Category Archives: Renewable Energy

VLCIA Biomass “Forum” Tonight: Do they have a plan?

According to the VDT’s What We Think of yesterday:
All citizens of Lowndes County and any other interested parties are encouraged to attend the Biomass Forum Monday night, hosted by the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, at 7:30 at the Conference Center.
Forum? As in people will get time to get real questions answered? And the VLCIA might be interested in real input?
The authority has invited a half-dozen individuals to speak, which will last approximately 60 to 90 minutes, followed by “ample” time for questions to be answered, at least 30 minutes, according to the Authority.
Hm, 3 to 1 they speak we listen. Interesting definition of “forum”. Also, despite VLCIA’s many complaints that people didn’t get involved early enough in their previous public meetings about this plant, if this event is listed on VLCIA’s own website, I can’t find it. It’s not on the VLCIA’s facebook page, either.

Although on November 10th there are two VLCIA facebook posts saying:

The Industrial Authority stands behind its decision for the construction of Wiregrass Power LLC and feels like this green project will be a win/win for the community.
So much for looking for input.

Anyway, back to the VDT:

The Times has presented several stories with facts concerning the $140 million project, which will generate 20 to 25 local jobs once the plant is up and running.
20 to 25 local jobs.

Meanwhile, in other places that have a plan:

What’s our plan, VLCIA? How about we plant trees instead of burn them?

And I agree with the VDT on this:

And to the Industrial Authority and invited speakers, you are urged to not insult the intelligence of those attending. They understand what the plant will do. What they want to know is how this will affect them in terms of health issues, air quality and safety, burning sewage, the number of trucks on the highway so close to several schools, etc.

The onus is on you, the Authority, to handle this in a much more professional manner than the last Sterling project.

More to the point, why is the VLCIA wasting its political capital (and our tax dollars) on this one polluting plant when it could be working to bring in real clean energy?

Does the VLCIA have a plan to raise the local metro area out of the bottom 10 for wages? Or is this 20-25-job polluting plant the best the VLCIA can do?

If you can’t come to tonight’s “forum”, or even if you can, here is contact information for your elected and appointed officials, including the VLCIA board.

-jsq

Suniva went to Solar Valley, Michigan, which has a plan

Suniva’s second solar PV manufacturing plant that Georgia couldn’t keep went to Saginaw, Michigan, where the editorial board of The Saginaw News lists it as just one bullet item:
• Georgia-based solar panel maker Suniva is well along in its federal loan guarantee application so it can build a plant in Saginaw County.
So what is the big news that they’re editorializing about?
The Solar Valley is starting to snowball.

Amid the campaigning and squabbling on the Friday before last week’s statewide election were two electric announcements promising a big buzz for our region’s future.

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

Suniva’s 500 new jobs went to Michigan

According to Sven Gustafson in mlive.com, 7 Oct 2009, Georgia-based solar panel maker Suniva to create 500 jobs at new Michigan plant in Saginaw County
A Georgia-based maker of high-efficiency, low-cost solar panels plans to open a manufacturing facility in Saginaw County after state officials approved a new photovoltaic tax credit. The project, which is still subject to a federal loan, is expected to create 500 jobs.

The Michigan Economic Growth Authority in a special session Tuesday approved the credits for Norcross, Ga.-based Suniva Inc. The company will get a $15 million refundable credit against its Michigan Business Tax liability over five years in exchange for its planned $250 million investment.

Suniva manufactures photovoltaic solar panels. It was getting so many orders it needed a new plant in addition to the one it has in Norcross, Georgia. Those 500 jobs and $250 million in investment could have come to Georgia. Maybe they could have come to Lowndes County. I haven’t been able to find any local government or appointed official who tried to get it to come here.

Suniva is still ramping up production in Georgia. They may eventually need a third plant. Maybe somebody should talk to them.

-jsq

Mage Solar cuts ribbon in Dublin, Georgia

According to a press release on their site:
Ravensburg (Germany), 27th September 2010 – MAGE SOLAR, part of the globally operating MAGE GROUP, in conjunction with Governor Sonny Perdue and the City of Dublin County of Laurens Development Authority, conducted its official ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. The highly anticipated event marked the company’s official move of its new North American headquarters to Dublin, Georgia. Dr. Markus Feil, CEO of MAGE INDUSTRIE HOLDING AG headquartered in Germany; its Chairman of the Board, Kurt Rauch, as well as CEO of MAGE SOLAR GMBH, Norbert Philipp, also from Germany and other US company officials and employees of MAGE SOLAR, along with key community, political and a multitude of local, regional and international business leaders attended the momentous event.
That would be Dublin, with half the population of Valdosta, in Laurens County, with half the population of Lowndes County. Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

Video of Dr. Sammons’ talk at VSU

Here is a video of most of Dr. William Sammons’ presentation at the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU. His slides from that talk are available on the LAKE web pages, so you can follow along.

Instead of dirty biomass we could have clean efficiency and conservation (retrofitting produces twice as many jobs as biomass) and solar power, which is booming nationwide, burns no trees, and emits no pollutants.

You can also contact your local elected or appointed officials.

-jsq

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 →