Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.
Who proposed this? Continue reading
After he talked about
expanding the Wiregrass Solar plant by another megawatt,
Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said this:
Solar power is the peoples power.And to development in south Georgia, for that matter. So we can leapfrog that barrier with solar.Whether you’re talking about grid tied power here in America tied to the wire, or solar in the rural countryside of Uganda, it’s immediately available and accessible in all sizes. So I can use it to power a cell phone, charge a laptop, put light in a school, or pump water in a hospital. Solar is immediately available to do that, without massive which is a barrier to development in much of the developing world.
Here’s the video:
Solar power is the peoples power –Alden Hathaway
Commissioning Ceremony,
Wiregrass Solar, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
Partly due to
MAGE SOLAR at Lowndes High School
(thanks, Jerome Tucker!), the Valdosta – Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) has taken an interest in renewable energy.
ReKasa Deen,
Business Development Director,
already heads the Chamber’s
Opportunity Central:
The Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber is positioning Metro Valdosta as Opportunity Central with opportunities for business to grow and thrive, career opportunities for well-educated young professionals and opportunities for cultural interests and active lifestyles.
The key phrase I keep hearing from
VLCoC president Myrna Ballard
is
“knowledge-based businesses and jobs.”
As it says on a recent
Opportunity Central blog post:
New jobs follow bright and creative professionals…Ms. Ballard and Ms. Deen have repeatedly said they see renewable energy as a source of jobs for graduates of our local high schools and colleges.
What do they mean by renewable energy? Continue reading
And this is just the start of what’s going to happen to Georgia as long as that law is in effect.Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana, in town to be honored for a “Beacon of Change” award at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field, called the state’s new immigration law “anti-American.”
Santana took his turn at the podium on the field in a pre-game ceremony before the Braves-Phillies game to criticize the immigration bill just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal Friday.
“I represent the human race,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said. “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
The Georgia immigration law, HB 87, cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires.
But what do you really think, Carlos? Continue reading
Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said he hopes to expand the Wiregrass
Solar array in Valdosta to an additional megawatt, taking it from being
one of the largest in Georgia to one of the largest in the southeast.
This is the man
Sterling Planet Chairman Sonny Murphy singled out for praise.
This is the expansion project
Sonny Murphy promoted in the Sterling Planet press release.
Alden Hathaway knows what needs to be done, and
Pete Marte and Hannah Solar stand ready to do it.
Alden Hathaway also talked about how solar helps load distribution on the electric grid, lowering electric rates for everybody. He remarked that once power companies realized that, they’d be for solar. More on that later.
But meanwhile, let’s ask Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Crawford Powell when they’re going to do this: Continue reading
Shankar Vedantam wrote in the Washington Post 15 Sep 2008 about The Power of Political Misinformation, illustrating with a couple of well-known examples of misinformation (you’ll recognize them), and continuing:
Countering bad information directly just reinforces it.Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.
But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people’s minds after it has been debunked — even among people who recognize it as misinformation.
Chris Mooney wrote more about why that is in Mother Jones 18 April 2011, The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science: Continue reading
OK, that’s all good. Congratulations!Sterling Planet, the leading national retail provider of renewable energy and other clean-energy assets, today announced at a commissioning ceremony the completion of a 200 kWAC output solar generating project in Valdosta. One of the largest solar arrays in the state of Georgia, the Wiregrass Solar, LLC project began commercial operation on April 6 and is now generating annualized output of approximately 350,000 kilowatt-hours. This is enough clean, emission-free electricity to power 350 Georgia homes using the average amount of 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity monthly.
Developed by Sterling Planet, Wiregrass Solar supplies green power for the Georgia Power Green Energy program, an option for the utility’s customers who voluntarily choose to support renewable power and help generate more of it in Georgia.
Also notice Sterling Planet doesn’t make the mayor’s mistake in saying this is the largest solar array in Georgia, like WCTV after Pete Marte of Hannah Solar corrected it, Sterling says “one of the largest”.
But what’s this about “first phase”? Continue reading
It is unfortunate that such a wonderful event ; the commissioning of the large solar facility in our community, was sullied by Mr. Sonny Murphy’s comments about the viability of biomass. I was then compelled to ask the players in attendance the very pressing question, so where is the biomass issue. Mr Murphy & Mr Ricketts spoke of milestones to be met. The mystery continues.
THE BIOMASS MYSTERY: We all love a good murder mystery. The sleuth that finds the murderer of the dead biomass plant. Oh, that would be fun, but for the plot to work we need a dead biomass plant.
If they want to quietly disappear Mr. Murphy is sending the wrong messages. A disappearance has been the favored outcome from the officials I’ve spoken with. If they want to walk away quietly- fine. I can handle that. Just give us the proper clues that this monster is simply going to wander into the woods to die…, we’ll all look away politely, and then take a peek before celebrating. The mixed messages make for a very poor mystery novel.
-Karen Noll
Pete Marte of Hannah Solar predicted that within a generation cars will run on electricity
generated by solar arrays like the one commissioned last Thursday.
Col. Allan Ricketts introduced Pete Marte, CEO of Hannah Solar.
Here’s Part 1 of 3: Continue reading
State Sen. Tim Golden used Yogi Berra to illustrate that solar power
is no longer just a theory: it’s now implemented in practice.
Yogi said, and I quote:A very good point.In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.…I thought about that quote because solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice.
(This is also where Sonny Murphy got the idea to quote Yogi Berra.)
Sen. Golden mentioned that he and Sonny Murphy grew up with Gov. Nathan Deal.
He said he met Pete Marte of Hannah Solar at the governor’s office
the previous day, at the signing of HB 346, which includes solar tax credits.
That’s the bill that
Wes Hudson said
“extends the renewable energy tax credit to the year ending Dec. 31,
2014, and for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 it newly expands the total
statewide credit amount from $2.5 million to $5 million in each of the
years 2012-2014.”
Sen. Golden once again said we’d gone from theory to practice.
He lauded Jimmy Carter for putting solar panels on the White House Continue reading