The wood pellet plant annexation had one vote against, and two against the rezoning.
![[Reporters, Council, Opposition, Agenda]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/adel/2020-09-21--adel-videos/many.jpg)
Reporters, Council, Opposition, Agenda
The budget, millage, and alcohol license passed unanimously.
There was little discussion and no public input. There was a Public Hearing two weeks before.
Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a very few notes, and a few more pictures. Continue reading
Adel staff answered extensive questions about the budget, in the Adel City Council meeting, Tuesday, August 8, 2020. The proposed wood pellet plant for export to Europe was criticised by several local citizens, and defended by members of local authorities and commissions, as well as its CEO, speaking from Houston, Texas, on a laptop screen.
Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item and each speaker, with a few notes. See also Continue reading
A video of
a hearing about the biomass plant Wiregrass Power LLC proposes
to build in Lowndes County just outside of Valdosta was held
in Valdosta on 27 April 2010
by the Air Protection Branch (APD)
of the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) of the Georgia
Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Eric Cornwell of APD explains location, process flow, and specific items covered by the permit (soot, SO2, NOX, CO, VOC, HCL, etc., but not CO2). He remarks that Wiregrass Power LLC is building a small plant with a “lower emission limit in order to avoid some of the red tape” by getting a minor permit instead of a major permit. The first half hour concludes with Bob Turner, the plant manager, presenting similar material, ending with:
“No new carbon is added to the atmosphere when burning woody byproducts.”I beg to differ on that: in the time it takes trees to grow back, there is indeed new carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. More from Dr. William Sammons on that.
Back to the video of the hearing. Questions start at 00:29:44. Here are some time markers and very brief summaries of Q and A; see the video for the full questions and answers. Continue reading
Here’s an interesting
video interview
with Dr. William Sammons,
the doctor who spoke in Traverse City just before that biomass plant was nixed.
Is it more important to reach the target … or to say we have new information and we need to revise the targets and what qualifies?He’s talking about potential billions of dollars of health costs from particulates, about “waste” wood (what they say they will burn) vs. whole trees (what they end up burning), and most importantly about sustainability.
Biomass plants don’t have to report their CO2 emissions, so if all the proposed biomass plants get built we’re talking about as much as 800 million tons of CO2 from biomass plants by 2020, 12 to 14% of total CO2 emissions for the U.S. (not just power emissions: total national emissions). Trees don’t grow fast enough to suck all that back out of the air in ten years. Continue reading
Previously I promised to come back to the subject of whole trees.
Allan Ricketts asserted in the VLCIA meeting with concerned citizens
on 10 June 2010
that the biomass plant Wiregrass LLC proposed for Valdosta will never
burn whole trees because it would be economically unfeasible for it to do so.
While I have no doubt that Col. Ricketts is acting on the best information
given to him, there are reasons to be sceptical about what will happen
in the future.
Continue reading