Category Archives: Sterling Planet

“I’m obviously here on one issue.” —Karen Noll @ VLCIA 14 June 2011



Karen Noll asked the VLCIA board to put a no-biomass clause
in any purchase agreement regarding the proposed biomass site.

She began with these words:

I’m Karen Noll.
I hope some of you already have seen my writing and
have read my letters to you in the past.
I’m obviously here on one issue.
I hope that in the future I can be talking to you about other issues.
But right now I’m talking to you about biomass.
And we celebrated that it was dead and it was gone and now it’s not.
Because we really don’t know … what the plan is.

By “we” I’m guessing she meant WACE.
Some of us who are not members of WACE warned that

it ain’t over until it’s over,
and it only took a week to discover that

VLCIA already knew Sterling Planet wanted to buy the proposed biomass site.

Karen Noll made a pitch based partly on saving taxpayer money.
In addressing health concerns, she handed the board a letter from local doctor
Craig Bishop.
She handed the board a petition with “at least 700 signatures”
and she said for each signature there was probably at least one more
that didn’t sign.
Some of what she said appeared to be drawn from a letter
that is appended in this post after the video.

Here’s

Part 1 of 2:

Continue reading →

For the children —Matt Flumerfelt @ VLCIA 14 June 2011



Matt Flumerfelt put down his trumpet to speak for the biomass protesters.
He recommended responsibility on behalf of the children and grandchildren.
He also said he looks forward to

the new VLCIA executive director,
since her background in hotel marketing fits with his vision of


the area as a retirement community.

Here’s

the video:




For the children —Matt Flumerfelt

Irregular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),

Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,

J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 June 2011.

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

-jsq

When will the Wiregrass Solar plant be expanded? —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 9 June 2011



Compliments to Mayor Fretti for saying we will competitively expand the Wiregrass Solar plant!

Responding to
George Rhynes’ point,
I said that while I had recommended moving Citizens to be Heard to the
end of the agenda, it never occured to me that it might get moved


after Council Comments, which did lead to an impression that Council
did not want to hear and did not plan to respond.
I noted that if Council videoed its own proceedings and put them on the web,
that would help make the problem moot.
I’m thinking videos distributed by the City Council itself would probably


get
more citizens viewing them than ones distributed by bloggers like me and
George and by LAKE.

My main point was that, even though Brad Lofton and Col. Ricketts apparently
never told Mayor Fretti, there was a larger solar array in

Continue reading →

Biomass plant approved for Macon-Bibb County

How to get a biomass plant approved in Georgia:
tack it onto an existing business.
Remember to get an industrial authority to use a public bond issue
to expand the private business.

Carla Caldwell
wrote in the
Atlanta Business Chronicle 7 June 2011,

Graphic Packaging gets $140M bond deal

A deal OK’d by the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority provides
revenue bonds for a $140 million expansion of Marietta, Ga.-based

Graphic Packaging
International’s Macon, Ga. mill. Improvements will include the addition of
a biomass boiler and a 40-megawatt turbine generator geared to reduce
emergency cost and improve profitability, reports Macon Telegraph
website macon.com.

The authority approved the deal on Monday for the provider of packaging
for food, beverage and consumer products. The biomass system, which
is scheduled for operation by mid-2013, is expected to generate power
from about 400,000 tons of logging materials, mostly the tops of trees,
the Macon newspaper reports. Graphic Packaging’s (NYSE: GPK) Macon mill
makes an estimated 1,600 tons of paperboard daily.

Maybe we should put some
parameters on the types of industry we want around here to avoid this
happening with the bonds the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
(and the Lowndes County Commission) floats.

This rationalization is precious:

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Sterling Planet wants to buy biomass site

Why would Sterling Planet want to buy the biomass site,
unless they want to come back later and propose to build a biomass plant
on it?
Funny how the Industrial Authority didn’t mention this when
they said Sterling Planet missed the June 1 deadline
for building the biomass plant.

Here’s the relevant part of

this morning’s VDT story by David Rodock:



The other major announcement at the meeting was the possibility of
Wiregrass LLC exercising the option to purchase the 22.2-acre tract of
land that was originally planned to be used for the biomass facility.

“We gave them the option to purchase the land based on certain terms
and conditions,” said Gupton. “They basically sent us a certified
letter prior to June 1 stating they wished to exercise their option to
purchase the 22.2-acre tract of land within 60 days.”

“We are currently looking at the letter to understand if we agree
if they have that option and will continue our due diligence,” said
Allan Ricketts, project manager, via conference call. “We don’t know
anything other than they have sent us a certified letter indicating that
they would like to pursue that option.”



And why don’t you know anything other?
Can nobody pick up the phone and call Sonny Murphy and ask him?
You remember him, the Chairman of Sterling Planet

who recently said:

It’s not over until it’s over.

-jsq

Biomass down for now: next?



Congratulations to all who worked against the biomass plant:
today was the deadline on its most recent extension,
so it’s gone for now.
Congratulations to WACE and SAVE and NAACP and New Life Ministries
and everyone else who was involved, especially Natasha Fast, Seth Gunning,
and Brad Bergstrom, who were working against it before almost anyone else.

Congratulations to those who were instrumental even though they were not
exactly or originally biomass opponents, especially

Ashley Paulk,
who came out and said what needed to be said,
and

George Bennett, who
was willing to admit in public that he was one of the earliest
proponents of the biomass plant but new knowledge caused him to think differently.

A big shoutout to the
VSU Faculty Senate,
the only traditional non-activist body that went on record as opposing
the biomass plant with an actual vote before the extension deadline.
The VSU Faculty Senate did what the Valdosta City Council, the Lowndes County Commission and the Industrial Authority Board would not.
Go Blazers!



A special strategic mention to Kay Harris and David Rodock of the
Valdosta Daily Times, who came to realize they were not being told the
whole truth by the Industrial Authority.
The VDT even

gave a civics lesson on how to stop the biomass plant.

And a very special mention to the people who did the most to make the
name of biomass mud in the public’s eye:


Brad Lofton, Col. Ricketts, and the VLCIA board.
Without their indoctrination sessions and paid “forum” and stonewalling,
people wouldn’t have been turned against that thing nearly as fast!

Yet it ain’t over until it’s over.

According to

David Rodock in the VDT today:

Continue reading →

Southern Company “bullish” on solar

Colleen Kiernan, director of the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club,
wrote in the Atlanta Business Chronicle 22 May 2011,

Wind energy a viable option for Southern Co.’s portfolio:



Two years ago, Southern Co. claimed “Renewable energy sources like wind
and solar are not really an option for us in the Southeast.”

Now the new CEO, Thomas Fanning, says he’s “bullish” on solar. While
the new attitude on solar is refreshing,

I’ve seen this before.
AustinEnergy went in one year from solar isn’t an option to

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Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011



Here’s what I said to the VLCIA board on 17 May 2011.
Notes are appended after

the video:




Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011

Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),

Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,

J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 May 2011.

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

Congratulations on the

Wiregrass Solar commissioning.


Since this was not ever the largest array in Georgia let’s encourage
Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Powell
to help VLCIA

expand the local array.

Referring to Mary Gooding’s

comments about people who wanted to see minutes probably going to be
frustrated,
I pointed out that

Continue reading →

Expanding Wiregrass Solar —Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet



Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said he hopes to expand the Wiregrass
Solar array in Valdosta to an additional megawatt, taking it from being
one of the largest in Georgia to one of the largest in the southeast.
This is the man
Sterling Planet Chairman Sonny Murphy singled out for praise.
This is the expansion project

Sonny Murphy promoted in the Sterling Planet press release.
Alden Hathaway knows what needs to be done, and
Pete Marte and Hannah Solar stand ready to do it.

Alden Hathaway also talked about how solar helps load distribution
on the electric
grid, lowering electric rates for everybody.
He remarked that once power companies realized that, they’d be for solar.
More on that later.

But meanwhile, let’s ask Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Crawford Powell

when they’re going to do this:

Continue reading →

Wiregrass Solar is the first of several projects —Sonny Murphy

Let’s look at Sterling Planet’s own press release about the
Wiregrass Solar commissioning.
What’s this about a first phase?
And what’s the second phase?


Sterling Planet announces completion of one of Georgia’s largest solar generating projects:
First phase of Valdosta solar project now supplies green energy to Georgia Power.



Sterling Planet, the leading national retail provider of renewable
energy and other clean-energy assets, today announced at a commissioning
ceremony the completion of a 200 kWAC output solar generating project
in Valdosta. One of the largest solar arrays in the state of Georgia,
the Wiregrass Solar, LLC project began commercial operation on April
6 and is now generating annualized output of approximately 350,000
kilowatt-hours. This is enough clean, emission-free electricity to power
350 Georgia homes using the average amount of 1,000 kilowatt-hours of
electricity monthly.

Developed by Sterling Planet, Wiregrass Solar supplies green power for
the Georgia Power Green Energy program, an option for the utility’s
customers who voluntarily choose to support renewable power and help
generate more of it in Georgia.

OK, that’s all good. Congratulations!

Also notice Sterling Planet doesn’t make the mayor’s mistake
in saying this is the largest solar array in Georgia, like

WCTV after Pete Marte of Hannah Solar corrected it,
Sterling says “one of the largest”.

But what’s this about “first phase”?

Continue reading →