As one of many speakers at the Wiregrass Solar commissioning this morning,
Sonny Murphy said many good things about solar, and then, almost alone
among the speakers, he volunteered some remarks about the biomass plant,
in which he made it pretty clear he intends to go ahead with it.
About solar, he praised Hannah Solar for perseverance: Continue reading
The Top 10 states that would benefit from solar deployment through generating and exporting energy to other states are:This is according to a study from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, “Optimal Deployment of Solar Index,” published in The Electricity Journal,
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Texas
- Hawaii
- Arkansas
- Wyoming
- Alabama (tie)
- Missouri (tie)
- California
This article found on WACE facebook page; thanks for locating it, WACE!
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When: 11:30 AM Thursday 12 May 2011This is according to Donna Holland, Clerical Assistant, who answered the telephone at VLCIA just now when I called to inquire.
Where: 1626 New Statenville Road/GA 94
adjacent to Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant
Where is that? Well, here’s where the Mud Creek plant is. 1626 New Statenville Highway appears to be the postal address for the same plant. Here’s a map: Continue reading
Climate Progress points out that
a new Pew poll, “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology”,
shows that
Public support for alternative energy transcends political barriers:
71% of Americans believe “This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.” And 59% believe that “strongly.”Quoting from Pew’s summary:
In light of this diversity it is interesting to note a couple of areas where almost all of these groups agree. The first is on support for alternative energy. Overall, the public prioritizes developing alternative energy over expanding oil, coal, and natural gas by a 63-29 margin. And, as shown in the chart below, seven of Pew’s eight active typology groups support this position, including a whopping 40-point margin among the Main Street Republican group. Only the staunch conservatives (9 percent of the public) dissent from the rest. Conservatives usually act like progressive ideas have no purchase in “their” part of the political spectrum. These data suggest otherwise.And no, conservatives are not the political type the south has the most disproportional percentage of: those would be Hard-Pressed Democrats and Disaffecteds.
And no, by “alternative energy” people don’t mean polluting biomass: 63% of Americans say “EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water”. What Americans want is clean renewable energy: solar, wind, and hydrogen.
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Today, a number of Native tribes, from the Lakota in the Dakotas to the Iroquois Confederacy in New York to the Anishinaabeg in Wisconsin, battle to preserve the environment for those who are yet to come. The next seven generations, the Lakota say, depend upon it.Continue reading“Traditionally, we’re told that as we live in this world, we have to be careful for the next seven generations,” says Loretta Cook. “I don’t want my grandkids to be glowing and say, ‘We have all these bad things happening to us because you didn’t say something about it.’
Part of this family and spiritual obligation to preserve
The usual place to look for state tax incentives is
DSIRETM
(Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency).
That database shows for Georgia not only state
financial incentives but also a local loan program for
Athens-Clarke County
and a local rebate program for Atlanta.
There’s a thought!
Valdosta or Lowndes County could do a loan program for real clean renewable energy!
or the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) could do that
using some of its $15 million in bonds and other debt, assuming it hasn’t
already spent all of it on locking up land.
Or Georgia Power or Colquitt Electric could do that, Continue reading
Continue readingDebby Tewa spent her first 10 years living without electricity, water, or a telephone in a three-room stone house in an isolated area of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.
Today, as a contractor to the Sandia National Laboratories Sandia Tribal Energy Program, she provides technical advice about maintaining photovoltaic (PV) units to people on Indian reservations who live remotely like she did. For many, it’s the first time they’ve had electricity in their homes.
“I can identify with the people I’m helping,” Tewa says. “Many live the way I grew up, and I fully appreciate their excitement in having electricity and light at night.”
As part of Tewa’s job, she and program director
Continue readingThe 3,000 members of the Jemez Pueblo tribe in New Mexico are looking to build the first utility-scale solar power plant on tribal land. They are also looking to make some money on it.
It is no secret that Native American tribes are more likely to be poverty-stricken and they generally have more than twice the unemployment rate of the United States. Former Jemez Pueblo governor James Roger Magdalena says, “We don’t have any revenue coming in except for a little convenience store.”
It is estimated this solar power plant could generate $25 million over the next quarter century and help create a sustainable revenue for his tribe.
Mr. Magdalena sees the environmental changes
What say we make a real national security strategy,
one based on energy independence and a sustainable economy?
Jim Dwyer write 3 May 2011 in the NY Times, A National Security Strategy That Doesn’t Focus on Threats
“Poorly fitted air conditioners cost New York City 130 to 180 million dollars a year in extra energy consumption,” one of the strategists, Capt. Wayne Porter of the Navy, said Tuesday. “They generate 370,525 extra tons of carbon dioxide.”Suppose, he says, you fixed them. And then you got the 40 states that waste the most electricity to match the 10 most efficient. The likely benefits are no surprise — less foreign oil, cost savings, job creation, decreased pollution.
Now follow that thread to “A National Strategic Narrative,” a paper written by Captain Porter and Col. Mark Mykleby of the Marines, which calls on the United States to see that it cannot continue to engage the world primarily with military force, but must do so as a nation powered by the strength of its educational system, social policies, international development and diplomacy, and its commitment to sustainable practices in energy and agriculture.
“We must recognize that security means more than defense,” they write. After ending the 20th century as the world’s most powerful country, “we failed to recognize that dominance, like fossil fuel, is not a sustainable form of energy.”
An army without an economy defends nothing. Continue reading
-jsq“Venture Beat reports that a study (PDF) by Berkeley National Labs has found that homes sold in California earned a premium for solar panels. The benefit ranged from $3900 to $6400 per kW of capacity. An earlier study found that proximity to solar or wind power may also raise home values.
PS: Hats off to Cheryl Ann Fillekes for this one.