The event posting (noon today at Wiregrass Tech)
doesn’t say, but I’m told state
Senator Tim Golden (District 8) and
state
Rep. Amy Carter (R 175) will be there.
Event Name: State Legislative Lunch Event Type(s): Chamber Calendar
Community Calendar
MetroOne
Continue reading Description: A luncheon featuring a program presented by State Legislators on issues on top for the upcoming State Legislative Session. Tickets are $15 for Chamber members and $20 for non-members. Seating is limited!
Two cancelled, excuse me, “defer construction”, two others may not be refurbished, and six more may get shut down soon. Yay Ontario!
Jim Ostroff wrote for Platts today, Ontario to indefinitely defer new Darlington nuclear reactors: energy plan,
Ontario will indefinitely defer construction of two new nuclear power reactors at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington site; back away from firm plans to refurbish operating units at Darlington and Bruce Power’s Bruce A site; and may order the shutdown of OPG’s six-unit Pickering plant prior to the units’ scheduled 2020 closing date, the provincial government said in a long-term energy plan issued late Monday.
The province, which owns OPG, said that advances in energy conservation, enhanced efficiency and a slowdown in electricity demand growth have prompted it to revise a 2010 long-term energy plan that called for building two new reactors at Darlington, as well as refurbishment of 10 units combined at that station and at Bruce A.
Hm, conservation and efficiency. Not even shale gas.
We already know Georgia could get on with efficiency and conservation if Southern Company and Georgia Power would get out of the way. Which they will once they admit Plant Vogtle (new and old) has always been a boondoggle.
-jsq
Maybe Lowndes County could also welcome tourists instead of using them as a ticketing revenue stream that’s costing us $200,000 to process. And maybe both Lowndes County and Valdosta could put their agenda packets online like tiny (population 3,067) Tybee Island does.
Jim Galloway wrote for the AJC today, Your daily jolt: Tybee Island nixes license plate surveillance,
Tybee Island has decided that the National Security Agency isn’t a model worth following. On Monday, The coastal city’s council retracted its approval of a pair of license plate scanners intended to greet tourists. From the Savannah Morning News:
Citing mostly negative feedback from the public and concerns over how the information from the scanners would translate to a tourism study being conducted by a local professor, the council instead voted to purchase a higher quality model of the current hose-like vehicle counter the city has stretched over U.S. 80.
Meanwhile, the Lowndes County Sheriff’s office last year was Continue reading
Only two cases, for
signs in Lowndes County near Lake Park,
and for
parking at a new Denny’s in the City of Valdosta.
Here’s the agenda.
Valdosta -Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals
Matt Martin,
Valdosta Planning and Zoning AdministratorCarmella Braswell,
Lowndes County Zoning Administrator300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia (229) 259-3563 (229) 671-2430
AGENDA
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
2:30 p.m.
- Call to Order
LOWNDES COUNTY CASES:
- VAR-2013-18 — ANS Signs on behalf of Dharmesh Patel (1015 Lakes Blvd. Lake Park)
Variance to ULDC 9.01.06(A)(3)(B) as it pertains to nonconforming signsCITY OF VALDOSTA CASES:
- APP-2013-15 — Mike Woolsey (1328 N. St Augustine Rd.) Variance to LDR Section 222-2 as it pertains to minimum off street parking requirements for a restaurant
OTHER BUSINESS:
- Approval of Minutes: November 5, 2013
- Election of Officers
- Adjournment
-jsq
According to
Deep South Sanitation’s facebook page today,
DSS won
the court case brought against them by the Lowndes County Commission.
So how much money did the alleged County Attorney spend sueing a local company to benefit ADS investors in New York City? The County Commission was very concerned recently about how much the Sheriff and the Coroner spent (which the Sheriff and the Coroner ably rebutted). Why isn’t the Commission as concerned about spending money on a completely unnecessary lawsuit that they started? Why do they let that same attorney set prices for purchase orders?
That
exclusive franchise with ADS: not so exclusive anymore, is it?
Will ADS sue the county, as many people rumored was the Commission’s greatest fear?
Will the county now have to pay DSS’s attorney fees? As a taxpayer I don’t like the idea of wasting more of my tax dollars on that lawsuit, so maybe they could take it out of the fees or salaries of whoever recommended and approved that lawsuit.
Maybe somebody down at the county should
“check our work”.
-jsq
VSU’s president turns out to be a professor of environmental ethics,
as he reminded us at the
VSU Solar Canopy Ceremony 15 November 2013.
“Anytime we use coal or natural gas we are linked to fracking and of course climate change”; see separate post.
“Making this a green campus”; see separate post.
“I am committed to developing a culture of sustainability on this campus”; see separate post.
Here’s a video playlist:
Continue reading
At
installation of VSU’s solar canopy,
the president of VSU answered
SAVE’s question:
You’ve heard about how these kinds of projects can yield a relatively quick return on investment. And you all need to know that, so long as I am president, I am committed to developing a culture of sustainability on this campus. I do not believe for a moment that environmental sustainability and the long-term economic well-being of the university are contradictory goals.
He offered an autobiographical tidbit:
I began my career in academia… as a professor of environmental ethics. I didn’t leave that behind when moved into the role I’m in now. I still hold dear to that kind of thinking. I still hold dear that kind of open dialog. And I remain committed to these kinds of projects. The sun is something we have in abundance here. And I think it is something we can continue to take advantage of.
Now I will take a little bit of credit. I remember probably the most opposite of the day we have today. Back over the summer, and early in the morning, and it was already extremely hot, and we were walking around trying to decide where we were going to put the array, and we looked a couple of spots, and then we came back here.
And be able to have not only the event that we have today, but I would hope other kinds of events, because I really do see this as a starting point.
He thanked everybody involved, especially SAVE and its president Danielle Jordan for her leadership, and in absentia plant operations.
Continue reading
Dr. Noll remarked on the rain falling and said of the solar canopy:
It’s multipurpose, it provides shade, it provides shelter, and it provides renewable energy, so that makes it really awesome.
He offered as story about events and world population at those times:
1969: Apollo 11 landed on the moon when Dr. Noll was 8 years old
He said we’re entering a second solar age,
the first one being the fossilized solar power of fossil fuels.
He mentioned the solar powered long flights of the
Solar Impulse
airplane as an example of hope, and an example of accelerating change.
Then you know what we are capable of, what we can do.
He concluded: Continue reading
After repeating
SAVE’s request for VSU to
reinvest in more socially responsible options,
Danielle Jordan, President of SAVE, gave one reason why
SAVE supports fossil fuel divestment:
In our fiscally globalized world, our actions don’t stop here. Everything we do affects people half a world away. So anytime we use coal or natural gas we are linked to fracking and of course climate change. But that doesn’t have to be. We can change that. This proves it.
This was at the Solar Canopy Ceremony 15 November 2013. Continue reading
Want jobs? Invest in solar power.
There are more people in the U.S. employed in the solar energy marketplace than mining coal. The banal argument that transitioning to a clean energy economy will cost us jobs is simply false. Solar is growing more than 10 times faster than the American economy.
Solar already employs more than coal, and that gap is widening. In 2012, solar added 14,000 new jobs, up 36 percent from 2010 and the industry will add another 20,000 jobs this year. The fossil fuels industry cut 4,000 jobs last year. So when it comes to employing Americans, solar is winning.
That 119,000 jobs in the solar industry is also more than the 106,400 “production and nonsupervisory employees” in the oil and gas extraction industry, and gaining rapidly Continue reading