Tag Archives: Georgia

Modeling Innovation

Much current discussion of the ACES climate bill that passed the House is about whether it will really cost one postage stamp per person per day, or maybe two stamps. This is like arguing what microcomputers will be used for in 1980. I fondly recall a prediction that “We’ll never sell millions of them unless there’s one in every doorknob!” Well, look at your average hotel today: there’s one in every doorknob.

maintech_usa.png David Roberts posts on grist.org about Why we overestimate the costs of climate change legislation, 12:09 AM on 29 Jun 2009:

As for modeling innovation, that’s always been the Achilles heel of economic forecasting. In this piece, Eban Goodstein and Hart Hodges trace a history of cost overestimations around environmental regulation. Again and again, models have underestimated the pace of business and technological innovation.

Today’s modelers surely do all they can to incorporate innovation. (As Brad notes, the CBO tries.) But there are constraints to how precisely this can be done. In 1980, McKinsey reported to AT&T that mobile subscriptions would rise to 0.9 million by 2000. The real number turned out to be … 109 million. (This factoid is among many interesting tidbits in this presentation from Vinod Khosla.)

Vinod Khosla was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, the company that mainstreamed computer workstations, has long been a venture capitalist, and has been investing successfully in renewable energy for years.

The little red square in the Nevada desert is all the area it would take to power the U.S. with solar panels. And that’s before further efficiency improvements. No reason it all has to be in Nevada, of course: Georgia has a lot of sun. Distributed is better than centralized.

Waxman-Markey Passes House

Scherer Coal Plant, Juliette, Ga.: dirtiest in the countryThe Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act just passed the House by 219-212. It’s not entirely clear what’s in it, considering the 300 pages added yesterday. But if it’s anywhere near as good as its proponents suggest, it’s a step in the right direction.

My favorite parts are actually not in the bill itself; they’re analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

  • Protect consumers from energy price increases. According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the reductions in carbon pollution required by the legislation will cost American families less than a postage stamp per day. CBO calculates that the legislation will cost the average household less than 50 cents per day.
And if that wasn’t enough:
According to the CBO score of the legislation, ACES meets PAYGO requirements. For scoring purposes, CBO considers the creation of allowances as an increase in revenues and the free distribution of allowances as an offsetting outlay. Using this methodology, CBO estimates that the legislation will raise federal revenues by $846 billion over ten years and increase direct spending by $821 billion, resulting in a net $24 billion reduction in the federal budget deficit.
No, wait, this may be the best part:
ExxonMobil (XOM) , ConocoPhillips (COP), Chevron (CVX) and the American Petroleum Industry denounced the bill,
If the oil industry hates it, there must be something good about it.

Now we’ll see if it can get through the Senate without the oil industry turning benefits for renewables into renewable subsidies for the oil industry.

And the coal industry. The picture is of the Scherer coal plant in Juliette, Georgia (near Macon), which is the biggest single point source of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., and about the third biggest in the world. Most of the electrical power used in Lowndes County currently comes from this plant.

One Day’s Pickings

Picked one day: 34 poundsMust remember to go to the garden every day; this is what happens with one day skipped. Corn, cucumber, zucchini, watermelon, yellow squash, tomato, buttercup, butternut, and eggplant. 34 pounds.

The zucchini are playing out; most of these we wouldn’t have bothered picking a week ago. The tomato, corn, and watermelon are new this picking.

South Georgia Foodways, Agrirama, Tifton, June 26th, 2009

vine cuttingAgrirama had a vine cutting Saturday for a Smithsonian food exhibit that will be there a while, with numerous accompanying events. Tuesday evening there’s Organic Gardening Basics, and Friday there’s a South Georgia Foodways Festival, among quite a few others.

Perimeter Beltline?

beltline.jpg The most common reaction to any proposal of rail transit near Valdosta or Lowndes County is “there’s not enough population”. Yet there’s this:
Another rail opponents’ argument has yet to be addressed: Atlanta is simply too spread-out to make passenger trains worthwhile. The Beltline runs in circles around the most important job center — downtown — and will have to rely instead on connections with MARTA for those commuters.

Yet, despite all that, city leaders still believe in what first Gravel imparted: take these old train tracks, make them useful and pleasant, and development will come.

It will be a different kind of development, pedestrian-friendly and a bit denser in place of the car-friendly sprawl. The new buildings that spring up around Beltline transit stops and parks will give Atlanta new places for people to live. And it will be an agreeable place, improving land values and enhancing property tax revenues.

If even sprawl-happy Atlanta can manage denser rail-based development, Lowndes County can, too. A start would be to have the bus system (Valdosta, Lowndes County, or combined) run all the way around Perimiter Road, which is the local equivalent of the Beltline.

People say the east side of Perimeter Road was intended for industry. Well, maybe, but there is already a school and at least one subdivision there, and it could also be used for affordable housing, especially if there was bus or train service.

Maybe we should try this kind of stakeholder involvement:

Tax Allocation District Advisory Committee

The TADAC is made up of stakeholders from across the broad spectrum of Atlanta and is composed of community members representing the Atlanta neighborhoods and technical experts with a commitment to making the BeltLine a success for the City. Including experience in the area of parks and trails planning and development; transit planning and development; finance and business; complex project management; affordable housing; urban planning; arts and culture; historic preservation; green building principles and other subjects relevant to the BeltLine.

Instead of holding a few meetings and hoping people show up (and that is already an improvement over previous days), maybe actively seek out stakeholders both pro and con and get them regularly involved.

-jsq

Staten Road Bridge Opens After 15+ Years

Bridge Opening, Staten Road, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 May 2009 WCTV reports on the opening of the new Staten Road bridge in Lowndes County yesterday (27 May):
“We live at the north end of the county and for us our choices to come to town are Bemiss Road, Val del or the highway…drive all the way over to 75, so this is just a direct route from where we live in the north end to top of town,” said Gretchen Quarterman, a local resident.

“Today is like opening a Christmas present,” said Lowndes County Commissioner Richard Lee. “We’re excited. I cut the ribbon. I opened my present and I just took a ride on it and it’s absolutely smooth as silk.”

The picture, by Gretchen, shows the opening party, with left to right: Larry Miler, environmental compliance director for Lowndes County, Jeffrey Chiu who designed the three spans of the bridge, Richard Lee, county commissioner for District 2, which contains the bridge, Brian Starling, GDOT project engineer; Joyce Evans, commissioner; Jerry Hughes, GDOT area engineer; Ashley Paulk, county commissioner, who lives in District 2; Craig Solomon, GDOT communications officer; and Mike Fletcher, county engineer.

Most of the money came from the state, to the tune of something like $6 million. The county also paved Staten Road from the bridge south to McMillan Orr Road.

The VDT has some good pictures of he bridge itself and more detail.