Category Archives: Renewable Energy

VLCIA Biomass “Forum” Tonight: Do they have a plan?



According to the
VDT’s What We Think of yesterday:

All citizens of Lowndes County and any other interested parties are
encouraged to attend the Biomass Forum Monday night, hosted by the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, at 7:30 at the Conference
Center.

Forum? As in people will get time to get real questions answered?
And the VLCIA might be interested in real input?

The authority has invited a half-dozen individuals to speak, which will
last approximately 60 to 90 minutes, followed by “ample” time for
questions to be answered, at least 30 minutes, according to the Authority.

Hm, 3 to 1 they speak we listen.
Interesting definition of “forum”.
Also, despite VLCIA’s many complaints that people didn’t get involved
early enough in their previous public meetings about this plant,
if this event is listed on VLCIA’s own website, I can’t find it.
It’s not on the VLCIA’s facebook page, either.

Although on November 10th there are two VLCIA facebook posts saying:

The Industrial Authority stands behind its decision for the construction
of Wiregrass Power LLC and feels like this green project will be a
win/win for the community.

So much for looking for input.

Anyway, back to the VDT:

The Times has presented several stories with facts concerning the $140
million project, which will generate 20 to 25 local jobs once the plant
is up and running.

20 to 25 local jobs.

Meanwhile, in other places that have a plan:



What’s our plan, VLCIA?

How about we plant trees instead of burn them?

And I agree with the VDT on this:

And to the Industrial Authority and invited speakers, you are urged to
not insult the intelligence of those attending. They understand what
the plant will do. What they want to know is how this will affect them
in terms of health issues, air quality and safety, burning sewage,
the number of trucks on the highway so close to several schools, etc.

The onus is on you, the Authority, to handle this in a much more
professional manner than the last Sterling project.

More to the point, why is the VLCIA wasting its political capital
(and our tax dollars)
on this one polluting plant when it could be working to bring in
real clean energy?

Does the VLCIA have a plan to raise the local metro area out of

the bottom 10 for wages?
Or is this 20-25-job polluting plant the best the VLCIA can do?

If you can’t come to tonight’s “forum”, or even if you can,
here is

contact information for your elected and appointed officials,
including the VLCIA board.

-jsq

Suniva went to Solar Valley, Michigan, which has a plan



Suniva’s

second solar PV manufacturing plant that Georgia couldn’t keep
went to Saginaw, Michigan,

where the editorial board of The Saginaw News lists it as
just one bullet item:

• Georgia-based solar panel maker Suniva is well along in its federal loan guarantee application so it can build a plant in Saginaw County.

So what is the big news that they’re editorializing about?

The Solar Valley is starting to snowball.

Amid the campaigning and squabbling on the Friday before last week’s
statewide election were two electric announcements promising a big buzz
for our region’s future.

Continue reading →

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

Suniva’s 500 new jobs went to Michigan



According to Sven Gustafson in mlive.com, 7 Oct 2009,

Georgia-based solar panel maker Suniva to create 500 jobs at new Michigan plant in Saginaw County

A Georgia-based maker of high-efficiency, low-cost solar panels plans to
open a manufacturing facility in Saginaw County after state officials
approved a new photovoltaic tax credit. The project, which is still
subject to a federal loan, is expected to create 500 jobs.

The Michigan Economic Growth Authority in a special session Tuesday
approved the credits for Norcross, Ga.-based Suniva Inc. The company
will get a $15 million refundable credit against its Michigan Business
Tax liability over five years in exchange for its planned $250 million
investment.

Suniva manufactures photovoltaic solar panels.
It was getting so many orders it needed a new plant in addition
to the one it has in Norcross, Georgia.
Those 500 jobs and $250 million in investment could have
come to Georgia.
Maybe they could have come to Lowndes County.
I haven’t been able to find any local government or appointed
official who tried to get it to come here.

Suniva

is still ramping up production in Georgia.
They may eventually need a third plant.
Maybe somebody should talk to them.

-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

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

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 →

Why is the VDT suddenly anti-biomass and pro-solar?

What has caused the VDT to decide to look into the matter?
Johnna Pinholser acknowledges that it was Growing oposition of proposed biomass energy plant:



A growing organization of concerned citizens are opposing the building
of a biomass energy plant in Lowndes County.

Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy hope to promote clean and sustainable
energies while also educating the public on how a biomass plant could
be detrimental to community health.



The goal of the organization and the opposition to the plant is not to
inhibit economic development but to promote a conversation on sustainable
energy, Dr. Michael Noll, WACE president, said.

The new organization is not the only one in the community speaking out
against the biomass plant.

Continue reading →