Had a good news/bad news week.
I'm out at the Nevada place. Now that things are getting together at the CA townhouse I'm startig to set up for actually putting in the alternative energy stuff out here.
One of the reasons we chose this site is that there are both wind and solar resources available, and a number of the surrounding places have solar panels, wind turbines, and the like. And I'd done some research on the state laws and was under the impression that the only significnat limit was a max of three mills before being considered a "wind farm" for rule and tax purposes.
So I went in to the county planning and code people in Tuesday to find out what the zoning and code requirements were. Rural wind generation has been around since before rural grid power, and rural water-pump windmills for longer. So I expected it to be just electrical code details and structural requirements for the tower, if it was regulated at all.
Pretty much everybody at the planning/code/building inspection dept was out except the junior guy. Imagine my surprise when he told me:
- Douglas County NV banned ALL wind power, (the wind machines nearby were non-code scofflaws), but
- There was a new ordinance to allow it going through,
- The proposed regulations was a bureaucratic web that would make a Californian micromanager jealous,
- Which would limit me to one mill, max 10 ft diameter at 35 feet, sited REALLY poorly (either dangerously close to the house or blocking the neighbor's view of the valley with the battery shed over the well), commercially built (big buck$), yadda yadda, and
- The "second reading" (and up/down vote) would be the NEXT DAY!
(And by the way: solar instalations must be "screened" by landscaping or the like so they're not visible from off the property.)
So I took the home a copy of the proposed ordinance home and went back on Thu to deliver my objections in the "public comment" session before the vote. (I'd have liked to discuss this with you guys and solicit ideas, but the meeting was at 1:00 so I hardly had time to read the darned ordinance and had to wing it.)
It turns out that the state government had passed a law in '05 mandating the counties change their zoning and code to promote eco-friendly construction materials and energy cogeneration (calling out wind / solar power generation and straw-bale insulation as prime examples of what was to be promoted). Douglas County's commissioners had handed the job of drafting the ordinance changes to the code guys, who assigned it to the new guy, and this led to the straight-jacket proposal and a two-year (so far) "controversey" (i.e much hooraw).
At the meeting there were a number of other "public commenters", mostly also pro-wind-power, anti-straightjacket. (A couple NotInMyBackYard urban types waited 'til the end to wave strawmen. Everybody else said that this was intrusive overregulating bullhockey.)
The commissioners seemed to agree that the ordinance was too tight - my reading was that at least half of 'em were genuinely of that position (one saying he'd like a mill himself but the current rules would ban it), the others harder to read but at least giving it lip service. They passed it (alternative being to completely ignore the state mandate and leave mills illegal), but with their own mandate that the issue be reopened in 9 months to a year to substantially lower the bar. (I.e. directing the code guys to come up with a better proposal and integrating it into their workload cycle.)
After the meeting I got together with some of the other commenters and the junior guy from the code department. At first he seemed to be open to going with the commission mandate, but it soon developed that he was refractory on his position. (Conversational dynamic: He'd give his reasons for a particular restriction, but when we'd try to propose a more reasonable answer to the concern or show him how to compute an more reasonable upper bound on a hazard, he'd defend the position {sometimes citing his own ignorance of engineering and/or unwillingness to rely on the opinions of even certified experts such as civil engineers}, and quickly switch to another subject. If he'd been genuinely interested in upgrading the ordinance, as directed, rather than fighting tooth-and-nail to keep his red tape intact, he'd have stuck with each subject to collect the suggestions as a starting point for his own work.) After a few iterations of this, two of us simultaneously declared that it was clear he wasn't interested in what we had to say and we all walked off to continue our discussion without him.
= = = =
My take at this point is that there's little chance that the code department that produced this crypto-ban, world-as-padded-cell ordinance after two years of public wrangling will come up with anything reasonable when they revisit it in another nine months - without (or even with) external prodding. So what I'd like to do over the next few months is come up with a more reasonable model code to submit as an alternative. Something that would permit owner-built equipment rather than requiring use of commercial gear, would permit experimental designs, and would have safety standards that would protect the neighbors without mandating $100,000 commercial approval processes designed by big manufacturers to keep small fry from competing.
I was wondering:
- if the people on this board think this approach is a good idea,
- would be interested in participating (perhaps in concert with other wind-power players), and
- if the board itself (either main-line postings or diary entries) might be a good venue for these discussions.
= = = =
Presuming there's interest: The next posting will give the text of the ordinance to kick off a discussion of what needs fixing.
Please make it a Diary. This is somewhat marginal topic wise. T
