I applaud the activism of
the many and varied biomass opponents!
Let me repeat my prediction: the biomass plant will never be built.
That’s no reason to stop doing what you’re doing.
You know opposition is having an effect when
VLCIA repeatedly denies it.
You might be surprised how many other people think this plant will never be built. Ashley Paulk told me a year ago that it would never get financing. He repeated that prediction to me Monday. I told him I remembered that, but I hadn’t published it because he hadn’t said it in public. He told me he had since said it on the radio, so I’m publishing it now. He elaborated Monday in saying that with no buyer for the electricity, there’s no business case for financing the biomass plant.
This is the man whose company would have to provide most of
the private financing:
Sonny Murphy, Chairman of Sterling Planet, the parent company of Wiregrass Solar, LLC.
I have only ever met him once, but I have read quite a bit about his
business history, and he doesn’t strike me as the sort of businessman who
would throw away tens of millions of dollars with no chance of return.
Despite VLCIA’s rear-guard actions such as VDT is objecting to, in the Industrial Authority’s own most recent board meeting the only people I heard mention biomass were protesters outside and citizens wishing to be heard inside.
It could be next week or next year, but when the biomass plant
is cancelled, what will happen?
Will the same spirit of activism carry over into for example
opposing private prisons?
Even better,
will it spread into supporting
solar energy, prison rehabilitation, local and organic agriculture, reforestation,
education,
knowledge-based jobs,
and other issues which affect Valdosta and Lowndes County and for which
we have the resources and opportunity?
The community is waking up to its own concerns and its own power of participation. What will it do next?
-jsq
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