Category Archives: Pollution

Where’s the wood to come from and who will buy the electricity?

Here’s video of what I asked at the recent VLCIA biomass event (6 Dec 2010) and the answers from the panel.

So there’s actually not any new study of wood sourcing (Brad Lofton told me after the meeting that the study had been “completed” after we met in June), and the study that exists is not publicly available. Someone from Sterling promised me after the meeting to redact the private parts of the wood sourcing study and provide the rest for public distribution. We’ll see.

Regarding my question about who will buy the electricity and whether we’ll end up like Plant Scherer, selling electricity to Florida while keeping the pollution here, the answer was: Continue reading →

12 times more subsidies: fossil fuels vs. clean energy

Money & Company reports on 30 Nov 2010 that Clean energy gets fewer subsidies, less investment than fossil fuels, report says:
Energy from fossil fuel gets 12 times more in subsidies worldwide than sustainable energy, says a new report from the USC Marshall School of Business.
Corporate welfare for polluters.
“Inertia in the form of myopia, misperception, and dulled motivation, at the economy, firm, and consumer levels creates resistance to change and constrains solution-seeking to incremental improvements of known technologies rather than disruptive breakthrough innovations needed,” they wrote in their executive summary.
Hm, that sounds familiar.

-jsq

Due Diligence on Biomass Combustion, by Dr. William Sammons

Monday a week ago Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has studied biomass plants nationwide, called them “a medical atrocity.” His slides from that talk are now available on the LAKE web pages.

For example, he demonstrated that burning wood is dirtier than burning coal:

This slide shows data taken from biomass plant permits. Also notice Continue reading →

VDT Elevates Biomass and Renewable Energy as Political Issues

The Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) has apparently decided biomass and real clean energy instead are political issues. As part of the VDT’s sudden turn against the VLCIA and its biomass plant, which was provoked by citizen and student activism, the VDT started a week of articles with the headline “Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”, about Dr. William Sammons’ Monday talk about health problems of biomass and how solar is better.

The VDT then featured biomass in its reporting on the AAUW Candidate Forum: Continue reading →

Why is the VDT suddenly anti-biomass and pro-solar?

What has caused the VDT to decide to look into the matter? Johnna Pinholser acknowledges that it was Growing oposition of proposed biomass energy plant:
A growing organization of concerned citizens are opposing the building of a biomass energy plant in Lowndes County.

Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy hope to promote clean and sustainable energies while also educating the public on how a biomass plant could be detrimental to community health.

The goal of the organization and the opposition to the plant is not to inhibit economic development but to promote a conversation on sustainable energy, Dr. Michael Noll, WACE president, said.

The new organization is not the only one in the community speaking out against the biomass plant.

Continue reading →

VDT turns against VLCIA and its biomass plant

The newspaper of record in Valdosta and Lowndes County has reversed course on biomass. Top of the front page in a landmark issue: Wednesday, October 27, 2010:
Biomass plant fuels questions

by Johnna Pinholster
The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — As the state and nation look to renewable energy solutions, locally, a proposed green energy plant is causing controversy and raising questions that remain unanswered.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority and Wiregrass Power, LLC are in the beginning phases of developing property for a future biomass electric generating plant.

…

Issues with lack of information

Continue reading →

“Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”

Johnna Pinholster writes in the the Valdosta Daily Times (paper 25 Oct, online 27 Oct 2010) about the the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU:
A medical atrocity.

That is the phrase Dr. William Sammons used to described biomass energy plants at Monday night’s biomass forum at Valdosta State University’s Student Union theater.

Dr. Sammons answered many of the unanswered concerns about the biomass incinerator, and, unlike the lack of peer-reviewed evidence from the plant proponents: Continue reading →

Solar Booming Nationwide (so why not here?)

While the Wall Street Journal says biomass is a money-losing proposition, Stacy Feldman notes in Solve Climate News that U.S. Solar Market Booms, With Utility-Scale Projects Leading the Way:
America could add 10 gigawatts of solar power every year by 2015, enough to power 2 million new homes annually, industry and market analysts have claimed in a new report.
Continue reading →

Bigger Hall: SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU

Due to popular demand, the SAVE Biomass Forum has moved to a larger hall, the Student Union Theater. That’s on the east side of North Oak Street, across from Baytree Road.

It’s still Monday, 25 October 2010 from 7 to 9 PM, organized by Students Against Violating the Environment (SAVE) at Valdosta State University (VSU). The featured speaker is Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has spoken nationally on the subject. Forum flyer PDF is available. See SAVE’s facebook event page for any updates. Continue reading →

WSJ on Economic Problems of Biomass Plants

Jim Carlton points out in the Wall Street Journal some of the problems of biomass plants.
With all the plants and trees in the world, biomass energy would appear to have boundless potential.
Or as Georgia politicians are fond of saying, “Georgia is the Saudi Arabia of forest energy.”
Yet in the U.S., biomass power—generated mainly by burning wood and other plant debris—has run into roadblocks that have stymied its growth.

Here at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, officials in 2007 built a $7.7 million biomass plant to meet all the power needs of the medium-security prison. But last month, two years after the plant opened, prison officials closed it, citing excessive costs.

“This was a project that was well intentioned, but not well implemented,” says Jeff Mohlenkamp, deputy director of support services for the Nevada Department of Corrections.

Even with a captive market (pun intended), biomass was not economically feasible.

Maybe it was an isolated case? Continue reading →