Category Archives: Science

“I’m amazed at how someone could dare say…”

Brad Lofton responds to Leigh Touchton’s letter of 16 September 2010.

-jsq

Date: Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 7:54 AM
From: Brad Lofton <blofton@industrialauthority.com>

Good morning Kay, Sandy et al.

Our unprecedented effort of educating the public included numerous public hearings, briefings with all elected officials, the VDT Editorial Board and groups all across Valdosta. We’ve even spent a great deal of effort trying to brief the NAACP leaving messages and making numerous phone calls to Leigh Touchton that have never been returned. We’ve spent more time educating the community on this project then the sum of any other projects we’ve worked combined. I’m amazed at how someone could dare say that we’ve not informed the public. The vast majority of her concerns for our project would have been answered two years ago if she had come to any of our forums or if she would at least answer her phone when we call. Now that we’re moving into the third year of due diligence, she’s concerned all of a sudden.

Continue reading →

Leigh Touchton wonders what Brad Lofton is hiding

This message was sent to me by the author, who requested I blog it.

-jsq

Subject: My response to Brad Lofton, why doesn’t he want his correpondence in the Valdosta Daily Times? What is he hiding?
From: Leigh Touchton
To: blofton@industrialauthority.com
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:53:56 EDT

(Please see correspondence below mine which I am responding to: Mr. Brad Lofton’s email to his “stakeholders” which he doesn’t want to put in the newspaper )

Mr. Lofton:

My title is President of the Valdosta-Lowndes branch of the NAACP, I am not the Chairperson. I have a Master’s in Science in Biology from the University of Virginia, I have taught Environmental Science classes at the college level. It is incorrect and furthermore rude for you to refer to the President of the NAACP as part of the “misinformation on the street.”

I would be happy to deconstruct your arguments on the trip to Cadillac, Michigan, and how “green” Biomass Incineration can be. I invite readers to research all the Biomass incinerators around the country that have been shut down. They are banned in Massachusetts. They have been blocked in Florida. They show up in areas of the country where wealthy industrialists control the government and environmental regulations are lax. All the major environmental organizations in this country oppose them because they burn more wood that can be sustainably harvested. In the decade that is the hottest on record, in a crucial period in human history when life literally hangs in the balance over Global Climate Change, the Lowndes County Industrial Authority has decided to implement a Biomass Incinerator which spews more carbon dioxide than a coal plant.

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Solar Companies Booming in Buffalo

There’s still time to lead the solar parade:
“The solar market is the fastest-growing market worldwide, bar none,” said Ryne P. Raffaelle, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Center for Photovoltaics in Colorado. “For the last half-dozen years, it’s grown at about a 40 to 45 percent compound annual growth rate per year.”

That growth is expected to accelerate next year, said Raffaelle, who was a Rochester Institute of Technology faculty member for 10 years. But the vast majority of that growth, both in the manufacturing and deployment of systems, is happening outside the United States. Asia has taken a “commanding lead” in manufacturing, and Europe leads in deployment, he said.

“But the rest of the world, they’re still watching the United States. They still see us as the 800-pound gorilla,” Raffaelle said. “It’s like, ‘When are they going to do something?'”

That was from a conference held in the Buffalo area recently.

In Buffalo, New York, they’re not just talking about solar power: Continue reading →

Dr. William Sammons on Biomass Sustainability and Economics

Here’s an interesting video interview with Dr. William Sammons, the doctor who spoke in Traverse City just before that biomass plant was nixed.
Is it more important to reach the target … or to say we have new information and we need to revise the targets and what qualifies?
He’s talking about potential billions of dollars of health costs from particulates, about “waste” wood (what they say they will burn) vs. whole trees (what they end up burning), and most importantly about sustainability.

Biomass plants don’t have to report their CO2 emissions, so if all the proposed biomass plants get built we’re talking about as much as 800 million tons of CO2 from biomass plants by 2020, 12 to 14% of total CO2 emissions for the U.S. (not just power emissions: total national emissions). Trees don’t grow fast enough to suck all that back out of the air in ten years. Continue reading →

Biomass Town Hall Part 2

This is part 2 about the July 8th town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.

First let’s hear George Rhynes explain that it’s never too late to reregulate our minds:

Here I’ve selected videos of local County Commission candidates: Continue reading →

Biomass Town Hall, 8 July 2010

On July 8th there was a town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.

Pastor Angela Manning of New Life Ministries sums up why she called this Town Hall meeting:

Speakers included: Continue reading →

Nix on biomass plant in Traverse City, Michigan

Looking farther afield in Cadillac, Michigan than schools and realtors, there are some people who aren’t completely pleased with the local biomass plant:
Complaints are more frequent along Mary Street, a short stretch a few hundred yards south of the plant. Residents there deal with more intense noise and odors.

Craig Walworth’s home is among the closest to the plant. He walked up to his Jeep — a vehicle he cleaned the day before — and dragged his finger through a layer of film on the hood.

“Every morning, you have that to look forward to,” he said. “I clean my screens three times a year during the summer because they clog up.”

Nonetheless he didn’t say it affected his property values. However, that’s not the only issue.

Meanwhile, about an hour north on the edge of Lake Michigan, in Traverse City local activism caused cancellation of a proposed biomass plant: Continue reading →

Biomass Permit Expected Fortnightly

The VDT published on May 18 Projects in the works: Industrial Authority reviews and discuss items at meeting, by Kara Ramos, in which there is this paragraph:
WIREGRASS POWER, LLC

The project should be approved and issued an air quality operating permit in the next 14 days, according to Lofton. A power purchase agreement should also be complete by June 1, 2010. The VLCIA granted an eight month extension for the project to begin construction.

(VLCIA is the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority. Brad Lofton is its executive director.)

We know from previous reports that this wood and sewage sludge incinerator is expected to produce a maximum of 25 long-term jobs. Many questions were asked at the air quality hearing about particulates, CO2, mercury, and other pollutants. The answers ranged from “we don’t monitor that” to Continue reading →