Tag Archives: Adage

Internet speeds into jobs

Something good out of Chattanooga?
The city with the fastest metropolitan Internet access
plans to turn that into jobs.

Elizabeth Prann wrote for Fox 26 January 2013,

City turns Internet speeds into jobs, that Chattanooga



is home to most advanced smart grid in the nation, customers are
enjoying Internet speeds that are almost 100 times faster than the
national average. Most Internet users in the U.S. have access to
about 4.5 megabits of Internet speed.

We wish!
OK, you can get spees that fast here:

with Verizon 4G LTE,
not too many places via land access.

So what’s Chattanooga got that’s better?

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The Council of Hamlets meets tonight in Valdosta!



The Valdosta City Council regular meeting is tonight.
You remember them, the council

that may or may not be able to say whether or not they can or cannot
speak during, at the end of, or after their council meetings.
Tonight they appoint people to boards that decide who can put up how big a sign, and that spend millions in your tax money.



I want to see if Mayor Fretti will keep to his word to
expand the Wiregrass Solar plant.

Also, maybe now this city council can do what Gretna, Florida, did:

put out a proclamation saying there will be no biomass plant.
Or they could sit on their hands some more and wait until
some Sonny finds a way to do it anyway.



They have lots of other stuff on their
agenda
for tonight, including an appointment to the

Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA),
and an appointment to the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks & Recreation Authority.


ZBOA decides on variances to Valdosta’s LDR and Lowndes County’s ULDC,
including sign variances, much to the annoyance of
some local entitled rich people and of
McDonald’s.




Parks & Rec receives 1.5 mil of tax money, about $4.5 million dollars a year,
more than the

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA).
Parks and Rec board members get to spend that tax money that you pay.




AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL

5:30 PM Thursday, June 9, 2011

COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL

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Just say no to biomass –VDT to VLCIA

VDT reported on

Biomass plant misses deadlines,
but what do they really think?
The title is my paraphrase of Sunday’s editorial title,

It’s all up to the Industrial Authority:



In two months, less than 60 days away, Wiregrass Power LLC is supposed to
break ground on the biomass facility in Lowndes County. By now, they are
supposed to have contracts with power companies to sell the electricity
to and with suppliers to purchase the wood waste. They have neither,
nor does the company have an agreement with the city of Valdosta to
purchase the wastewater from the sewage treatment plant.

Well, the City of Valdosta could

refuse to sell the wastewater.
And maybe the Lowndes County Commission could exercise its

fiduciary responsibility.
But, sure, the Industrial Authority could just say no.


And yet the folks at the Industrial Authority appear to be rather
nonchalant about the fact that this company has yet again broken its
agreement. They have the power to renogiate the terms of the agreement and
they also have the power to cancel it, but neither is happening. Instead,
they are giving the company all the leeway they need to continue dragging
this project along that the community doesn’t want.

Folks?
Like Col. Ricketts?
But remember, he and

Lame-Duck Lofton
are only

Continue reading →

Biomass plant misses deadlines –VDT

David Rodock writes on the front page of the Sunday VDT today
(the highest profile news source for the region) that

Biomass plant misses deadlines:
Will the plant move forward?



The Wiregrass Power LLC biomass facility was supposed to have met a number
of project goals established by the Economic Development Agreement (EDA)
between the company and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
by April 1, 2011. According to Allen Ricketts, Industrial Authority
project manager, those goals still have yet to be met.

The specific goals in the agreement were that a “finalized engineering
procurement construction contract” would be ready by March 31. By
April 1, the company was supposed to have finalized both a power
purchase/transmission agreement along with a wastewater/biosolids
agreement.

They’ve been slipping deadlines for quite some time.
According to page 4 of that EDA (which you can see for yourself

on the LAKE web site):

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Biomass or carbon trading or something else?



To get an idea of why big timber growers might find biomass attractive,
here’s an article by Terry Dickson in the Florida Times-Union from 20 June 2005,

State’s forestry industry in an ‘alarming decline’

People have long debated whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a
forest but nobody is there to hear it.

The fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has
attracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.

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What does Adage giving up on Florida mean to south Georgia?





Wesley Langdale, left, President of The Langdale Company, and Reed Wills, right, President of ADAGE, pose at the ADAGE press announcement.

Is Adage giving up on building biomass plants in
Gretna, Florida a year ago
and in
Hamilton County, Florida this year
good news for Lowndes County, Georgia, just north of the Florida border?

When Adage

announced their proposed Hamilton County, Florida biomass site in May 2009,
they already had something Wiregrass Power LLC has never achieved:

“…and The Langdale Company for the supply of waste wood to the project.

“Renewable energy is the next frontier for the working forest, which
has been creating jobs and cleaning our air and water for generations,”
said Wesley Langdale, President of The Langdale Company. “Working with
partners such as AREVA and Duke Energy gives our 115-year-old company
confidence in the viability and sustainability of the project.” Langdale
and ADAGE made this announcement during the Forest Landowners Association
annual conference in Amelia Island.

Hamilton County, Florida is of course just across the state line from
Lowndes County, Georgia, home of The Langdale Company.
What will removing the nearby competition do for Wiregrass Power LLC’s
proposed biomass plant in Lowndes County, Georgia, which

still has no suppliers of wood?
Will Adage’s failure to build any biomass plants ever serve as a model?
Or will something else happen?

-jsq

Shell companies: Adage and Wiregrass Power LLC



Look through the shell companies like Adage to the real backers.
Why is the source of

the recent news about Adage biomass
plants

being cancelled
the Charlotte Business Journal?
Adage is “An Areva/Duke Energy advanced biopower company.”
And Charlotte is where Duke Energy is based.

John Downey concludes

his article in the Charlotte Business Journal of 16 March 2011:

The joint venture has yet to build a biomass plant anywhere. DePonty
says it is clear that Adage will not achieve the goal announced when
Duke and Areva formed it to build 10 to 12 biomass plants around the
country by 2013.

Seems like the biomass gold rush is fizzling.



Meanwhile, back in Valdosta, Wiregrass Power LLC,
the shell company for the biomass plant, is owned by
Sterling Planet, whose founder and chairman

Sonny Murphy
spoke at the groundbreaking for

the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant, another Sterling Planet subsidiary.
I’m sure Chairman Murphy is aware that

his solar plant is already completed
while his biomass plant

still has no suppliers of raw materials, goods, or services nor buyers for its electricity.
Also, the biomass plant site preparation start date is now 1 June 2011,
when, if I’m not mistaken, it used to be January 2011.
And at the most recent VLCIA board meeting, the only mention I heard
of biomass was by a citizen
who spoke against it
while the VLCIA’s project manager
spoke at some length about the completion of the solar plant.
Seems to me building out the solar plant in two directions,
like VLCIA discussed at a previous board meeting, would make the
most sense at this point.
I guess we’ll see what Chairman Murphy does.

-jsq

Adage and Gretna’s mayor



That

previous plant in Florida
was the one in Gretna, Gadsden County, Florida, cancelled last year,
according to

John Downey in the Charlotte Business Journal, 16 October 2010.
In the Gretna case, the mayor of Gretna posted

a press release 16 March 2010 saying:

Mayor Anthony Baker of the City of Gretna announced today that in light
of Adage, LLC’s decision to suspend activity on its proposed Bioenergy
facility slated for construction in Gretna (as well as suspension
of its application for an air permit through the Florida Department
of Environmental Protection) that the City now considers this matter
closed and will take no further action on Adage’s request to locate
this facility in Gretna. Inasmuch as the Bioenergy Plant could neither
legally operate nor be sited in Gretna without an air permit, the City
concluded that this was no longer a viable project and Adage’s decision
to suspend activity on its air permit indicated that further consideration
of the project by the City was unwarranted. Since there were no issues
pending before the City of Gretna requiring action by its Commission
relative to the Plant, the Mayor deemed termination of the project as
final disposition of this matter as far as the City is concerned.

This is despite promises of

jobs, jobs, jobs:

Continue reading →

No Adage biomass plant in Hamilton County, Florida

According to Power-Gen Worldwide,

Plans for biomass power plant ends:

The company still has a permit to build a 55 MW plant in Florida but
there are no plans to start construction and the company is expected to
let the permit lapse in June. Adage ended plans in 2010 to build another
plant in Florida.

Why is Adage giving up on Hamilton County, Florida?

Christopher Dunagan writes in Kitsap Sun:



Meanwhile, a similar project by Adage in Northern Florida also will not
be pursued at this time, according to DePonty. That project has been
fully permitted and was about to move ahead if only the electricity
market had provided the financial incentive, he said.

Here’s the
Florida air permit.
Despite having that air permit and promising

jobs, jobs, jobs
Adage is apparently not going to build in Hamilton, County, Florida.

The source of the many stories on this appears to be

Continue reading →