Here is my critique of Brand’s arguments: Continue reading
Here is my critique of Brand’s arguments: Continue reading
Natasha Fast of WACE, Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy outside the
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She also says she supports solar as a truly clean green renewable energy source: Continue reading
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:55:16 -0400Continue readingDear Councilman Wright.
Valid points and a great question to ponder. You may recall my quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Waste not, want not”.
Add to that a quote from the Sierra Club: “Energy use should be minimized through conservation and efficiency. In the near future, efficiency is the only “energy source” which does not incur some environmental damage and which is available immediately in generous supply. Sophisticated building construction, efficient appliances, recycling, modernized industrial processes, programmable thermostats, public transit supplemented by fuel-efficient cars, and many other innovative technologies can reduce energy use tremendously, while saving money.”
In other words, we are wasting enormous amounts of energy and money
Nuclear power is a gamble we don’t need to take. Studies show that the UK can meet its energy needs and tackle climate change without resorting to nuclear power or burning fossil fuels – all that is lacking is the political will.Studies like this one for Scotland and this one for the whole world.
And the U.K. is way north of Georgia. Georgia gets a lot more sunlight and has plenty of wind off the coast. All that is lacking here, too, is the political will.
If Atlanta won’t lead, why not Valdosta and Lowndes County?
-jsq
Here is my response to James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq
It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs, and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime. Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.Continue readingSwitchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago, but there is still no market for it.
Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming, and continued to boom right through the recession.
Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton. That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.
Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago, but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever, the biomass boom never happened.
Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state that
Economic development is a high priority on the mind of many people. If you read the local paper you will see page after page of foreclosures, failing businesses, and unemployment at a all time high. Please explain to me how we can address these problems through energy needs?Councilmember Wright elaborated later that same day: Continue reading
The U.S. solar power market grew a record 67% last year, making it the fastest-growing energy sector, the industry reports Thursday.That curve is the inverse of this other one of the plummeting cost of solar electricity. Needs no fuel, fouls no air; costs less, powers more: go solar!…
“This remarkable growth puts the solar industry’s goal of powering 2 million homes annually by 2015 within reach,” Rhone Resch, SEIA president and CEO, said in announcing the findings.
-jsq
…a new study just published in the journal Energy Policy states that the world can provide for all of its energy needs, including electric power, transportation, heating/cooling, etc using only wind, water, and solar (WWS) energy by the year 2030.By water the study authors, Mark Z. Jacobson (pictured) Mark A. Delucch, mostly mean hydroelectric power, which would involve building more dams, with all their environmental problems. Still, it’s an interesting study demonstrating that true renewable energy could power the world: no coal, no oil, no nuclear.
-jsq
Ban the burnGretchen asked him about that and he said:
Go 100% solar
-jsq
As Dr. George said Continue reading