{"id":2723,"date":"2010-04-27T10:59:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T14:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/biomass-plant-hearing-today.html"},"modified":"2010-04-27T10:59:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T14:59:56","slug":"biomass-plant-hearing-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/biomass-plant-hearing-today.html","title":{"rendered":"Biomass Plant Hearing Today"},"content":{"rendered":"You can ask questions and expect answers.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Environmental Protection Division (EPD) Air Protection Branch issued a\n\nPress Release on April 12, 2010 announcing a meeting<\/a>:\n

\nEPD will hold a question and-answer (Q&A) session and a public hearing on Tuesday,\nApril 27, from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room in the Valdosta City Hall Annex. The city hall annex is located at 300 N. Lee Street.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe subject is “on Proposed\nBiomass-Fired Power Plant Application Submitted by WireGrass Power, LLC”\n

\nYou can also submit questions and comments in writing:\n\n\n

\nEPD will accept format comments at the public hearing and in writing\nuntil May 4, 2010.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe press release gives an erroneous location for the draft permit.\nA bit of tarzanning around on www.georgiaair.org finds it\nin a more obscure location.<\/a>\nThis is what the permit is about:\n

\nConstruction and operation of a 45 MW (gross) biomass-fired power generation facility consisting of a 626 MMBtu\/hr heat input capacity bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) boiler (B-1) firing woody biomass, sewage sludge and natural gas (during startup), a 150 hp diesel fired pump engine, a mechanical draft cooling tower, a hog tower for storing woody biomass and an ash silo for storing bottom ash and flyash from the boiler.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe draft permit is 15 pages long, with quite a bit of detail.\nFor example:\n
\n.13 The Permittee shall not discharge or cause the discharge into the atmosphere from Boiler B-1, emissions of mercury in excess of 7.1 pounds per 24-hour period. [40 CFR 61.52(b)]\n<\/blockquote>\nPerhaps someone with more knowledge of mercury can say how toxic that might be.\n

\nFor more detail, here is\nthe permit application from Wiregrass Power, LCC.<\/a>\n

\nI am generally\n\nin favor of the activities of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority\nin attracting new business to area.<\/a>\nHowever, the more I dig into this biomass plant, the less I like it.\n

\nIf it burns sewage sludge, it’s an incinerator. Why isn’t it being permitted as an incinerator? And\nwhy can’t we have clean incinerator technology such as is deployed in Europe?<\/a>\n

\nFor that matter, the first condition imposed by the county\n\nwhen rezoning was approved<\/a> may actually prohibit burning sewage sludge:\n

\n1. Only biomass fuel shall be used to generate electricity at the plant site, except for start-up operations that may require the use of natural gas or diesel fuel for a short period of time (not to exceed three calendar days) to stabilize boiler combustion. Eligible biomass fuel shall at no time during start-up or any other time of operation include any animal byproducts, animal waste, tires, coal or any materials other than what has been presented in the letter of intent with the rezoning application submitted on May 5th, 2009.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOne of the main points of biomass is supposed to be that it’s clean, renewable energy.\nSo why does a biomass plant produce twice as much CO2 as a coal plant?<\/a>\n

\nI’d like to know why Lowndes County and Valdosta don’t do what Texas has done,\nand encourage solar energy.<\/a>\n

\nEven better, instead of cutting down trees just to burn them\nwhile increasing flooding,\nwhy not promote reforestation instead.\nReforestation\nproduces twice as many jobs as biomass,<\/a>\nwhile reducing flooding.\nWith no toxic emissions.\n

\nBack on May 10, 2009,<\/a> the VDT quoted the manager of Plant Mitchell outside of Albany:\n

\naccording to Plant Manager Ronnie Walston. Here in the South, \u201cWe don\u2019t have the wind or the solar…”\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, that’s funny, since just last week the VDT noted about Wiregrass Power, LLC in Lowndes County:<\/a>\n
\nThe industry has applied for a United States Department of Agriculture renewable energy loan to pay for the construction of the GEFA-sanctioned solar photovoltaic electric generating facility. They received the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority grant at the end of the week and will have six months to complete the project.\n

\nThe industry has also approved a Georgia utility company to install the connectivity\/transmission lines to the solar photovoltaic facility.\n

\nThe City of Valdosta approved the industry to build its facility on the two acres of land, which is adjacent to the Wiregrass Power, LLC Biomass Electric Generating Plant.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nGermany is\n\nrapidly expanding solar power much farther north than south Georgia.<\/a>\nFlorida has the largest solar plant in the country\nand \nthe University of Central Florida is deploying solar training centers.<\/a>\nThe state of Georgia last year instituted a 35% state income tax rebate\non solar, wind, and other renewable energy installation.\nValdosta and Lowndes County can get help pull the state ahead in solar energy.\n

\nSo I wonder, does the Industrial Authority have to promote any potential jobs,\neven when it’s only 25 jobs at the cost of toxic emissions and increased flooding?\nMaybe the Industrial Authority’s time would be better spent promoting solar\nand reforestation.\nWhy not ask Wiregrass Power, LLC to build a bigger solar facility and\nnot build the incinerator?\n

\n-jsq\n
\nJohn S. Quarterman\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can ask questions and expect answers. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Environmental Protection Division (EPD) Air Protection Branch issued a Press Release on April 12, 2010 announcing a meeting: EPD will hold a question and-answer (Q&A) session and a public hearing on Tuesday, April 27, from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. in […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,556,120,216,14,16,558,21,32,23,73,24,36],"tags":[5133,8738,5311,8745,8753,3053,8704,5190,1909,304,5806,1970,8701,4131,2625,847,548,7,1809,1603,4823,5314,8714,1981,6,1819],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-air","category-biomass","category-coal","category-economy","category-environment","category-germany","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-solar","category-wind","tag-air-quality","tag-biomass","tag-cadillac","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-dnr","tag-economy","tag-emissions","tag-epd","tag-flooding","tag-fujitive-emissions","tag-gefa","tag-georgia","tag-incinerator","tag-industrial-authority","tag-jobs","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mercury","tag-michigan","tag-reforestation","tag-sewage-sludge","tag-solar","tag-toxic","tag-valdosta","tag-wiregrass-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-HV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}