Elkin could be site for manure-powered plant
Here's another perspective on the chicken-sh!t-power-plant idea for Surry and Wilkes counties, courtesy of (in full disclosure) my cousin Thomas Smith, Staff Reporter for the Elkin Tribune. From what I understand, there will be two follow-up articles in the Tribune on this subject: one detailing the perspectives of the counties, and another on those who may oppose it: the State Science Institute, er, I mean, an environmental group or two and successful companies such as Duke Power.
by Thomas Smith, Staff Reporter
DOBSON--Elkin could be the Surry County home for a new poultry-litter-powered energy plant.
At an open house at the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service office in Dobson Tuesday, representatives from Fibrowatt, a Pennsylvania based developer, with similar manure-fired plants in the United Kingdom and a newly-built facility in Minnesota, answered questions concerning the proposal.
The company is looking at six sites throughout the state include one on N.C. 268 East of Elkin near Gentry Road. A similar community briefing is also scheduled for Wilkes County tonight at the Walker Center at Wilkes Community College from 4 until 7 p.m.
A plan that has been two years in the making, Fibrowatt has met opposition from local environmental protection groups who say the company's claims of a renewable energy source, "cleaner than coal", are false.
Fibrowatt CEO Rupert Fraser said the company has nothing to hide about its environmental impact.
The plant which uses poultry litter to produce energy would take nearly three years to build and bring around 100 jobs to the area, 60 in the trucking industry.
Fraser said he is an environmentalist like those opposing the plant. "The people who are upset about the potential pollution from what we are doing, I feel exactly the same way," Fraser said Tuesday. "It's the reason we are in business. We are an environmental services company. We believe that because we use state-of-the-art emissions control equipment and because poultry litter contains nothing toxic to start with, the results of our combustion are as clean as they possibly can be and clean enough to satisfy the strictest possible regulatory requirement and protection of the local citizens. If we felt any differently we wouldn't be in this business."
by Thomas Smith, Staff Reporter
DOBSON--Elkin could be the Surry County home for a new poultry-litter-powered energy plant.
At an open house at the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service office in Dobson Tuesday, representatives from Fibrowatt, a Pennsylvania based developer, with similar manure-fired plants in the United Kingdom and a newly-built facility in Minnesota, answered questions concerning the proposal.
The company is looking at six sites throughout the state include one on N.C. 268 East of Elkin near Gentry Road. A similar community briefing is also scheduled for Wilkes County tonight at the Walker Center at Wilkes Community College from 4 until 7 p.m.
A plan that has been two years in the making, Fibrowatt has met opposition from local environmental protection groups who say the company's claims of a renewable energy source, "cleaner than coal", are false.
Fibrowatt CEO Rupert Fraser said the company has nothing to hide about its environmental impact.
The plant which uses poultry litter to produce energy would take nearly three years to build and bring around 100 jobs to the area, 60 in the trucking industry.
Fraser said he is an environmentalist like those opposing the plant. "The people who are upset about the potential pollution from what we are doing, I feel exactly the same way," Fraser said Tuesday. "It's the reason we are in business. We are an environmental services company. We believe that because we use state-of-the-art emissions control equipment and because poultry litter contains nothing toxic to start with, the results of our combustion are as clean as they possibly can be and clean enough to satisfy the strictest possible regulatory requirement and protection of the local citizens. If we felt any differently we wouldn't be in this business."
posted by Strother | 3:30 PM
2 Comments:
A plan that has been two years in the making, Fibrowatt has met opposition from local environmental protection groups who say the company's claims of a renewable energy source, "cleaner than coal", are false.
I would be willing to bet real money that a large percentage, if not a majority of these "local environmental protection groups" are made of NIMBYs. There is no excuse too Machiavellian for such people.
This reminds me of the Hickory Nuts in Stokes County who opposed the chip mill in Walnut Cove. They spread wild tales of the denuded desert wasteland that Stokes County would become. When that was demonstrated to be a false notion, they switched tactics to insist that having a chip mill in Stokes County would cause foresters to prefer clear-cutting over "high-grading" (taking only the desirable timber and leaving the rest). A forestry service official publicly announced that clear-cutting and re-planting was a beneficial forestry practice, much healthier and environmentally preferable to high-grading, which left a lot of scrub underbrush and unhealthy trees standing. That prompted the Hickory Nuts to switch to the environmental impact of grading the site, which turned out to be lower than that of building a shopping center, something they failed to oppose previously. After that, they were left with a lot of whining about lumber trucks running over school buses and toxic glues used in making OSB (the chip mill didn't make OSB and it's main customers were paper companies).
It is a fact that the environmental movement is the new best friend of NIMBYs everywhere.
NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard
Ah, the Hickory Tree Alliance... Those were the days. I miss those days when you were on the board, Steve.
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