| Letters |
LUPs avoid development chaos Recently, Canton West advocates expressed that developers who promised “Master Planned” communities were the solution to chaotic development in Canton and Cherokee County. Unfortunately, a plan by a developer is often just a piece of pretty public relations. There is no guarantee the developer will not sell to other developers who have their own ideas, or that any planned amenities or contributions to roads or schools will ever materialize. The purpose of a state-mandated Land Use Plan (LUP) is to allow municipalities to manage the intensity, the type and the character of development as they grow. LUPs allow citizens and elected officials to “Master Plan” their own destiny. Additionally, an LUP assures that services provided by the environment, such as providing clean water and clean air, are protected for all stakeholders. Finally, a LUP provides for the cost-efficient development of roads and schools. Chaotic development happens here because previous Cherokee County Boards of Commissioners ignored LUPs, and cities either had no plans – or did not follow what they had. It takes years for a development to build out. Subsequently, many officials who approved developments out of character with the surrounding communities or beyond the capacity of infrastructure have left office by the time the tsunami of chaos they approved slams citizens. The best way to assure that growth does not devastate our quality of life in the 15th fastest-growing county in United States is not to turn our futures over to developers, but to insist that our elected officials follow a responsible LUP.
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Drilling prolongs oil dependence The offshore drillers have missed, or ignore, some important facts. American-drilled oil goes into an international pool. “Our” own oil costs us the same as Saudi oil. Any influence our drilling may have on the supply is in the distant future, and the effect will be to reduce our pump price by about 1 percent, or less. That’s not a great gain for the environmental risk of drilling. More importantly, however, even if drilling was more productive, it is the wrong solution, as is any solution that encourages the continued use of oil. The more appropriate solutions are those that move us away from oil toward clean, green energy. Let’s push for investment there rather than in drilling oil.
Bill Majure |
Domestic drilling will cut prices Of course there’s no quick fix to our country’s energy issue. Almost every car, boat, airplane, truck, bus, mower, you name it runs on petroleum. We knew this was coming 30 years ago, and, now that the pill is hitting home, we are supposed to throw out the bath water and start over. Fine, I agree. I don’t want our money supporting countries that don’t like us, our values or our way of life. I’m tired of watching dictators just roll over border nations and gobble up oil reserves and pipelines. Our soldiers and their families have been holding the line for far too long. I get it. I understand we need new renewable energy resources, but where is this “silver bullet solution?” We’re all ready for it .... I’m still waiting … All I hear is silence …. It must be a conspiracy. Every day I look for the rapid development alternative the letter-writer mentioned. I have a family to feed and bills to pay. The economy is tough enough, and we’re supposed to just forget about the car in the driveway we make payments on every month? Just forget about the rising costs of food, getting to work, costs to heat and cool our homes? Great, get mad at whomever. Keep looking into that crystal ball, and when you find the next greatest energy bonanza, we will all meet you back at reality when you return. I’ll be the first in line to sign up, but, at this point, it’s all just talk. Together we can make a difference. Drill here. Drill Now. Pay Less.
Tim Hamlin |
| Halls of Fame worthy of funding Dear Editor, This letter is in response to one by Alan Powell criticizing the governor and state House for certain budget appropriations. (“Cut Halls of Fame from budget,” Aug.27). It should be made clear that three of the examples he cited as wasteful, and then sarcastically stated as “important,” truly are important. The Aviation Hall of Fame at Warner Robins and the Music and Sports Halls of Fame in Macon serve many thousands of public, private and home-schooled children each year (in addition to the general public). Looking at last year alone, our company took almost 2,000 students on field trips to these sites. Each of these venues provides school groups with meaningful educational programs which correlate directly to Georgia performance standards at various grade levels. And, because of the continued budgetary support from the state of Georgia, these venues remain affordable to parents and teachers who choose to have their children attend field trips to these locations. Further to the point, and including the Golf Hall of Fame, all of the aforementioned locations are informally part of the Georgia tourism network. Tourism is a terrific industry in the state of Georgia and one that produces significant tax revenues. Perhaps if the gentleman had restricted his statement of displeasure to that with a certain political party rather than single out the education-based establishments which he denigrated, his comments would have been credible. David Freund |
| Wikipedia on alternative energy Dear Editor, In hopes of providing some useful facts about alternative energy and the solution of the Gasoline Crisis, I’ve done some research on Wikipedia. Where we want to be is that all vehicles are powered by cheap electricity, stored in cheap and powerful batteries. Houses would have HVAC systems also using only electricity. It’s clean, safe, and basically simple. But there are two problems: First, electricity is not cheap, and certainly not clean if it comes from coal. Nuclear power plants are the answer, but fission power plants as we have today are a little dangerous and produce a worrisome byproduct. Wind, geothermal, tide-powered and solar panel electricity are clean, but just aren’t economically feasible except in minor circumstances, and never will be. Power companies, like the oil companies and all other corporations must do what is cheapest and most profitable or the CEO will be fired. They really don’t care how they make their money, as long as they make it. It’s how things work. Solar panels seem like such a good idea, but they come in three generations. Generation 1 is where we are today, accounting to 90 percent of all production. They are somewhat pricey and have a miserable 33 percent efficiency, which is actually the theoretical maximum for that generation of panels. Generation 2 uses very pricey materials and gets somewhere between 33 percent and 66 percent. Generation 3 is still in research and will, if successful, produce 67 percent efficiency. Given the cost of production and the efficiency rates, solar panels will continue to have only specialized uses. There is good/bad news, however: fusion nuclear power (also having three generations) promises clean, totally safe, virtually nonpolluting, cheap electrical power. Oddly enough, such power plants need power coming in to produce power coming out. Right now, we are at generation one, in which the power plant works, but has 65 percent of the power coming out from the 100 percent going in. Obviously, that doesn’t work well. But generation three promises at least 10 times the power out, perhaps 25 times. The target date is 2040. So, around 2040, all the fission power plants be obsoleted by the fusion plants, the use of oil products will drop to nearly nothing, and the air quality in the Atlanta area will be outstanding. This is wonderful, but there are two bad things: OPEC members knows that the party will be over at that time, so they have to make the most money possible until then. And oil/electric companies know that building oil wells, refineries, fission nuclear plants and long transmission lines from wind power will be junk in less than thirty years. That doesn’t play well with boards of directors. Jumping quickly to cars, SUVs, trucks and such, conversion to electrical power has not only the need for cheap electricity but also a means of storing it. Batteries today are hardly better than they were in Thomas Edison’s day. That’s why John McCain proposed a $300 million prize for a breakthrough in battery technology. If you have cheap electricity but don’t have the batteries then hydrogen fuel cell cars are an answer: it take lots of electricity to produce the hydrogen, it’s dangerous and needs heavy tanks and the average citizen perhaps couldn’t refuel his own car, but in effect it’s a way of storing electrical power. Clean, simple, powerful, totally non-polluting. Perhaps big trucks will be the best use of this. Hybrids are complicated, don’t have such great highway mileage, and are expensive. But they, like the purely electrical powered cars are OK for limited commutes. We’ll see a lot more of them until 2040. The new GM car that is electrical but has a backup gasoline generator is better since it is not as complicated as a hybrid or as limited range as a pure electrical car. That’s how diesel locomotives work: the diesel generates electrical power, there’s a bank of batteries, and electrical motors drive the wheels. A nice feature is called dynamic brakes: when you want to slow down you run the generator in reverse, making the wheel-motors generate electricity and recharge the batteries. The bottom line is that there are no easy, quick, simple answers to how we’re going to be squeezed by OPEC for the next 32 years. If we produce more oil, they can simply drop production to compensate. Lowering production will cost them income, however. Reducing consumption will help quite a bit. Figuring out a way to build fission nuclear power plants despite their limited life will help a lot, but, for the most part, it’s a tough, complicated set of problems.
Robert Holroyd |
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103 East Main Street |
