Previously I promised to post the rest of what Col. Ricketts and Brad Lofton said about biomass in the 21 Dec 2010 VLCIA board meeting.

In these two videos, Col. Ricketts responds to materials sent to VLCIA by WACE. He dismisses certain material as being from Massachusetts or being from “folks come into the community.” That’s rather rich, since as near as I can tell, all of VLCIA’s “expert” panelists at their 6 Dec 2010 event were from not from around here. Some were from states a thousand miles from here. Maybe somebody can transcribe Brad Lofton’s enumeration of those “experts” from the board meeting, since as near as I can tell VLCIA has provided no written list of them. And of course Sterling Planet is located in Atlanta, not Lowndes County.

In the first video, Col. Ricketts says he’s responding to WACE materials:

I think I’ve seen more materials than those on those points, Col. Ricketts, and if you claim the letter from Mass. doesn’t apply here, how about examining the points it raises in relation to biomass plants in Georgia or in nearby states?

In the second video, Col. Ricketts addresses biomass being dirtier than coal by addressing only one source: the Manomet study.

You can see Col. Ricketts handing material to the VDT reporter (good) but not to anyone else in the audience (they went to the trouble to come; can the VLCIA not afford a dozen handouts?).

Regarding carbon debt, Col. Ricketts reads this:

“each state or situation or even biomass facility will need to do its own study”

And there is no such local study; see following post.

He refers to “folks come into the community” and never mentions Dr. William Sammons by name, nor did Col. Ricketts address any of Dr. Sammons’ other evidence.

Col. Ricketts sums up the carbon debt situation:

“because trees can grow back, this debt can be paid off”

Maybe in a hundred years, according to a different study that he doesn’t cite, for yet another region. Wouldn’t we like to know how long, before we start pumping CO₂ into the air here in Lowndes County, making other diseases worse, as Dr. Sammons has established will happen?

Xenophobia is not science. Claiming your non-local authorities are better than somebody else’s and hoping nobody will notice is not even good PR. Claiming authority and refusing to provide evidence about specific concerns when your opponents do provide such evidence means you lose the argument.

-jsq

PS: I’ve already posted video of Lofton and Ricketts claiming the tiny Wiregrass LLC solar plant will make us “center of innovation excellence for renewable and sustainable energy in Georgia”. I will also post about a couple of videos of citizens wishing to be heard.

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