Tag Archives: New York

Ginna nuke down near Rochester, NY

We still don’t know what tripped the control rods on Constellation Energy’s Ginna nuclear reactor on the shores of Lake Ontario near Rochester, NY on Wednesday; the nuke remains down.

Ginna nuke down since 25 July 2013 Staff reports for Democrat and Chronicle.com yesterday, No estimate on when Ginna nuclear plant will be back online,

The Ginna nuclear power plant in Wayne County remained shut down Friday afternoon, 48 hours after it went off line unexpectedly due to a generator problem.

No estimate was available of when the plant would go back into service, said Maria Hudson, spokeswoman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, the plant’s Baltimore-based owner.

“We’re continuing with our repairs,” she said.

The 581-megawatt plant on the Lake Ontario shoreline, the largest in the Rochester area, ceased producing electricity Wednesday afternoon when Continue reading →

If UB, why not VSU? Solar Strand Earth Week

Earth Week at the University at Buffalo, featuring the Solar Strand, 3,200 solar panels generating 750 kilowatts about 1,000 miles north of Valdosta State University. Rutgers U. in New Jersey has 8 solar megawatts coming from a parking lot. If there, why not here? -jsq

Banks as slumlord renters reducing property values

Lou Raguse write for WIVB.com 4 April 2013, Cheektowaga picks fight with big banks,

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB)—Neighbors in Cheektowaga say empty houses are ruining the value of their neighborhoods and bringing in unwanted guests.

Residents want to know why these properties, seized by banking giants, have been left to crumble. The town board says they have serious issues with the homeowners.

“In normal life, you would call them slumlords,” says Town Board Member Charlie Markel.

Those so-called “slumlords” are big banks like Bank of America and Chase. Markel says in too many cases, a homeowner falls behind on a mortgage and the bank begins to foreclose. But then, it stops short. He says the bank continues paying property tax but allows the homes to fall into disrepair, never allowing them back on the market for sale, or to be auctioned.

Let’s remember what last year’s study of America’s richest and poorest cities found about the Valdosta MSA:

Despite these positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year [2011], higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent.

I wonder how big national and multinational banks are serving our area? And with a vacancy rate that high, and housing prices still dropping, why are we building more houses?

-jsq

Rooftop solar for grid outage independence

Solar power can bring for energy independence, not just from foreign countries, also from the grid during storms and other outages.

Inspired by the need to deal with downed power lines in New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, David Crane and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote for NYTimes 12 Dec 2012, Solar Panels for Every Home,

Solar photovoltaic technology can significantly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and our dependence on the grid. Electricity-producing photovoltaic panels installed on houses, on the roofs of warehouses and big box stores and over parking lots can be wired so that they deliver power when the grid fails.

Solar panels have dropped in price by 80 percent in the past five years and can provide electricity at a cost that is at or below the current retail cost of grid power in 20 states, including many of the Northeast states. So why isn’t there more of a push for this clean, affordable, safe and inexhaustible source of electricity?

First, the investor-owned utilities that depend on the existing system for their profits have little economic interest in promoting a technology that empowers customers to generate their own power. Second, state regulatory agencies and local governments impose burdensome permitting and siting requirements that unnecessarily raise installation costs.

I can tell you by experience that solar panels on the roof (with batteries) can supply power when the grid is out.

In regulatory-captured Georgia, the big impediment to solar is financing, because of 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act. When will Southern Company and Georgia Power admit their boondoogle on the Savannah River has failed and get on with conservation, efficiency, wind, and solar power?

-jsq

The power of going solar —John S. Quarterman

Solar panels on farm workshop --John S. Quarterman My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember to vote today or Tuesday. -jsq

This spring, the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of solar electricity. Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4 megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?

There’s plenty of private solar financing available. Also in New Jersey, a company installed 6 MW of solar on high school land and leased the power to the school supplying most of its needs win-win. You can go see a solar farm already working fine here, 200 kilowatts at Mud Creek Wastewater Plant. Why not do the same


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at Lowndes High School, where all the world on I-75 could see, attracting business to our community?

Why not?

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Another home with wind power

When we arrived, the wind company was tuning the stay wires on the windmill at the home of Karl and Clare Kuntz in western New York State.

Another home with wind power
Karl and Clare Kuntz, Pavillion, Genesee County, New York
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

Clare said the wind company is Sustainable Energy Developments. She added,

Sign You can put your money in the mattress or in the bank, and get about the same appreciation. Or you can put it in wind or solar and feel good about it.

Karl said it would take about fifteen years to pay back the wind investment, and meanwhile they get more power than they use, and still will after it’s all paid for. He remarked that the wind company has also started doing solar energy, because solar now costs half as much as wind. And that’s in windy western New York, 1000 miles north of sunny south Georgia.

-jsq

Windmills near Wales NY 11 August 2012

So many they need their own power substation. And there’s corn growing in the same fields.

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Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 August 2012.

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Tired of tax abatements: Occupy Buffalo and NY state reps @ ECIDA 2012-02-13

Lots of people, from Occupy Buffalo to at least one New York state representative, are tired of tax abatements doled out by ECIDA (the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, aka The Economic Development Corporation for Erie County). ECIDA thinks it knows better. Sound familiar?

Occupy Buffalo complained to ECIDA about tax abatements for luxury residential lofts that had already been completed, saying “this board is not a democratic process”. They noted the people’s representative on the ECIDA board had said it was a clear waste of taxpayer resources but was ignored, and couldn’t stop county resources being “fleeced by this board”. They added, “This experiment has gone on for long enough, and it’s time for immediate change” of “this crony corrupt process”. Occupy Buffalo demanded suspension of tax abatements by ECIDA until a public town hall meeting could be held.

Here’s the video:

Tired of tax abatements: Occupy Buffalo and NY state reps @ ECIDA 2012-02-13

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, .
Video by for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

Occupy Buffalo wrote 16 February 2012, Occupy Buffalo and the Erie County Industrial Development Agency,

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Development authority issues in Erie County, NY

In case you thought local elected and appointed governments in Lowndes County, Georgia were alone in not always being coordinated or strategic, here’s another example.

Not only does Erie County, New York have an industrial authority (ECIDA, the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, aka The Economic Development Corporation for Erie County) but many of the towns also do and there isn’t always coordination. Even in densely developed Erie County, there is a clash between rural and urban development.

Sandra Tan wrote for the Buffalo News 22 April 2012, Bad breaks given by IDAs? As a state lawmaker drafts a bill that would handicap town IDAs, those groups defend the deals they make,

“And there is no way rural communities such as Concord and the Village of Springville would ever get taken seriously by the ECIDA, said Concord Supervisor Gary Eppolito, who heads the least active town IDA in the county.

He recalled an instance where a local business asked the ECIDA for help expanding its agricultural business and was shown properties in the City of Lackawanna.”

-gretchen

University at Buffalo installs solar array at entrance

Meanwhile, about a thousand miles north of us, a 750 kilowatt solar array opens in Buffalo, New York.

According to PR of yesterday from the University at Buffalo, UB’s 3,200-Panel ‘Solar Strand’ to be Dedicated at Opening Ceremony: Will provide enough electricity to power hundreds of student apartments on campus,

In celebration of Earth Day and to promote clean, renewable energy development, the University at Buffalo and New York Power Authority (NYPA) will dedicate the UB Solar Strand, the 3,200-panel photovoltaic array, at an opening ceremony on Monday, April 23.

Those panels seem inclined quite a bit more than ones around here. That’s because UB is at 43 degrees north latitude, way north of our 31 degrees. And there’s a lot less sun up there, too. Yet they just installed a solar array more than twice as big as the 350 KW array in Valdosta.

UB is a university, and it uses the project for more than a single practical purpose:

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