Category Archives: Renewable Energy

Lame-duck Lofton cranks the same old scratched wax cylinder

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,”

Continue reading →

Valdostans protest biomass –VSU Spectator



Molly Duet

writes in the VSU newspaper today:

Protestors wearing respirator masks held signs reading “Biomass? No!”
in front of the Valdosta City Hall building on Thursday. Members of
the Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, the VSU student organization
Students Against Violating the Environment, and other concerned Valdosta
citizens showed up to protest the construction of the Wiregrass Power:
Biomass Electric Generating Plant.

“We already have solar power resources in place that we could be using
and I feel like money should be directed towards that,” Ivey Roubique,
vice-president of the Student Geological Society, said. “It wouldn’t
be good for the community and even though I’m in college here it
still matters.”

The Spectator article quotes from two speakers for whom LAKE
happens to have video, linked below.

Continue reading →

The right of students to breathe clean air –Erin Hurley of SAVE @ VCC 24 March 2011

Erin Hurley provided the very model of how to give a speech:



I’m the president of

Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU.
I’m here representing
200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members.
We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and
we are networking together to make this city a more humane and
sustainable community
for future generations.

As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air
at the college I attend.
With this biomass plant possibly being built here,
the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.

Please take into consideration the future health of this university
and its community,
and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.

Here’s

the video:




Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at

Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”

-jsq

Scotland planning more offshore wind power than needed for all its homes

Aaron Colter wrote 23 March 2011:

5 GW Of Offshore Scottish Wind Power By 2020?

The Scottish Government has released a

plan for offshore wind
that



highlights six areas for potential development. The original plan
had selected ten regions for offshore renewable energy, however, four
were ultimately abandoned due to predicted negative environmental and
economic impact.

The six sites still in the running have an estimated energy potential of
nearly five gigawatts by 2020, or enough to power 3 million homes. Richard
Lochhead, Rural Affairs and Environment Secretary, said that Scotland’s
commitment to offshore wind production could generate over $11 billion
for the country’s economy and support up to 28,000 jobs over the next
ten years.

For comparison, Scotland has about

370,000 households.
According to the General Record Office for Scotland,

Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland, 2009:

In mid-2009, there were 2.34 million households in Scotland

That’s right, they’re talking eight 1.28 times as much power as all
of Scotland’s homes could use.
I would guess this means they plan to export some of that power,
perhaps to England.

It seems renewable energy planning has spread beyond
the Highlands
to the rest of Scotland.

-jsq

Update 6:45 PM 3 Apr 2011: Fixed total household number; thanks to Malcom Smith for catching this typo.

It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman

“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

Continue reading →

Greening Of America –James R. Wright

In a long-running email discussion that started with a post
by Valdosta City Council member James R. Wright about switchgrass
for biomass, Councilmember Wright wrote two messages on Saturday,
26 March 2011, each asking questions of Dr. Michael Noll.
The first one contained this paragraph:



Economic development is a high priority on the mind of many people. If
you read the local paper you will see page after page of foreclosures,
failing businesses, and unemployment at a all time high. Please explain
to me how we can address these problems through energy needs?

Councilmember Wright elaborated later that same day:

Continue reading →

Call to action for City Council not to sell water to biomass plant –Karen Noll @ VCC 24 March 2011



Karen Noll of WACE, Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy,
asked the Valdosta City Council not to sell wastewater
to the proposed Wiregrass Power LLC biomass plant.
She presented

“500+ signatures from community members and organizations”

asking for that.
She also said

“…furthermore a response to our request each
member of the council is expected before the next council meeting.”

Here’s

the video.





WACE, Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, at

Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Record year for U.S. solar power

Wendy Kotch wrote in USA Today 10 March 2011,

U.S. solar industry reports record 2010 growth:



The U.S. solar power market grew a record 67% last year, making it the
fastest-growing energy sector, the industry reports Thursday.

…

“This

remarkable growth puts the solar industry’s goal of powering 2
million homes annually by 2015 within reach,” Rhone Resch, SEIA president
and CEO, said in announcing the findings.

That curve is the inverse of



this other one of the plummeting cost of solar electricity.
Needs no fuel, fouls no air;
costs less, powers more: go solar!

-jsq

How to power the world with Wind, Water, and Sun



…a

new study just published in the journal Energy Policy
states that the
world can provide for all of its energy needs, including electric power,
transportation, heating/cooling, etc using only wind, water, and solar
(WWS) energy by the year 2030.

By water the study authors,
Mark Z. Jacobson (pictured)
Mark A. Delucch,
mostly mean hydroelectric power,
which would involve building
more dams, with all their environmental problems.
Still, it’s an interesting study demonstrating that true renewable
energy could power the world: no coal, no oil, no nuclear.

-jsq

Solar is better than biomass because it doesn’t pollute –Jack Pruden @ VCC 24 March 2011



Jack Pruden’s hand-lettered sign says:

Ban the burn

Go 100% solar

Gretchen asked him about that

and he said:





Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq