We've been working and working on our plan for wind driven ammonia and an associated greenhouse system. We've posted about it here and here.
Tonight the plan got a hearing before farmers' coops, local experts in various fields ... and the job creation aspect got totally shot down. This is still a good plan for someone and we're hoping a Kossack or two might be interested ...
We crowded people from three coops, local and county economic development, and some other random regional experts into a room and showed off our plan for a wind driven ammonia plant employing around thirty and an associated greenhouse with about two hundred jobs. Here are some of the concerns we heard:
We've already got three hundred unfilled jobs in this county and you want to add more?
We've been building hospitals and nursing homes for the last twenty years instead of apartments ... even if you could recruit people there is nowhere to put them.
Health insurance is killing us ... and if the government gives insurance and dental to everyone that'll get even worse (yes, non sequitur, I double checked this - its the Faux News effect)
Until the government decides to stop exporting jobs you're swimming upstream. Make it use as few people as possible.
Don't say anything about the possibility of burning fertilizer, we're already eyeball deep in trouble for burning food due to ethanol, and that'll make those greenpeacers even more crazy.
You won't get white people to take those jobs and ... (pregnant pause, Hispanics are to be expelled, Faux News otra vez)
I had not the heart to tell them where this idea was initially formed :-)
We're not at all broken up about this - they loved everything except the job creation and their concerns are valid for this area. We got a very pointed list of people here to see about getting the funding and we're going to get more than one built, but they'll just be using cooling ponds for the waste heat.
Now, we're trying to commercialize here and we have to do what fits the market, but this may very well be a good fit for other locations. Someone will have to do the design on the greenhouse module, we're going to do the rest of it, and we'd like to see you go forth and build something like this in your locale.
We're already posting some of the material for the site survey and development class on the Stranded Wind web site. If you're interested in crafting such an opportunity to your area we'd be glad to see you sign up and make comments on the material as it's being developed.
Thanks for all your nice comments and encouragement in our previous diaries on this matter. Those of us actively working on the commercialization would of course like to profit personally, but as long as we light this fire, breaking our agriculture's dependence on fossil fuel we'll be happy. Your taking the time to read, learn, and pass this information on is a great comfort to us.