Tag Archives: San Antonio

Videos: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-11



Two Regular Sessions back,
they started with a moment of silence for Mike Everett, recently deceased employee
of the Public Works department.
The

obituary in the VDT, 14 July 2014,

Michael Thomas Everett, a senior heavy equipment operator with
Lowndes county and long time resident of Berrien County, GA, died
unexpectedly on July 9, 2017 at the age of 58 at his home. Mike was
born in Miami, Florida on December 29, 1958 to Hermon J. Everett and
Mary C. Everett both deceased and is survived by his loving
Step-Mother Nora N. Everett. Mike also known as Mr. Mike to many of
his close friends and co-workers was an avid race car fan, loved
cooking, enjoyed tending to his many gardens. He also loved music
and often played guitar with family and friends. He was a magnet for
all dogs taking great care of any that showed up on his doorstep.
Mike was a very kind and generous man who will be deeply missed by
his family, close neighbors, friends, co-workers and all who knew
him. There is no service scheduled at this time.

No surprise on the

pump or
for the

Hospital Authority,
but news about Ashley Paulk and

VLPRA.
They approved everything else unanimously, as they usually do.

Below are links to each LAKE video, with a few notes, followed by a LAKE video playlist.
See also the agenda.
There are no LAKE videos of the previous morning’s Work Session,
because, they moved it half an hour early and didn’t send a notification.
But there is a blog post about one Commissioner’s response to that.
The county apparently does video its work sessions, but not that one,
and not this Regular Session, either.

Continue reading →

Videos: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-10

Nope, there are no LAKE videos of yesterday morning’s Work Session,
because, remember,

they moved the meeting half an hour earlier so when Gretchen showed up it was already over.
The county does not video its Work Sessions, so there is no county video, either.
Since the Valdosta Daily Times apparently did not run a story (I don’t even know if they had a reporter there),
this means you won’t know what the Commissioners discussed nor who else was there Monday morning before they vote this evening at 5:30 PM.


Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson welcomes new 23d Wing Commander Col. Jennifer Short at the July 10 Change of Command ceremony.

City of Valdosta PR 2017-07-10:

Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson welcomes new 23d Wing Commander Col. Jennifer Short at the July 10 Change of Command ceremony.

Commissioner Scottie Orenstein asked, on facebook, in response to

yesterday’s LAKE blog post about the moved meeting: Continue reading →

Rooftop solar: the most direct route to clean energy industries


Austin vs. San Antonio in solar power
Around here I hear local leaders say “we’ll never be Austin.”
Well, Austin may be letting San Antonio pass Austin as far as rooftop solar
and the jobs that generates.
It’s not a matter of size or pre-existing advantages.
It’s a matter of political will.
Do we have that will here?

TexasVox
wrote a white paper in February 2012,

Solar Austin: Rooftop Solar & Job Creation,

…the most direct route to attracting and encouraging the
development of clean energy industries is through the


the scale of future development will be orders of
magnitude greater than what has occurred to date.

mass deployment of local rooftop solar, which is probably why solar has
by far the most significant presence of any clean energy generation
technology in Austin.

But the paper’s point is that Austin is falling short.
Look at the graph:
Austin seems to have settled for linear growth in solar power,
while San Antonio gets it about
compound growth.
As San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro
said in 2011, solar power is in

Continue reading →

Solar already beats gas

Here’s an answer to the question of How long until solar beats gas?

Gayle Reaves wrote for fwweekly 11 July 2012, Serious about Solar,

Even on not-so-sunny days, solar still produces. David Power, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, said that back in February, when cold weather and power plant outages produced blackouts, CPS‘ solar farm was on line and producing. “It was a pretty nasty day, cloudy, and there was a couple of inches of ice on the solar farm,” he said. “But they were still getting 30 to 35 percent of normal production out of it, even on the worst day you could imagine.”

Costs for solar panels have dropped dramatically in the last few years, although by some measures solar energy is still more expensive than that from gas-burning plants.

Power said that the comparisons that show solar to be more expensive are measuring the cost of building a solar plant compared to generating power from a fossil-fuel plant that may have been built and paid for decades ago. In marginal cost comparisons, he said, solar power comes out as costing either the same or less than building a new natural gas plant. “For that you have to get air quality permits and pay for fuel costs,” he said. “For the other, the sun shines, you get electricity, and you just have to wash it off once in a while if it doesn’t rain.”

So the answer is it’s already happened: solar beats gas now. So Southern Company’s fracking plan B makes no more sense than its nuclear Plan A.

-jsq

A commitment from the city —Karen Noll

This comment from Karen Noll came in Sunday on

San Antonio promises to shut down a coal plant.
By “the city” I’m assuming she means Valdosta, although
there’s no reason any other municipality around here, including
Hahira, Lake Park, Remerton, Dasher, or Lowndes County,
couldn’t set similar goals.

SanAntonio has a solar Goal to reach by 2020. New Jersey also has such
a goal to reach by a similar date. We can move forward with just such
a comittment from the city to attain a reasonable goal.

-Karen Noll

This is what a mayor with vision sounds like

Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio

speaks at 44:25
about



…the nexus between sustainability and job creation.
Every now and then, perhaps once in a generation,
there presents itself a moment, an opportunity,
for those cities that are willing to seize it,
to truly benefit the region for generations to come.

Here’s
the video:

Continue reading →

San Antonio promises to shut down a coal plant

We could do something like this.
We’ve already made a start with Wiregrass Solar.


San Antonio, the Clean-Energy City?
Look out Austin, SA Mayor Julian Castro promises to shut-down a coal plant by 2018.



At an event this afternoon at UT-San Antonio, Mayor Julian Castro
announced a suite of green energy projects that he said would position
San Antonio as the nation’s “recognized leader in clean energy technology”
and help fulfill his aggressive environmental goals.

Most notably, Castro and leaders from CPS Energy, the city-owned utility,
pledged to shut down one of its coal-fired power plants 15 years ahead
of schedule. By 2018, the city would mothball the 871-megawatt J.T. Deely
Power Plant — a bold move in a growing state that’s seemingly addicted
to coal.

So what are they going to use for energy?

Continue reading →