FoS.blog: The Friends of Seattle blog

Seattle Inventor's Prototype Personal Windmills Shows Promise

We've written about micro wind-power generation before, so we were pleased to see today's newstory about a Seattle inventor who has developed a clever design for a personal windmill.

Thomas Key, who works on the renewable-energy program of the Electric Power Research Institute, believes that micro wind-power generation is infeasible, and he cites city zoning restrictions as one obstacle. But the City of Seattle's proposed revisions to the multifamily housing zoning code would allow personal windmills to be built.

State Legislature May Ban Bag Fees

State Rep. Takko, who represents a district in the Tri-Cities area and is a huge booster of the wood-products industry (i.e., paper-bag manufacturers), had promised last summer to introduce a bill banning Washington cities from imposing bag fees like Seattle's. He has followed through on his promise:

House Bill 1154 (concerning fees or taxes on disposable shopping bags)
Introduced by Rep. Dean Takko, (D-Longview) (D) on January 14, 2009, prohibits local governments from charging a tax, fee or any monetary charge on the use or transport of disposable shopping bags.
http://www.washingtonvotes.org/Legislation.aspx?ID=69674

Now the question is whether he can get his bill out of committee, passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and signed by the Governor. Here's hoping the answer is "no."

Windy Seattle: Micro Wind Power May Not Be Economically or Environmentally Beneficial---Yet

It is likely that personal wind farms, rooftop solar panels, and the like will not save the planet, but we have a hunch that they might be one of the many little things that we can do to achieve one big thing---reduce the environmental effects of generating electricity. The Nickels administration seems to understand this, so its proposals (PDF) for revising the multifamily-housing zoning code would allow for small wind turbines and solar panels lower than 10 feet in height to be installed on the top of multifamily housing without violating the zoning code. We like this innovation. Make renewable energy lawful, as opposed to illegal.

[Photo by Glogger from the Wikimedia Commons, published under a GNU Free Documentation License]

But in the Business section of this morning's New York Times we see an article questioning the economic efficiency and the environmental benefits  of the kind of small wind turbines that would be installed on multifamily housing buildings in Seattle.

Did Anyone Else Already Know the Globe Is Dimming?

Holy crap. We sat down to watch a few minutes of TV today and turned to PBS. Our mood darkened immediately after watching a little of the NOVA program "Dimming the Sun." Air pollutants caused by human activity is not only warming the planet, but it is also reducing the amount of sunlight that penetrates the atmosphere. The consequences of global dimming are severe, with effects on rain patterns and more. But apparently the planet has been brightening lately. Check out the post at Wikipedia.