at Plant Gaston near Wilsonville, Alabama, and one at Plant Barry in Bucks, Alabama. Alabama Power plans to transition to natural gas and nuclear.
Meanwhile, in Wyoming…
The Casper Star Tribune in Wyoming points out that Scherer sources all of its coal from Wyoming. In 2020, around 10% of three Wyoming mines’ combined coal production went to Scherer.
Shannon Anderson, staff attorney and organizer at the Powder River Basin Resource Council, “works to address the impacts of coal mining and power plants and uranium mining on people and places in Wyoming,” according to her bio. Anderson said to the Star Tribune:
We can’t stop this from happening. And so the next step for us is, what do we do about it?
We have time to start planning for our future, and figure out how to attract new industry and new business. But the window of planning is shrinking.
Here’s an idea, Wyoming: renewables. It’s got all its eggs in a fossil-fuel basket, and it had better adapt fast. As the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) writes:
Wind power in Wyoming has more than doubled since 2009 and accounted for 12% of the state’s electricity net generation in 2020. The state installed the third-largest amount of wind power generating capacity in 2020, after Texas and Iowa.
Photo: By Antennas – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2042247
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Standard Glastonbury Festival tickets for 2025 sold out in less than 40 minutes after organisers adopted a new booking system.
The new system saw Glastonburyhopefuls get “randomly assigned a place in a queue” instead of having to refresh the holding page once they went live.
Organisers said: “Thanks to everyone who bought one and sorry to those who missed out, on a morning when demand was much higher than supply. There will be a resale of any cancelled or returned tickets in spring 2025.”
Earlier in the week coach tickets sold out within half an hour for the famous festival in Somerset, which is set to take place between 25 and 29 June next year.
Tickets for the annual event at Worthy Farm sold quicker this year than last year when it took around an hour for all of them to go.
They cost £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee this year, up £18.50 from the price last year, and were sold exclusively through the See Tickets website.
Fans were left outraged after spending hours queueing for tickets only to find some had more than doubled in price from around £148 to £355.
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The band’s long-awaited reunion has led to much speculation that Noel and Liam Gallagher will headline Glastonbury, but they denied this while their tickets were up for sale.
“Despite media speculation, Oasis will not be playing Glastonbury 2025 or any other festivals next year,” they said in a statement. “The only way to see the band perform will be on their Oasis Live ’25 World Tour.”
The headliners this summer on the iconic Pyramid Stage were Dua Lipa, SZA and Coldplay, who made history as the first act to headline the festival five times.
Image: The crowd at Coldplay’s headline set at Glastonbury Festival. Pic: PA
2026 is likely to be a year off for Glastonbury, with the festival traditionally taking place four out of every five years, and the fifth year reserved for rehabilitation of the land.
Mark Webber’s role as Pulp’s fan club manager started simply enough, writing newsletters and posting out small bits of memorabilia such as postcards, stickers and badges. But, just like the band he loved, he wanted to do things a little differently.
A balloon launch to drum up publicity in their hometown of Sheffield didn’t attract too many people, he recalls, but one did make it all the way to Slovenia. The following year, he cut up a pair of Jarvis Cocker‘s trousers into 500 pieces, “all put in individually numbered envelopes and sent out to fans”.
It was 1993, a decade on from the release of Pulp‘s debut album, but still two years before they were to achieve huge mainstream success. A few years later, they decided to offer Cocker’s old Hillman Imp car, no longer roadworthy, as a competition prize. “It was crushed, compacted into a cube, someone won it, and we delivered it in a truck to their garden.”
It was genius silliness, indicative of the time. Nowadays, if you’re a young fan who loves a band or an artist, you assemble on social media – but back in the 1990s, it was all about signing up to the official fan club.
Image: Some 500 Pulp fans were once treated to scraps of Cocker’s trousers in the post. Pic: Mark Webber
For Webber, who started out as a Pulp fan himself, it was a dream job which eventually led to him becoming the band’s tour manager – and then, just before they hit the height of their fame, joining as guitarist.
Following the group’s second and long hoped-for reunion in 2023, he is now telling his story – from super fan to joining the band – in I’m With Pulp, Are You?.
It’s not an autobiography as such, but a scrapbook of moments told mainly through ephemera collected over the last five decades, from photographs and flyers to set lists and press clippings, as well as other notes and scribblings kept through the years.
Webber went through his hoard during the pandemic lockdown. “It was in disarray at the time,” he says. “I hadn’t looked at it for so long I was finding things I couldn’t even remember what they were.”
‘We were in a bubble – suddenly the world caught up’
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Image: Jarvis Cocker on stage in Wolverhampton in 1992. Pic: Mark Webber
His story with Pulp starts in 1985, when he was an “obsessive” teenage music fan hanging out at a small independent record store in Chesterfield “where all the weird kids would go”. Back then, the band’s fan base was small, he says, and they were “amused” by the “daft, psychedelic kids” who followed them. They got to know them.
Webber eventually started helping out with stages sets before taking on the fan club duties. Then his role morphed again as he was called on to play guitar and keyboards at live shows, and began to contribute to songwriting.
He became an official member in 1995 – just before they became one of the biggest bands in the UK with their fifth album, Different Class, thanks to songs such as Disco 2000, Sorted For E’s and Whizz, and signature track Common People.
Image: In the days before social media, Pulp People kept fans up to date. Pic: Mark Webber
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that happened just as I joined?” Webber asks, laughing. “There was this trajectory. There was such a momentum building that it just became clear that, like, every next thing the group did was going to be more successful.”
It was a strange feeling, he says. “Because we were in the bubble at the time, just doing our thing, and suddenly the world had caught up and kind of realised how great Pulp was.”
I’m With Pulp documents some of the milestone moments in the band’s history, such as the 1995 Glastonbury headline set, before the release of Different Class, which came about at short notice after The Stone Roses were forced to pull out. Webber recalls how the band spent the night camping backstage.
“That was horrible because I hate camping,” he says. “And the concert, at the time it didn’t feel like such a great show. But everyone seemed to love it.”
Headlining Glastonbury – but camping in tents
Image: Pulp played a secret set at Glastonbury when they first reunited in 2011 – but didn’t camp that time. Pic: AP/ Mark Allan
Looking back at the roster of recent Glastonbury headliners – Elton John, Paul McCartney, Adele, Dua Lipa, The Killers – it’s hard to imagine any of them pitching a tent in the mud before performing to 100,000 people.
“Well, I’ve never spent the night in a tent since then,” says Webber. “So it changed my life.”
A more infamous incident in Pulp’s history was Cocker rushing the stage during Michael Jackson’s performance of Earth Song at the Brits the following year.
At the time, it didn’t feel as significant a moment as it has become in popular culture, Webber says. “There was disbelief in the moment, that he actually dared to do it. And that it was so easy to do. That’s the thing none of us could really understand, that there was no security or anything stopping anyone getting on the stage that easily.”
Image: Cocker invaded the stage during Michael Jackson’s performance of Earth Song at the Brit Awards in 1996. Pic: Reuters
The aftermath was more concerning. “Like, ‘is Jarvis going to go to prison?’ Because we were starting a tour the next day.”
Ultimately, says Webber, most awards ceremonies and industry events are “boring – you have to do something to amuse yourself”.
After splitting in 2002, Pulp reunited for the first time in 2011, and then again for shows last year.
The response was “kind of amazing”, Webber says. It’s “quite likely we will play in England before we disappear again”, he hints. “There’s nothing confirmed yet but we expect there’ll be more concerts next year.”
‘I probably should have enjoyed it more’
Image: Webber says his tour manager briefcase is one of his favourite items from his early days. Pic: Mark Webber
The book documents Webber’s story. The item he was most happy to rediscover, he says, was the briefcase he used during his time as tour manager, adorned with a vintage ‘I’m With Pulp, Are You?’ sticker, which provided inspiration for the title.
“I knew I had it somewhere, but what I didn’t expect when I opened it up was that it still contained some contracts, to do lists, itineraries, a Bic biro, a packet of Setlers, and the business cards of various guest houses,” he says. “I used to carry this around everywhere, and in the days before we all had mobile phones, it had to contain everything we’d need for a concert or tour.”
After taking the time to look back, is there anything he would change?
“Well, I mean, I probably should have enjoyed it more.” Webber laughs. “I’m always like the slightly glass half-full, grass is always greener type outlook… I did maintain quite a normal life, I didn’t have an address book full of celebrities that I’d go and hang out with – not that that’s something to aspire to, but, you know, maybe I should have been a bit more wild at the time when I had the chance.”
I’m With Pulp, Are You, published by Hat & Beard, is out now, with a launch night at the ICA in London on 27 November
Paul Mescal praised fellow Irish star and friend Saoirse Ronan for speaking out about women’s safety in a TV talk show clip that went viral.
The two Oscar nominees appeared on The Graham Norton Show, where Eddie Redmayne was talking about how he trained for his role as a lone assassin in Sky Atlantic series The Day Of The Jackal, where he was taught how to use a mobile phone if attacked.
In response, Mescal, 28, joked: “Who is going to think about that though?”
He continued:: “If someone attacks me I’m not going to go [reaches into pocket] phone.”
But Ronan chimed in and said: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?”
The clip quickly went viral on social media, with Ronan praised for holding the men to account.
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Mescal was asked on Irish broadcaster RTE’s The Late Late Show if they were surprised by the reaction the clip had.
“I’m not surprised that the message received as much attention that it got, because it’s massively important and I’m sure you’ve had Saoirse on the show, like, she’s… quite often, more often than not, the most intelligent person in the room,” he replied.
He said she was “spot on” and “hit the nail on the head”, adding it was good “messages like that are kind of gaining traction – that’s a conversation that we should absolutely be having on a daily basis”.
Ronan previously called the reaction to her comments “wild”.
Image: Saoirse Ronan was appearing on the show to promote her latest movie, The Outrun
She told The Ryan Tubridy Show on Virgin Radio UK: “It’s definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn’t necessarily set out to sort of make a splash.”
But she said men and women from around the world had reached out to her following the moment.
She said the men on the show “weren’t sort of like debunking anything that I was saying”, and explained Mescal “completely gets” the issue as they have talked about it before.
