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Ecological value of Georgia Forests –Georgia Farm Monitor
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Local governments must ensure balanced growth, as sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*Here’s a place that does something about it: Portland, Oregon.
* Or at least big tax increases.
Thanks to Matthew Richard for pointing out this documentary.
As the documentary says, the key to Portland’s way is: Continue reading
People have long debated whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a forest but nobody is there to hear it.Continue readingThe fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has attracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.
![]() Wesley Langdale, left, President of The Langdale Company, and Reed Wills, right, President of ADAGE, pose at the ADAGE press announcement. |
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.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?“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.
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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:
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.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.
The source of the many stories on this appears to be Continue reading
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.Why is this suddenly a business? Continue reading“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.”
“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
Monthly LAKE MeetingThomas says:
When: 5:30-6:45 PM, Tuesday 1 March 2011
Updated meeting location
Where: home of Thomas Ieracitano
414 East Main Street, Hahira
229-251-2462
That’s on US 122, just east of the Masonic Lodge.
“Bring a lawn chair, laptop (I will have Mediacom wireless) and your own food and drink.”If it rains or there are too many bugs or something, we will move to:
Down Home Pizza
103 South Webb Street, Hahira
229-794-1888
Help cover food, water, transportation, incarceration, solar energy, biomass, and regular local government meetings: you never know when news will be made!
Popular topics lately on the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, include Continue reading
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A University of Georgia researcher has found that Georgia’s forestlands provide essential ecosystem services to the state worth an estimated $37 billion annually.That’s substantially more than the $28 billion annually from the conventional wood-products industry.This is in addition to the value of timber, forest products and recreation. This is the first time these indirect benefits of Georgia’s private forests have been estimated.
What are these ecosystem services? Continue reading