What will happen to the spirit of activism when the biomass plant is cancelled?
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
After he gave his
goodbye speech,
I
wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach
and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit.
Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old
scratched wax cylinder.
Here he is last week responding to James Wright
and dozens of other people in the same thread
to which I later posted
It’s an opportunity.
In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels.
-jsq
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:59:49 -0400
James:
© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our
client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the
country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the
environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for
landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the
efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass
electricity,”
“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession
greener than ever, if we choose wisely.”
Here is my response to
James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq
It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently
searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs,
and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime.
Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession
greener than ever, if we choose wisely.Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago,
but there is still no market for it.
Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming,
and
continued to boom right through the recession.Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously
restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides
for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton.
That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets
in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local
banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge
pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago,
but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants
just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever,
the biomass boom never happened.Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state
that
Droughts and floods: maybe we need to manage water better,
including managing industrial use of water.
According to the AP,
Ga. foresters brace for busy wildfire season:
A cold, wet winter has left northern parts of the state in decent shape,
but in southern Georgia river flows and soil moisture are both at some
of the lowest points that would be expected in a century, said David
Stooksbury, Georgia’s state climatologist at the University of Georgia.
The nearterm effects:
“We have a good fuel load with plenty of dry vegetation, the soil is
dry and there’s a low relative humidity and there’s wind,” Stooksbury
said. “That is the simple recipe for a trash fire to get out of control
very quickly and become a wildfire.”
Yes, Sunday Georgia Forestry cut off burn permits in Lowndes County because
some fires had gotten out of control.
The long term problem?
Georgia Farm Monitor posts its TV episodes on YouTube, including this one,
Forestry Adds Huge Amount To Georgia’s Economy,
starring
Wesley Langdale of The Langdale Company
and
Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones (both tree farmers)
announcing $37 billion economic value of Georgia forest ecology:
Prof. Dorfman of UGA already explained to us that
in Georgia
Local governments must ensure balanced growth, as sprawling residential
growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*
* Or at least big tax increases.
Here’s a place that does something about it:
Portland, Oregon.
Thanks to Matthew Richard for pointing out this documentary.
As the documentary says, the key to Portland’s way is:
To get an idea of why big timber growers might find biomass attractive,
here’s an article by Terry Dickson in the Florida Times-Union from 20 June 2005,
State’s forestry industry in an ‘alarming decline’
People have long debated whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a
forest but nobody is there to hear it.The fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has
attracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.
 Wesley Langdale, left, President of The Langdale Company, and Reed Wills, right, President of ADAGE, pose at the ADAGE press announcement. |
Is Adage giving up on building biomass plants in
Gretna, Florida a year ago
and in
Hamilton County, Florida this year
good news for Lowndes County, Georgia, just north of the Florida border?
When Adage
announced their proposed Hamilton County, Florida biomass site in May 2009,
they already had something Wiregrass Power LLC has never achieved:
“…and The Langdale Company for the supply of waste wood to the project.
“Renewable energy is the next frontier for the working forest, which
has been creating jobs and cleaning our air and water for generations,”
said Wesley Langdale, President of The Langdale Company. “Working with
partners such as AREVA and Duke Energy gives our 115-year-old company
confidence in the viability and sustainability of the project.” Langdale
and ADAGE made this announcement during the Forest Landowners Association
annual conference in Amelia Island.
Hamilton County, Florida is of course just across the state line from
Lowndes County, Georgia, home of The Langdale Company.
What will removing the nearby competition do for Wiregrass Power LLC’s
proposed biomass plant in Lowndes County, Georgia, which
still has no suppliers of wood?
Will Adage’s failure to build any biomass plants ever serve as a model?
Or will something else happen?
-jsq
According to Power-Gen Worldwide,
Plans for biomass power plant ends:
The company still has a permit to build a 55 MW plant in Florida but
there are no plans to start construction and the company is expected to
let the permit lapse in June. Adage ended plans in 2010 to build another
plant in Florida.
Why is Adage giving up on Hamilton County, Florida?
Christopher Dunagan writes in Kitsap Sun:
Meanwhile, a similar project by Adage in Northern Florida also will not
be pursued at this time, according to DePonty. That project has been
fully permitted and was about to move ahead if only the electricity
market had provided the financial incentive, he said.
Here’s the
Florida air permit.
Despite having that air permit and promising
jobs, jobs, jobs
Adage is apparently not going to build in Hamilton, County, Florida.
The source of the many stories on this appears to be
Rich McKay wrote for the ajc,
Carbon limits a boon for traders:
Proposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia.
The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees
or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up
carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what
the smokestacks spew.
Blake Sullivan, of the Macon-based
Carbon Tree Bank,
has 26,000 acres
of forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the
lungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We
can be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”
Why is this suddenly a business?
![](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Norton_proclamation_re._assumption_of_prerogatives_WFHM_SF.JPG")
