Georgia could do this. Or the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority could do it locally. At least one student at Georgia Southern did a thesis on a mcirogrid there. Where’s VSU? Wiregrass Tech? ABAC?
Katherine Tweed, Greentechmedia, 9 July 2015, New York Looks to Cement Its Lead as Microgrid Capital of the World, Continue reading
What would happen if VSU applied for such a research grant?
According to its own PR of 19 June 2014,
Binghamton University receives $12.8 million for innovative energy research,
The NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES) at Binghamton University has been awarded a $12.8 million, four-year grant, announced Wednesday by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. One of 32 grants awarded for a total of $100 million to fund Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs), it will help accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build a new 21st-century energy economy.
One of 32 grants?
Some EFRC
partner institutions Continue reading
Lou Raguse write for WIVB.com 4 April 2013, Cheektowaga picks fight with big banks,
CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB)—Neighbors in Cheektowaga say empty houses are ruining the value of their neighborhoods and bringing in unwanted guests.
Residents want to know why these properties, seized by banking giants, have been left to crumble. The town board says they have serious issues with the homeowners.
“In normal life, you would call them slumlords,” says Town Board Member Charlie Markel.
Those so-called “slumlords” are big banks like Bank of America and Chase. Markel says in too many cases, a homeowner falls behind on a mortgage and the bank begins to foreclose. But then, it stops short. He says the bank continues paying property tax but allows the homes to fall into disrepair, never allowing them back on the market for sale, or to be auctioned.
Let’s remember what last year’s study of America’s richest and poorest cities found about the Valdosta MSA:
Despite these positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year [2011], higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent.
I wonder how big national and multinational banks are serving our area? And with a vacancy rate that high, and housing prices still dropping, why are we building more houses?
-jsq