Heritage Areas: Background, Proposals, and Current Issues
This report focuses on heritage areas designated by Congress and related issues and legislation. Over more than two decades, Congress has established 40 National Heritage Areas (NHAs) to commemorate, conserve, and promote areas that include important natural, scenic, historic, cultural, and recreational resources.
Advancing Wood Product and Tourism Businesses in Western MA – MA EOEEA
.......................................................................................................................................... i Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Background Evaluating the Challenges in Small Town Rural Economies........ 3 2.1 The Role of Small Town Economies in the United States .................................................... 3 2.2 How Berkshire and Franklin Counties are Threatened ......................................................... 4 2.3 Threats to Small Rural Town Economies ............................................................................. 6 2.4 Strategies to Mitigate Threats to Rural Economies ............................................................... 7 2.5 Seven Programs Proposed by the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership ........................... 8 2.6 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 3: Course of Action ........................................................................................................ 9 Objective #1. Determine the economic challenges that forest and tourism based businesses are facing, what they have been successful on, and their opinions on the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership’s seven proposed programs. ..................................................................................... 9 Objective #2: Determine the depth of the differing types of wood and tourism businesses in the region. ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Objective #3: Assess programs similar to the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership’s to identify factors and programmatic features that have enabled them to be successful and how they could be beneficial in Berkshire and Franklin counties. ................................................... 10 Chapter 4: What We Discovered ............................................................................................... 11 4.1 Challenges and opportunities of the programs .................................................................... 12 Finding 1: The proposed plan for creating a forestry center to educate visitors has had mixed to mostly negative reviews. ................................................................................................... 12 Finding 2: The wood pellet provision in the Partnership’s plan is drawing attention away from other helpful proposals of the Partnership. ................................................................... 12 Finding 3: The proposed grant programs of the partnership were all well received. ............ 12 4.2 Challenges that the programs missed .................................................................................. 13 Finding 4: Businesses face several barriers to creating an effective social media and marketing presence. ............................................................................................................... 13 Finding 5: The lack of high quality internet access is a barrier to business success. ............ 13 Finding 6: The lack of distribution for small woodworking businesses is causing a smaller customer base. ....................................................................................................................... 14 Finding 7: Two family run businesses are concerned with what will happen to their businesses after they retire. .................................................................................................... 14 Finding 8: There are concerns that government regulations may hamper businesses due to preexisting beliefs. ................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 5: Recommendations and Conclusion ........................................................................ 15 5.1 Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 16
Thermodynamic Evaluation of Solar Integration into a Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Plant
The term integrated solar combined-cycle (ISCC) has been used to define the combination of solar thermal energy into a natural gas combined-cycle (NGCC) power plant. Based on a detailed thermodynamic cycle model for a reference ISCC plant, the impact of solar addition is thoroughly evaluated for a wide range of input parameters such as solar thermal input and ambient temperature. It is shown that solar hybridization into an NGCC plant may give rise to a substantial benefit from a thermodynamic point of view. The work here also indicates that a significant solar contribution may be achieved in an ISCC plant, thus implying substantial fuel savings and environmental benefits.