Local governments must ensure balanced growth, as sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*Here’s a place that does something about it: Portland, Oregon.
* Or at least big tax increases.
Thanks to Matthew Richard for pointing out this documentary.
As the documentary says, the key to Portland’s way is: Continue reading
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.Continue readingThe fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has attracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.
That
previous plant in Florida
was the one in Gretna, Gadsden County, Florida, cancelled last year,
according to
John Downey in the Charlotte Business Journal, 16 October 2010.
In the Gretna case, the mayor of Gretna posted
a press release 16 March 2010 saying:
Mayor Anthony Baker of the City of Gretna announced today that in light of Adage, LLC’s decision to suspend activity on its proposed Bioenergy facility slated for construction in Gretna (as well as suspension of its application for an air permit through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection) that the City now considers this matter closed and will take no further action on Adage’s request to locate this facility in Gretna. Inasmuch as the Bioenergy Plant could neither legally operate nor be sited in Gretna without an air permit, the City concluded that this was no longer a viable project and Adage’s decision to suspend activity on its air permit indicated that further consideration of the project by the City was unwarranted. Since there were no issues pending before the City of Gretna requiring action by its Commission relative to the Plant, the Mayor deemed termination of the project as final disposition of this matter as far as the City is concerned.This is despite promises of jobs, jobs, jobs: Continue reading
Particulate matter is a killer. We know it results in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
That matches some local concerns in Lowndes County.
How much of a killer? Continue reading
According to gapower’s own press release:
ATLANTA, March 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Georgia Power expects to request approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission to decertify two coal-generating units totaling 569 megawatts, the company announced Wednesday.This matches with a report from last July that gapower was turning away from coal. And they suspended work on Plant Branch a year ago. Unfortunately, mostly they’re turning to natural gas and nuclear. Continue reading
The request to decertify units 1 and 2 at Plant Branch in Putnam Co. will be included in Georgia Power’s updated Integrated Resource Plan filing with the commission in late summer. The company expects to ask for decertification of the units as of the effective dates of the Georgia Multipollutant Rule, which are currently anticipated to be Dec. 31, 2013 for unit 1 and Oct. 1, 2013 for unit 2.
The decision to decertify the units is based on a need to install environmental controls to meet a variety of existing and expected environmental regulations.
“After an extensive analysis of the cost to comply with environmental regulations, we have determined the continued operation of these units would be uneconomical for our customers,” said Georgia Power President and CEO Paul Bowers. “This decision is in keeping with our focus to provide affordable and reliable electricity for our customers.”
First I praised the
completion of the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant in Valdosta.
Then I complimented
Brad Lofton on finding his new job and hoped he’d be happy in Myrtle Beach.
Then I praised the VDT for
its editorial recommending using this opportunity to consult
the councils of the various municipalities and the County Commission,
and in particular that one way to produce
unity in the community
as G. Norman Bennett had previously advocated,
would be to find out what the community wants VLCIA to do.
I understand the point about beliefs. But it’s not all about just the beliefs of just the people on the board. It’s also about things like is there enough water, and do we want businesses that soak up a lot of water, like Ben Copeland said at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce. Beliefs are good, but facts are better. Thank you.
-jsq
Solar is expensive at the moment, but that could change rapidly.
David Biello
writes in Scientific American yesterday:
The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) aims to change that by bringing down the cost of solar electricity via a new program dubbed “SunShot,” an homage to President John Kennedy’s “moon shot” pledge in 1961.Hm, so maybe Ray Kurzweil is right.“If you can get solar electricity down at [$1 per watt], and it scales without subsidies, gosh, I think that’s pretty good for the climate,” notes Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA–e), the DoE’s high-risk research effort. “With SunShot, the goal is to reduce the cost of solar to [$1 per watt] in the next six years.”
DoE Secretary Chu even thinks we could win something else:
“Just because we lost the lead doesn’t mean we can’t get it back,” Chu said. “We still have the opportunity to lead the world in clean energy…but time is running out.”Meanwhile, we could shift fossil fuel subsidies over to solar and get on with it.
-jsq
March 9, 2011Continue reading
Brad Lofton
Executive Director
Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority
2110 North Patterson Street
Valdosta, GA 31602
RE: Sierra Club position on the Wiregrass Energy facility
Dear Mr. Lofton:
Congratulations on the groundbreaking of your solar facility last month. The Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club is very pleased and excited to see those types of clean, renewable projects coming online all across our state, after years of Georgia Power claiming that solar wouldn’t work in our state.
However, I am writing to you primarily on a different subject as it has come to our attention that you continue to claim
The Board of Directors of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
(VLCIA)
meets tonight,
5:30 PM 15 March 2011 in the Industrial Authority Conference Room,
2110 N. Patterson Street, Valdosta, Georgia.
I hear they’re having a personnel change.
Maybe with new staff they can finally get agendas and minutes on their website, and maybe a picture of Tom Call. The picture of Call below was found elsewhere by LAKE.
-jsq
Roy Copeland |
Tom Call |
Mary Gooding |
Norman Bennett |
Jerry Jennett, Chairman |
And what about all that land?
In addition to a news story about Brad Lofton moving on up to Myrtle Beach, the Valdosta Daily Times also had an editorial yesterday (14 March), Lofton’s leaving a void in which they make some good points, including:
While the search is on for a new director, now is the time for the city, county and industrial authority board to come together to make some decisions about the organization and what the community leadership needs and wants it to be.Here are a few modest suggestions along those lines, including considerations such as water.
More from the VDT: Continue reading