On July 8th there was a
town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.
Pastor Angela Manning of New Life Ministries sums up why she called this Town Hall meeting:
Speakers included: Continue reading
Larry Hagman, most famous for playing Texas oilman JR Ewing, has gone solar.
He says the east coast blackout of 2003 made him think of the fragility of the grid,
so he installed enough solar panels and inverters to power his rather large estate:
He spent about $750,000 and got about $300,000 back in rebates. With the current Georgia 35% rebate and the federal 30% rebate on renewable energy installation, an investment of that amount could get back around $487,500 in rebates. Of course, the average home solar installation isn’t nearly that big, more like $15,000, with something like $9,750 rebate, or around $5,250 net.
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Lin Edwards writes in physorg.com about Parking lots could become ‘solar groves’ (w/ Video):
Architect Robert Noble, who specializes in sustainable design has come up with the idea of turning parking lots into “solar groves” that shade the vehicles, generate electricity, and serve as recharging stations for electric vehicles.Or forget Atlanta. Hahira or Valdosta could do this just as easily.
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James Cartledge
writes in BrighterEnergy.org:
Investment firm PowerFin Partners LLC is offering to finance more than $100 million worth of commercial and utility-scale solar projects in the US and Canada.Hm, where could we find something like that locally?The company based in Austin, Texas, is looking for projects above 2 megawatts in size (DC), for which permitting is nearly complete.
Projects must be a minimum of 300,000 square feet across as many as four sites.
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Some concerned citizens
met with the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority on JulyJune 10, 2010
about the proposed biomass plant on Inner Perimeter Road.
Not everyone was convinced that it was a good idea.
Pastor Angela Manning of New Life Ministries has organized a Town Hall meeting for tomorrow, Thursday 8 July 2010 at 7PM:
| Date: | Thursday, July 8th, 2010 |
| Time: | 7 p.m. |
| Venue: | New Life Ministries |
| Address: | 5651 Inner Perimeter Rd., Valdosta, GA 31606 |
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I found that map on Georgia Power’s web pages. Meanwhile, here are Georgia Power Solar Projects. Hm, “a rooftop solar demonstration program”, “plans to install solar panels at schools in each of the company’s regions”, “showcase its technology”. Where’s the actual rapid deployment?
Meanwhile, Texas almost doubled its renewable energy generation between 2004 and 2006 and hasn’t stopped since. Continue reading
“Forests Dominate Georgia’s Land Use”
That’s the title of slide 10 of 21 in
Center of Innovation – Energy (CIE)
by Jill Stuckey, Director.
Actually, massively pesticided planted pines dominate south Georgia’s land use;
not the same as actual forests with species diversity and diverse ages of trees.
The same CIE slide equates
Georgia Forestry = Biomass EnergyThat is what the state government seems to want it to be.
Back on slide 9, solar is defined as a southwestern regional energy source; nevermind that the solar map on that page shows Georgia with the same insolation as most of Texas (more on that later). And wind is defined as a central U.S. regional strength, nevermind that even Georgia Power has started exploring the possibility of wind off the Georgia coast.
I get it that Georgia has trees and forestry is a big industry in Georgia. I’m a tree farmer myself. I’d love to be convinced that biomass from trees is one good way to go. But at what costs? And compared to what? Continue reading
He did find
this list of “renewable energy strategy”
hits from a GEFA search.
At least one of those links points us to http://www.georgiaenergyplan.org/,
which now gets us
Are you interested in buying this domain name?The state has apparently abandoned that domain. Is that an indication of how seriously Georgia takes renewable energy?
Here’s something that looks promising: State Energy Strategy for Georgia (SESG), December 14, 2006, Governor’s Energy Policy Council, GEFA. It says it’s an energy strategy, but it’s mostly about transportation of existing fuels such as natural gas. Towards the end of the document in Figure 2 (shown above) the SESG illustrates the pit we’re in: about a third of Georgia’s energy comes from coal, another third from petroleum, a sixth from natural gas, and so little from renewable sources they apparently weren’t worth putting on the pie chart.
The SESG does contain this: Continue reading
Complaints are more frequent along Mary Street, a short stretch a few hundred yards south of the plant. Residents there deal with more intense noise and odors.Nonetheless he didn’t say it affected his property values. However, that’s not the only issue.Craig Walworth’s home is among the closest to the plant. He walked up to his Jeep — a vehicle he cleaned the day before — and dragged his finger through a layer of film on the hood.
“Every morning, you have that to look forward to,” he said. “I clean my screens three times a year during the summer because they clog up.”
Meanwhile, about an hour north on the edge of Lake Michigan, in Traverse City local activism caused cancellation of a proposed biomass plant: Continue reading
In the VLCIA meeting with concerned citizens of 10 June 2010, one of the action items taken by the VLCIA was:
Obtain, if available, an analysis of the property value trends of residential/ commercial property adjacent to the Cadillac Michigan biomass electric generating plant.Col. Ricketts has reported back on that action item.
My transcription of what he said is rather long, so please follow the link.
Allan Ricketts’ summary: nobody could find a systematic analysis of property value trends. He did get various personal analyses (as above).
I agreed he’s made a good effort to find what he could find.
And that we would continue looking in other sources.
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