Category Archives: Education

12 times more subsidies: fossil fuels vs. clean energy

Money & Company reports on 30 Nov 2010 that Clean energy gets fewer subsidies, less investment than fossil fuels, report says:
Energy from fossil fuel gets 12 times more in subsidies worldwide than sustainable energy, says a new report from the USC Marshall School of Business.
Corporate welfare for polluters.
“Inertia in the form of myopia, misperception, and dulled motivation, at the economy, firm, and consumer levels creates resistance to change and constrains solution-seeking to incremental improvements of known technologies rather than disruptive breakthrough innovations needed,” they wrote in their executive summary.
Hm, that sounds familiar.

-jsq

Mage Solar cuts ribbon in Dublin, Georgia

According to a press release on their site:
Ravensburg (Germany), 27th September 2010 – MAGE SOLAR, part of the globally operating MAGE GROUP, in conjunction with Governor Sonny Perdue and the City of Dublin County of Laurens Development Authority, conducted its official ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. The highly anticipated event marked the company’s official move of its new North American headquarters to Dublin, Georgia. Dr. Markus Feil, CEO of MAGE INDUSTRIE HOLDING AG headquartered in Germany; its Chairman of the Board, Kurt Rauch, as well as CEO of MAGE SOLAR GMBH, Norbert Philipp, also from Germany and other US company officials and employees of MAGE SOLAR, along with key community, political and a multitude of local, regional and international business leaders attended the momentous event.
That would be Dublin, with half the population of Valdosta, in Laurens County, with half the population of Lowndes County. Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

VDT on DoJ at SCLC

Reading the VDT’s editorial yesterday morning, DOJ’s lack of Judgment, I noticed this:
Given this era of YouTube, Internet blogs, and citizen journalists, we have to ask why only credentialed members of the media were asked to leave?

Some of the people in attendance during Sunday’s meeting have openly identified themselves in the past as active Internet bloggers.

For example when I stood up in the row behind the VDT reporter and identified myself as taking videos for LAKE for posting on the web? The editorial continues:
Any one of the people in attendance could have recorded the DOJ’s responses and posted them, but the DOJ didn’t ask to collect people’s cell phones.
I also said that due to the sensitive nature of the subject, instead of LAKE’s usual policy of videoing and posting everything that seemed interesting at a public meeting, at this meeting I was only videoing people who asked to be videoed. It wasn’t the DoJ’s responses that were sensitive (they said hardly anything after their introduction): it was what the people in the audience had to say.

I asked “the female DOJ attorney”, as the VDT calls her, Continue reading →

Video of Dr. Sammons’ talk at VSU

Here is a video of most of Dr. William Sammons’ presentation at the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU. His slides from that talk are available on the LAKE web pages, so you can follow along.

Instead of dirty biomass we could have clean efficiency and conservation (retrofitting produces twice as many jobs as biomass) and solar power, which is booming nationwide, burns no trees, and emits no pollutants.

You can also contact your local elected or appointed officials.

-jsq

Due Diligence on Biomass Combustion, by Dr. William Sammons

Monday a week ago Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has studied biomass plants nationwide, called them “a medical atrocity.” His slides from that talk are now available on the LAKE web pages.

For example, he demonstrated that burning wood is dirtier than burning coal:

This slide shows data taken from biomass plant permits. Also notice Continue reading →

VDT Elevates Biomass and Renewable Energy as Political Issues

The Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) has apparently decided biomass and real clean energy instead are political issues. As part of the VDT’s sudden turn against the VLCIA and its biomass plant, which was provoked by citizen and student activism, the VDT started a week of articles with the headline “Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”, about Dr. William Sammons’ Monday talk about health problems of biomass and how solar is better.

The VDT then featured biomass in its reporting on the AAUW Candidate Forum: Continue reading →

“Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”

Johnna Pinholster writes in the the Valdosta Daily Times (paper 25 Oct, online 27 Oct 2010) about the the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU:
A medical atrocity.

That is the phrase Dr. William Sammons used to described biomass energy plants at Monday night’s biomass forum at Valdosta State University’s Student Union theater.

Dr. Sammons answered many of the unanswered concerns about the biomass incinerator, and, unlike the lack of peer-reviewed evidence from the plant proponents: Continue reading →

AAUW Candidate Forum Today, 7PM

Meet the candidates tonight:
AAUW Candidate Forum
7:00 p.m. – Rainwater Conference Center – The Valdosta chapter of the American Asso. of University Women will host the forum. It is open to the public. For more information, Dr. Martha Leake 229-333-5756
That’s the James H. Rainwater Conference Center, 1 Meeting Place, Valdosta, GA.

It’s for all candidates: Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, and non-partisan; for statewide, congressional, and local. Attendees will have the opportunity to submit written questions to be posed to the candidates for their response.

Just before that, the Valdosta–Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce will host a Meet the Candidates Reception, for Chamber members and their guests, 5–7 P.M. Here is a list of the candidates who have confirmed (PDF). Continue reading →

Bigger Hall: SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU

Due to popular demand, the SAVE Biomass Forum has moved to a larger hall, the Student Union Theater. That’s on the east side of North Oak Street, across from Baytree Road.

It’s still Monday, 25 October 2010 from 7 to 9 PM, organized by Students Against Violating the Environment (SAVE) at Valdosta State University (VSU). The featured speaker is Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has spoken nationally on the subject. Forum flyer PDF is available. See SAVE’s facebook event page for any updates. Continue reading →