Georgia clean energy tax credits: yes, they are available

Inquiring minds want to know if Georgia still has its energy rebate program. The answer is yes.

The usual place to look for state tax incentives is DSIRETM (Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency). That database shows for Georgia not only state financial incentives but also a local loan program for Athens-Clarke County and a local rebate program for Atlanta. There’s a thought! Valdosta or Lowndes County could do a loan program for real clean renewable energy! or the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) could do that using some of its $15 million in bonds and other debt, assuming it hasn’t already spent all of it on locking up land.

Or Georgia Power or Colquitt Electric could do that, Continue reading →

Amanda Peacock explains it all (Downtown Valdosta Farm Days)

Food and other vendors on the historic Lowndes County Courthouse Square, in Valdosta, Georgia, every first and third Saturday, 9AM to 1PM.

Here’s the video:


Amanda Peacock explains it all (Downtown Valdosta Farm Days)
Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, Courthouse Square,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 May 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

More about that in this previous post.

-jsq

Lot size and code enforcement on Old Pine Road, 8 June 2010

Ashley Paulk said he is code enforcement! Let’s go back a year to the rezoning of Old Pine Road on 8 June 2010, as an example of how some things fit together around here. First a bit more about lot size, and then code enforcement and traffic.

Commissioner Richard Lee wanted to know if Coy Brightwell was the spokesperson for the people against. Brightwell said some others would also speak, but R-10 was the closest to a quarter acre lot, and that’s what they were for.

Here’s Part 1 of 3:


Lot size and code enforcement on Old Pine Road, 8 June 2010 Part 1 of 3:
Rezoning REZ-2010-06, Glen Laurel, Old Pine Rd,
Regular monthly meeting of the Lowndes County Commission (LCC)
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 June 2010,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

A Mr. Mulligan of Bemiss Road wanted to know A Mr. Mulligan of Bemiss Road wanted to know

Who develops these plans, the county, or the developer?
Continue reading →

Solar as electricity for remote people

PR from Sandia National Laboratories News 13 December 2005, Light-bringer Debby Tewa provides advice about solar power to people on Indian reservations: Most lived without electricity like Tewa did growing up
Debby Tewa spent her first 10 years living without electricity, water, or a telephone in a three-room stone house in an isolated area of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.

Today, as a contractor to the Sandia National Laboratories Sandia Tribal Energy Program, she provides technical advice about maintaining photovoltaic (PV) units to people on Indian reservations who live remotely like she did. For many, it’s the first time they’ve had electricity in their homes.

“I can identify with the people I’m helping,” Tewa says. “Many live the way I grew up, and I fully appreciate their excitement in having electricity and light at night.”

As part of Tewa’s job, she and program director

Continue reading →

I sold 40 pounds of potatoes in an hour! —Gretchen Quarterman

People said they’d come back, but I sold out in an hour and had to tell them you need to come at 9! Downtown Valdosta Farm Days is a success.

I don’t have any pictures of me or my potatoes, though; sorry. But here you can see me digging the same potatoes.

Lots of vendors of food-related items, such as Continue reading →

Private prisons are a public safety problem

They don’t save money and they do increase escapes. Justice shouldn’t be for private profit at public expense.

W.W. wrote in The Economist 24 August 2010 about The perverse incentives of private prisons:

LAST week authorities captured two fugitives who had been on the lam for three weeks after escaping from an Arizona prison. The convicts and an accomplice are accused of murdering a holiday-making married couple and stealing their camping trailer during their run from justice. This gruesome incident has raised questions about the wisdom and efficacy of private prisons, such as the one from which the Arizona convicts escaped.
Arizona, the place Georgia just copied Continue reading →

Wind produces much energy

According to Herald Scotland 2 May 2011, Row after wind farms ‘turned off’:
Six wind farms were given six-figure payments to switch off their turbines because the Scottish grid network could not absorb all the energy being produced, it has emerged.

Research by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) found energy companies were paid a total of £900,000 for stopping the turbines for several hours between April 5 and 6 this year.

The REF said some of the payments were as high as 20 times the value of the electricity which would have been generated if the turbines kept running.

The National Grid makes constraint payments to power stations that agree to stop generating in order to stabilise the network.

It happens when the grid system or a section of the system is unable to absorb all the electricity being generated, and some generators that are contracted to generate are asked to stand down.

Sounds like they just need to fix their prices. Adding some local storage of some kind would also help.

-jsq

Citizens are entitled to hear where their elected officials stand —Leigh Touchton

This comment from Leigh Touchton came in today on “Because it would be monitored. -jsq
Two weeks ago I delivered the official NAACP letter to all City Council members (and Mayor Fretti) asking for a written response as to their position on biomass and selling reclaimed water to the Wiregrass, LLC, proposed incinerator.

No response. Not one.

I have heard that at least two Council members refuse to do so because “it might be used against them.”

Citizens are entitled to hear where their elected officials stand on these issues. At least Councilmen Vickers, Wright, and Yost have stated publicly that they support biomass, even though black infants are already dying in Valdosta at a rate twice as high as white infants. According to Mr. Wright,

Continue reading →

A letter from a local physician —Dr. Noll

This comment from Dr. Noll came in today on “Because it would be monitored. -jsq
Because it would be monitored?

Our community could subsequently also “monitor” increases in respiratory illnesses, cancer rates, cardiovascular diseases, and mortality rates. Just ask the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association.

This is incredible. A city council member who still hides behind an EPD air permit, and who chooses to ignore the testimony of thousands of medical professionals throughout the United States. At the same time, we have a City Council that continues to isolate itself from its citizens with a policy that undermines open dialogue.

The continued silence of our City Council and Mayor in regard to biomass is mind-boggling. Haven’t they noticed the developments of the past couple months? The regular protests? Hundreds and hundreds of signatures and voices in opposition to biomass? Ashley Paulk’s statement? George Bennett’s statement? Even a statement, it appears, by Wesley Langdale who said that biomass is economically not feasible … which is something WACE stated as far back as October 2010, supported by an article from the Wall Street journal called “(Bio)Mass Confusion”.

Dr. Mark George once asked all City Council members the following question: “What is it you still need from us, so that you understand that biomass is a bad deal”? To my knowledge that question was never answered.

Last night I shared a letter from a local physician

Continue reading →

What do “the indigenous” think about solar?

In a facebook conversation, someone said solar was useless because we should all live like “the indigenous” used to. Well, let’s see what some of “the indigenous” think about solar power. Zachary Shahan wrote 13 January 2010 in CleanTechnical, Native American Tribe Going for Solar, and Money:
The 3,000 members of the Jemez Pueblo tribe in New Mexico are looking to build the first utility-scale solar power plant on tribal land. They are also looking to make some money on it.

It is no secret that Native American tribes are more likely to be poverty-stricken and they generally have more than twice the unemployment rate of the United States. Former Jemez Pueblo governor James Roger Magdalena says, “We don’t have any revenue coming in except for a little convenience store.”

It is estimated this solar power plant could generate $25 million over the next quarter century and help create a sustainable revenue for his tribe.

Mr. Magdalena sees the environmental changes

Continue reading →