Category Archives: Forestry

Lame-duck Lofton cranks the same old scratched wax cylinder

After he gave his goodbye speech, I wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit. Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old scratched wax cylinder. Here he is last week responding to James Wright and dozens of other people in the same thread to which I later posted It’s an opportunity. In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels. -jsq
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:59:49 -0400

James:


© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass electricity,”

Continue reading →

It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman

“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.”

Here is my response to James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq

It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs, and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime. Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.

Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago, but there is still no market for it.

Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming, and continued to boom right through the recession.

Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton. That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.

Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago, but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever, the biomass boom never happened.

Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state that

Continue reading →

South Georgia already in drought: parameters for industry?

Droughts and floods: maybe we need to manage water better, including managing industrial use of water.

According to the AP, Ga. foresters brace for busy wildfire season:

A cold, wet winter has left northern parts of the state in decent shape, but in southern Georgia river flows and soil moisture are both at some of the lowest points that would be expected in a century, said David Stooksbury, Georgia’s state climatologist at the University of Georgia.
The nearterm effects:
“We have a good fuel load with plenty of dry vegetation, the soil is dry and there’s a low relative humidity and there’s wind,” Stooksbury said. “That is the simple recipe for a trash fire to get out of control very quickly and become a wildfire.”
Yes, Sunday Georgia Forestry cut off burn permits in Lowndes County because some fires had gotten out of control.

The long term problem? Continue reading →

Ecological value of Georgia Forests –Georgia Farm Monitor

Georgia Farm Monitor posts its TV episodes on YouTube, including this one, Forestry Adds Huge Amount To Georgia’s Economy, starring Wesley Langdale of The Langdale Company and Chuck Leavell of the Rolling Stones (both tree farmers) announcing $37 billion economic value of Georgia forest ecology: Continue reading →

Urban growth boundary –Portland

Prof. Dorfman of UGA already explained to us that in Georgia
Local governments must ensure balanced growth, as sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*
* Or at least big tax increases.
Here’s a place that does something about it: Portland, Oregon.


Thanks to Matthew Richard for pointing out this documentary.

As the documentary says, the key to Portland’s way is: Continue reading →

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

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 →

The business of carbon trading in Georgia

Rich McKay wrote for the ajc, Carbon limits a boon for traders: Proposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia.
The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what the smokestacks spew.
Blake Sullivan, of the Macon-based Carbon Tree Bank, has 26,000 acres of forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.

“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the lungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We can be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”

Why is this suddenly a business? Continue reading →

Still no suppliers or buyers for Wiregrass Power LLC –VLCIA

According to an open records request of 17 February 2011, the Industrial Authority says Wiregrass Power LLC still
“has not yet identified or completed a comprehensive list of potential suppliers of raw materials, goods and services required to construct and operate the biomass electric generating plant.”
This is on a sheet entitled “Owners/Investors/Suppliers/Contracts”, which also says:
“Site preparation and construction is not scheduled to begin until June 1, 2011.”
Hm, what happened to breaking ground in January 2011? The document also said a “Project Critical Path time-line is attached” but it wasn’t.

Regarding buyers for the plant’s power: Continue reading →