Land and Sun Needed

As alternative energy initiatives are on the forefront of The United States agenda, CA’s very own Antelope Valley is “plugging in”! This article talks about a brand new “solar park”…so cool – green companies can go build there and plug in!  AND, I can place your retirement dollars in the dirt underneath it! Wouldn’t you like to control THAT DIRT…ie. have a green company buy/lease your land at your price?

Council lights way for solar energy parks

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Thursday, May 28, 2009.

By BOB WILSON 
Valley Press Staff Writer

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LANCASTER – With a unanimous vote, the City Council on Tuesday agreed to help turn the Antelope Valley into a hothouse for solar power.

Working with a Delaware corporation called DayStar Farms, the city has agreed to help the company develop, own, operate and promote “solar parks” – ready-made sites for solar-energy companies to establish operations.

With the city’s help, DayStar Farms would obtain the land, install the transmission lines and seek the environmental clearances and government permits needed for solar-energy companies to become operational at the parks.

DayStar’s founder and chief executive officer, Wayne Stevens, said his goal is to make the Antelope Valley the “Silicon Valley of the solar industry.”

The parks would be prepared to accept any solar-based firm, Stevens said. “It doesn’t matter what the technology is, whether it’s a large solar plant or a small experimental plant.”

DayStar intends to develop more than one park in the area, the first of which is intended to generate one gigawatt of electricity, he said.

That amount would be enough to power about 800,000 homes, which is more than all the homes in north Los Angeles County, Stevens said.

More than 20 firms are attempting to establish about 50 plants intended to generate about 25 gigawatts of solar power, but few are expected to be successful because of environmental and permit-approval problems, he said.

Establishing business parks specifically for such projects would make the Antelope Valley a destination for those firms, Stevens predicted.

“What the industry needs is a place where they can come and build solar-power plants,” he said. “If you had the entire world to do that, the natural place to do it is the Antelope Valley.”

That’s because the Valley has an abundance of sun, an abundance of level land and an abundance of consumers in metropolitan Los Angeles, Stevens said.

“What you are missing is a large parcel of land with some sort of blanket-permitting that’s basically ready to go,” he said.

What he needs from the city is assistance in “putting together a coalition of political stakeholders and community stakeholders to make this happen,” Stevens said.

“We are looking for support in building up the transmission (infrastructure) and perhaps applying for federal stimulus money,” he continued, noting the effort will likely take several years.

“We’re also looking to your city staff for the expertise in working with all the other regional and state agencies that we need to deal with to make this a reality,” Stevens said.

With Lancaster’s help, DayStar would like to encourage participation from Palmdale, the county and the state, he said.

One person in the audience submitted a speaker card to comment but the request was denied because the card was submitted after Stevens began speaking.

bwilson@avpress.com

Write out your financial New Year’s resolution today!

I wanted to start out today, January 1st, 2009, with a reminder (mostly to myself) that it is very important to write out our goals.  My favorite way to write out a financial goal is to follow Napoleon Hill’s Six Ways to Turn Desires into Gold from Think and Grow Rich.

FIRST:  Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire.  It is not sufficient merely to say “I want plenty of money.”  Be definite as to the amount.

SECOND:  Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire.  (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)

THIRD:  Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

FOURTH:  Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.

FIFTH:  Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

SIXTH:  Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning.  As you read – see and feel and believe yourself already in possession of the money.

Have fun writing out your financial goal TODAY!

Antelope Valley to Become an “Energy Incubator”

One of the areas in Southern California that my company offers for investment is the Antelope Valley.  This area is projected to grow by 38,000 residents by 2012.  That’s 30 people per day moving into the Valley from now until 2012. We will face a housing shortage and will need 12,000 to 15,000 new housing.

Construction costs, including labor, is reasonable now due to the slowdown in the residential housing market.  You should see Antelope Valley today.   New roads and amenities are being installed all over the place.  The city is taking advantage of the low costs to make the improvements now for the coming rush.

Antelope Valley is also vying to become the “energy incubator” of Southern California in efforts to go green as well as boost its local economy by creating jobs.

The Antelope Valley these days is about a company called eSolar, which is putting the finishing touches on a thermal solar energy facility here — 24,000 mirrors that glitter like diamonds when you approach on Avenue G. There are plans for several more facilities in the area, all larger, the company says.

This directly benefits 3 of my investors’ parcels.  They only invested a year and a half ago, and are already seeing improvements.

Madoff…What a crook!

The $50 billion Ponzi Scheme that Bernard Madoff pulled on organizations, companies and individuals is quite sickening to me.  The lesson to learn here is that when you are investing your hard-earned money into a company – which is essentially what you are doing when you are buying stock in a company – you must know who the company is, what they do, what is their long-term track record, etc.  Their must be transparency.  

In my opinion, however, buying stock is like throwing darts.  That is why I stick with what I know, my company.  It has a 30 year track record, in the green on the Dunn and Bradstreet Report, a member of the Better Business Bureau (by invitation only), no consumer lawsuits, over 60,000 acres of experience (all recorded at the county recorder’s office) and over 20,000 satisfied investors.

Port of Los Angeles will expand.

This article is evidence of the economic growth of Southern California in the future, despite what’s going on in the U.S. economy right now. Once these goods come to port, they need somewhere to go…big box distribution warehouses. The warehouses require 80 acres to be built. There is only 1 place in SoCal where this is affordable. It’s TOO EXPENSIVE to build near the port, and their isn’t enough land. The warehouses will be built in Antelope Valley.

Port terminal expansion OK’d

By Art Marroquin, Staff Writer

Article Launched: 12/18/2008 11:11:14 PM PST

After six years of delays and legal wrangling, China Shipping Holding Co. will finally undergo a massive $85million expansion at the Port of Los Angeles under a plan approved Thursday by the Board of Harbor Commissioners.

The shipping terminal will be able to process nearly 70 percent more cargo containers while producing fewer diesel emissions over the next two decades, according to the project’s environmental impact report.

If the plan was denied, China Shipping likely would have pulled operations out of the Port of Angeles, officials told the harbor commission.

“It strikes me that we have everything to gain for the environment as well as the economy by going forward with this,” said S. David Freeman, president of the harbor commission.

In a related move, the commission awarded a $6.7million construction management contract to Pasadena-based Parsons Water and Infrastructure Inc. to oversee the China Shipping and TraPac terminal expansion projects. The $102million TraPac expansion plan was approved a year ago.

Expansion plans for the China Shipping terminal, now located at Berths 97-109, call for dredging the terminal’s berthing areas, building 2,500 feet of new wharf and nearly doubling its size to 142 acres by 2030.

The project is also expected to result in a 52percent reduction in smog-forming nitrogen oxides, more than 70percent less particulate matter and a 95percent reduction in sulfur oxides, which come from ship exhaust fumes, port officials said.

China Shipping will also build a berth equipped with Alternative Maritime Power technology, allowing ships to literally plug into a generator and operate on electrical power while docked.

“China Shipping has been a cooperative partner with the Port of Los Angeles by implementing cutting-edge environmental technology,” said Zhang Bing, president of China Shipping’s operations in North America.

The National Resources Defense Council asked the harbor commission to delay a decision on the project, pending the outcome of the Federal Maritime Commission’s ruling on the legality of the port’s Clean Trucks Program.

Environmental mitigation measures contained in the China Shipping terminal plan and other port expansion projects hinge on implementation of the program, which aims to reduce diesel truck emissions by 80percent within five years. If the program is invalidated, then the port’s lofty expansion plans would likely be scrubbed, said David Pettit, an NRDC senior attorney.

“I think if the Clean Trucks Program stands up, then I think this is a project worth supporting,” Pettit said. “But with the FMC’s malicious activities, it’s not entirely clear whether the Clean Trucks Program will stand up in court or not.”

China Shipping also plans to construct several buildings, a truck entry gate and add

10 cranes that threaten to block views of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. To compensate for that, port officials added 60 community mitigation measures to the project, including a new park along Beacon Street to create an outlook area to the historic bridge.

“If we delay the project, we’re going to further delay implementing the mitigation measures, which we need to improve our air quality,” said Harbor Commissioner Kaylynn Kim. “This is also a good opportunity to grow the port and add jobs.”

China Shipping opened its 75-acre terminal at the Port of Los Angeles in June 2004, but the terminal operator had run into a series of legal hurdles that prevented any kind of meaningful expansion.

A coalition of homeowners and environmentalists had complained that the project’s initial environmental review was incomplete. To make up for that, port officials took a second look at work already completed on the terminal, along with the proposed expansion plan.

The City Council approved a $22.2million settlement with China Shipping in 2005 to cover the costs of a two-year delay in opening the company’s terminal. The port also agreed in 2003 to pay for $50million worth of environmental improvements in the Harbor Area as part of a settlement with community groups.

art.marroquin@dailybreeze.com