On the LAKE Front

Softbank's Son to install solar in Japan: watch out, Georgia Power!

The same Masayoshi Son who shook up Japan's Internet market and is about to do the same in the U.S. is moving to modify Japan's power market from nuclear to solar. Watch out, Georgia Power and Southern Company! If you don't get a move on, Son-san will eat your lunch, too.

Mariko Yasu wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek 23 June 2011, Softbank's CEO Wants a Solar-Powered Japan,

Billionaire Masayoshi Son made a fortune taking on Japan's phone monopoly. Now he aims to shake up its power utilities after the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The 53-year-old chief executive officer of Softbank says he will build solar farms to generate electricity, with support from at least 33 of Japan's 47 prefectures. He's asking for access to transmission networks owned by the 10 regional utilities and an agreement that they buy his electricity. No other company has secured unlimited access to the those transmission networks. The utilities would not comment. Japan's main business organization, the Keidanren, called for "careful analysis" before any drastic change in the power system took place.

If Japan ever felt ready to back Son's ambitious plan, this is the moment. Radiation has spread across at least 600 square kilometers (230 square miles) in the northeast since the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. Outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in May he will rethink a plan to increase atomic power to 50 percent of the nation's energy output from 30 percent. Renewable energy already accounts for 10 percent, according to Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Son wants to see that tripled by 2020. "The question is how this nation is going to survive after cutting nuclear power," he said at a government panel meeting on June 12.

Complacent Georgia Power and SO, you maybe don't think he can do it? NTT probably thought that, too:

Industrial Authority has to be congratulated —Michael G. Noll

Received yesterday on WCTV on biomass site VLCIA v. Sterling Planet. -jsq

Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE) have made it clear from the start that biomass plants have a number of issues: 1) biomass plants bear significant health risks; 2) biomass plants waste enormous amounts of water; 3) biomass plants are risky investments in an increasingly competitive energy sector; and 4) biomass plants contribute to global warming.

In the light of rising global temperatures, worsening drought conditions, and dropping prices for solar panels, an increasing number of people are understanding these simple truths.

The Industrial Authority has to be congratulated for the courage to admit that energy from biomass plants is indeed more expensive than energy from solar plants, and we have not even figured in the costs associated with the consequences of air pollution coming from biomass plants.

(For more information on biomass plants, here a testimony I recently gave: http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/120828_WACE-Comments-Docket_NO-E-100_SUB113.pdf)

Although this point has already been made earlier, note again that solar plants are much better alternatives, economically and environmentally: they do not pollute our air, they do not need any water, and a huge spill of solar energy is simply called a sunny day ... of which we have plenty here in the south.

-Michael G. Noll

-jsq

 

WCTV on biomass site VLCIA v. Sterling Planet

WCTV does what VDT dares not: Greg Gullberg mentioned last year's biomass protests in the first sentence of this story about the Industrial Authority threatening to sue Sterling Planet to get clear title to the former proposed biomass plant site.

Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV yesterday, Dispute Over Land For Proposed Biomass Plant,

The vocal protests in Valdosta are long gone, but the controversy over the proposed Biomass plant lingers. This time not for concerns of health safety, but over the land.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority plans to sue Wiregrass Power LLC to end its contract.

Ban the Burn Go 100% Solar.

The proposed Biomass Plant was supposed to be a low-cost source of efficient energy. Supporters say it would have created hundreds of jobs. But opponents say the health risks include cancer, lung disease and respiratory disease.

750,000 gallons of water each day

Tell me, Col. Ricketts, doesn't it feel better to be visibly on the side of the people, instead of having to defend a bad business deal?

VLCIA to sue Sterling Power about biomass site?

I'd heard a rumor that some sort of lawsuit about the biomass site was the subject of some of the Industrial Authority executive sessions for real estate discussions. VLCIA has finally said in public what their position is.

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today, Authority weighs suit for biomass land: Slow progress leads to default, contract argument

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority plans to send a petition to Lowndes County Superior Court to sue Wiregrass Power, LLC, for a clear title on the land purchased for the development of a biomass energy plant.

The Authority believes Wiregrass defaulted on a lease agreement to build the plant, placing ownership of the 22.22-acre tract back in their hands, but Wiregrass denies the allegations. This denial casts “a cloud” of suspicion on the Authority that may prevent it from re-marketing the property, according to the petition, leading to the suit.

Sounds like they're publicizing their intent to try to scare Sterling off without having to sue. I'm for that.

This may explain a flurry of special called meetings they had in May and June 2011.

Let's put Lowndes County on the Clean Economy Map!

Look where those clean economy jobs are:

Among regions, the South has the largest number of clean economy jobs though the West has the largest share relative to its population. Seven of the 21 states with at least 50,000 clean economy jobs are in the South. Among states, California has the highest number of clean jobs but Alaska and Oregon have the most per worker.

A per-county map is included, on which you can see North Carolina and Atlanta, but nothing in south Georgia. Let's put Lowndes County on the clean energy map!

The gigaom article recommends:

To help boost the clean energy economy even more, the Brookings report suggests that Congress could pass a national clean energy standard, put a price on carbon, use the government as a chief customer of cleantech goods (Obama has been strong on this), find more ways to help proven clean technologies pass the so-called Valley of Death, as well as increase funding for basic science and early-stage high risk projects (like the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program).

That's good stuff, but we don't have to wait for the feds. The Wiregrass Solar plant sets a precedent that we can build on. That plant is readily expandable to an additional megawatt. It can also be used to attract financing for other projects, projects that can use local labor, for example solar electricity and hot water like the example in Quitman.

Lots of places have forged ahead into real clean energy on their own, such as Birmingham, England and San Antonio.

Sure, we're not nearly as big as those places, or so local "leaders" remind me. So let's find some projects of our scale that we can do, and let's do them! A real leader might say, as Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio did, that renewable energy is

“...the nexus between sustainability and job creation. Every now and then, perhaps once in a generation, there presents itself a moment, an opportunity, for those cities that are willing to seize it, to truly benefit the region for generations to come.”

That opportunity is right here in south Georgia, waiting for us to seize it.

-jsq

Many ways Valdosta can stop biomass

VDT says Only city can stop biomass. Well, maybe not only, but they could, by some of the things VDT suggested.

There are other things Valdosta could do, such as what the VSU Faculty Senate did: pass a resolution opposing biomass. Remember, the mayor of Gretna, Florida did that. If little old Gretna can do it, TitleTown USA can do it!

The Valdosta City Council could also hold an ethics investigation of their own appointees to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, on the topic of why those appointees are in favor of a project with demonstrated health hazards to the community.

Short of that, Valdosta could demand transparency from VLCIA:

Lowndes County could stop biomass plant

VDT is not quite right when it says Only city can stop biomass. The Lowndes County Commission could do it.

According to Ashley Paulk, a few months ago VLCIA approached the Lowndes County government, asking them to ask VLCIA not to extend Sterling Planet's contract for the biomass plant. Chairman Paulk refused to accept that hot potato and instead laudably told the community what was going on. Yet there was a bit of a good idea in what VLCIA was asking. Lowndes County could pass an ordinance such as VDT is suggesting banning the incineration of human feces.

Remember, Lowndes County rezoned the land for the plant. It's time to review that rezoning to see if in light of new information it should be rescinded. According to the VDT, Wiregrass Power LLC supplied a fake timeline, so it wuld not be interesting to know what else they said wasn't true?

For that matter, wasn't the rezoning to build a certain biomass plant according to a certain plan which has no expired? Maybe the rezoning is already null and void and the Commission just needs to declare it so.

Short of that, the Lowndes County Commission could demand transparency from VLCIA:

No land for solar in Georgia?

Nelson Hawk, after an excellent panel presentation at the Georgia Solar Summit, repeated the old canard that there's not much land available for solar in the southeast. I couldn't stand it, and blurted out "parking lots!" And airports, and road rights of way, and, let me think: rooftops! Or waste water treatment plants, like Valdosta just used, or barns on the north edges of fields, or the acreage Georgia Power is wasting on nuclear plants, or....

Gretchen Quarterman and Dan Corrie

Dan Corrie notes that Cobb EMC bought up 3600 acres in Ben Hill County for a coal plant. That acreage could generate quite a bit of solar power!

-jsq

A mix is the way to go —Dr. Noll

This comment from Dr. Noll came in today on San Antonio promises to shut down a coal plant:

Of course we can! And "a mix of energy efficiency, [energy conservation,] and new renewable energy projects" (e.g. solar, wind, geothermal)is the way to go. We simply need the political will and communal support to make such a transition possible.

I am still in Germany and am amazed to see just how much progress has been made here in these past couple of years. Solar thermal and solar voltaic installations abound on private residences; wind mills can be seen in many regions; cars are more fuel efficient, houses better insulated, public transportation accessible and affordable, recycling thoroughly organized, etc.

We may still have a long way to go, but until

San Antonio promises to shut down a coal plant

We could do something like this. We've already made a start with Wiregrass Solar.

San Antonio, the Clean-Energy City? Look out Austin, SA Mayor Julian Castro promises to shut-down a coal plant by 2018.

At an event this afternoon at UT-San Antonio, Mayor Julian Castro announced a suite of green energy projects that he said would position San Antonio as the nation's "recognized leader in clean energy technology" and help fulfill his aggressive environmental goals.

Most notably, Castro and leaders from CPS Energy, the city-owned utility, pledged to shut down one of its coal-fired power plants 15 years ahead of schedule. By 2018, the city would mothball the 871-megawatt J.T. Deely Power Plant — a bold move in a growing state that's seemingly addicted to coal.

So what are they going to use for energy?