Tag Archives: Solar

MAGE SOLAR forging ahead in south Georgia

Valdosta and Lowndes County are not the only places with sunshine in south Georgia, and Albany and Dougherty County are perhaps already more organized.

Danny Carter wrote in the Albany Herald 14 May 2011, Solar power meeting set: A solar power conference is scheduled for Tuesday in Albany.

MAGE SOLAR, looking for both customers and installers, is hosting a program at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Albany Civic Center.
Susanne Fischer Quinn, communications manager for MAGE SOLAR, said there are just 13 certified installers of solar panels in Georgia.
The opportunity for growth in this area is tremendous, she said. Tuesday’s program will open with remarks by Jeff Sinyard, chairman of the Dougherty County Commission, and Albany City Commissioner Roger Marietta
Then, a panel of representatives from MAGE, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Georgia will present information about solar power in Georgia.

We already did a smaller version of this, but what have we done since? Continue reading →

Renewable Energy Network at Opportunity Central

Renewable energy for jobs: that’s something that would interest a Chamber of Commerce.

Partly due to MAGE SOLAR at Lowndes High School (thanks, Jerome Tucker!), the Valdosta – Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) has taken an interest in renewable energy. ReKasa Deen, Business Development Director, already heads the Chamber’s Opportunity Central:

The Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber is positioning Metro Valdosta as Opportunity Central with opportunities for business to grow and thrive, career opportunities for well-educated young professionals and opportunities for cultural interests and active lifestyles.

The key phrase I keep hearing from VLCoC president Myrna Ballard is “knowledge-based businesses and jobs.” As it says on a recent Opportunity Central blog post:

New jobs follow bright and creative professionals…

Ms. Ballard and Ms. Deen have repeatedly said they see renewable energy as a source of jobs for graduates of our local high schools and colleges.

What do they mean by renewable energy? Continue reading →

A key to community organizing work —Seth Gunning

This comment by Seth Gunning came in on the backfire effect and how to leapfrog it. -jsq

Great article John. Thanks for turning me onto the research presented here, I’ll be looking into and using it. I’d also suggest a book called “Breakthrough: from the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility”. I think you will love it.
Beyond changing the messaging on signs, which I think is a great idea, I think what the research reflects is a fundamental change in the approach to the work.
A key to community organizing work, as opposed to activism,

Continue reading →

The backfire effect, and how to leapfrog it

If you have evidence against something that will harm public health or waste money, just tell everybody and they’ll understand and stop it, right? Nope, humans don’t work that way. More likely you’ll provoke the backfire effect, reinforcing beliefs in the bad information that caused the problem in the first place. Here are some ways to jump over that effect to get at solutions to the problem.

Shankar Vedantam wrote in the Washington Post 15 Sep 2008 about The Power of Political Misinformation, illustrating with a couple of well-known examples of misinformation (you’ll recognize them), and continuing:

Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.
But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people’s minds after it has been debunked — even among people who recognize it as misinformation.

Countering bad information directly just reinforces it.

Chris Mooney wrote more about why that is in Mother Jones 18 April 2011, The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science: Continue reading →

Wiregrass Solar is the first of several projects —Sonny Murphy

Let’s look at Sterling Planet’s own press release about the Wiregrass Solar commissioning. What’s this about a first phase? And what’s the second phase?

Sterling Planet announces completion of one of Georgia’s largest solar generating projects: First phase of Valdosta solar project now supplies green energy to Georgia Power.

Sterling Planet, the leading national retail provider of renewable energy and other clean-energy assets, today announced at a commissioning ceremony the completion of a 200 kWAC output solar generating project in Valdosta. One of the largest solar arrays in the state of Georgia, the Wiregrass Solar, LLC project began commercial operation on April 6 and is now generating annualized output of approximately 350,000 kilowatt-hours. This is enough clean, emission-free electricity to power 350 Georgia homes using the average amount of 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity monthly.
Developed by Sterling Planet, Wiregrass Solar supplies green power for the Georgia Power Green Energy program, an option for the utility’s customers who voluntarily choose to support renewable power and help generate more of it in Georgia.

OK, that’s all good. Congratulations!

Also notice Sterling Planet doesn’t make the mayor’s mistake in saying this is the largest solar array in Georgia, like WCTV after Pete Marte of Hannah Solar corrected it, Sterling says “one of the largest”.

But what’s this about “first phase”? Continue reading →

Why biomass will never cleanly end —jsq

In Harrisburg, PA, same size as Valdosta, in a county of similar size, a trash incinerator bit the dust once, but got revived anyway, and will now probably only go away because: Harrisburg, PA loses solvency and trust over incinerator. There are many parallels here, especially the old boy network. However, the main point I want to draw everyone’s attention to at the moment is that although local activists may have gotten that incinerator closed down once, it came back anyway.

Why? Because their local old boys thought it would make money, and Continue reading →

Using oil to move an automobile down the street … not something you’re going to see in 20 to 25 years. —Pete Marte

Pete Marte of Hannah Solar predicted that within a generation cars will run on electricity generated by solar arrays like the one commissioned last Thursday.

Col. Allan Ricketts introduced Pete Marte, CEO of Hannah Solar.

Here’s Part 1 of 3: Continue reading →

“Solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice” —Sen. Tim Golden

State Sen. Tim Golden used Yogi Berra to illustrate that solar power is no longer just a theory: it’s now implemented in practice.

Yogi said, and I quote:
In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
…
I thought about that quote because solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice.

A very good point.

(This is also where Sonny Murphy got the idea to quote Yogi Berra.)

Sen. Golden mentioned that he and Sonny Murphy grew up with Gov. Nathan Deal.

He said he met Pete Marte of Hannah Solar at the governor’s office the previous day, at the signing of HB 346, which includes solar tax credits. That’s the bill that Wes Hudson said “extends the renewable energy tax credit to the year ending Dec. 31, 2014, and for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 it newly expands the total statewide credit amount from $2.5 million to $5 million in each of the years 2012-2014.”

Sen. Golden once again said we’d gone from theory to practice.

He lauded Jimmy Carter for putting solar panels on the White House Continue reading →

The city says solar is the future —WCTV

Dontaye Carter wrote for WCTV, Local Community Goes Solar
The Azalea City is now home to one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia. The city is hoping the solar power will provide a cleaner, greener energy source for the future.

Note “one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia” instead of Mayor Fretti’s “the largest array in the state of Georgia”. This is because Pete Marte of Hannah Solar had to correct what the mayor said. But the mayor promised to make this one bigger if somebody else leapfrogged it, so time to get cracking!

Back to the WCTV article:

The $1.4 million Wiregrass Solar project was built on two acres of land, which will produce 350-thousand kilowatts per hour of electricity annually for the next 30 years.
On average that will come out to about nine cents per kilowatt hour.
The city says solar is the future and on Thursday it lit the way.

Indeed!

There are 1,100 solar panels here, but organizers say the most surprising part is it took 18 months to find financing, but it only took five days to build.
If you’re wondering what made Valdosta such a popular spot to build the solar arrays, the company, Hannah Solar says it was the attraction of the Wiregrass Biomass plant and…
“The second is the sun. We get some incredible sun down here in Valdosta and it’s a longer solar day because we’re farther south,” said Hannah Solar CEO Pete Marte.

Funny how the biomass plant has taken even longer to not find financing, and still is nowhere near even starting building, if it ever gets there. Expanding the solar array as the mayor said we would sounds a lot more practical.

-jsq

What does this mean? —Leigh Touchton

This comment from Leigh Touchton came in last night on It’s not over until it’s over. I have added links and pictures. -jsq

I asked VLCIA Board member Roy Copeland afterwards whether this means the biomass incinerator is STILL going to be built? He shrugged and walked away.
Karen Noll asked Allan Ricketts what does this mean, since we all heard Lowndes County Commission Chairman Paulk give us a very different scenario at the last LCC meeting, and his remarks were covered in the Valdosta Daily Times. Mr. Ricketts said he was not aware of Chairman Paulk’s remarks.