« Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 2 today (and 9 NFP) | Main | Law - "ACLU Says Extracting DNA From Suspects Unconstitutional" »

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Environment - More on "NW Indiana counties stop residents' wind tower ventures"

Updating this ILB entry from August 15th, Vicki Urbanik of the Chesterton Tribune reports:

Porter County now has the framework in place to welcome a major new industry: Alternative energy.

The Porter County Commissioners on Tuesday approved two amendments to the county’s Unified Development Ordinance establishing the county’s first-ever regulations on wind energy systems. One ordinance spells out the rules for small-scale, individual turbines, and the other consists of regulations for large wind farms.

TradeWind Energy, based in Kansas, is currently in the process of getting leases in place from property owners in south Porter County, specifically in Pleasant Township, for a new wind farm, county officials said. The company has provided input on the new ordinance, which the county needed in order to allow the wind farm since no such rules have been in place before.

Porter County Commissioner President Robert Harper emphasized that the new wind farm ordinance was developed after an enormous amount of work by a plan commission study committee, which reviewed other ordinances and visited wind farms, including the one in Benton County. He said the county’s ordinance is no more or less restrictive than what’s in place elsewhere.

Plan Commission assistant director Ray Joseph said the TradeWind company is also satisfied with the county’s new rules, calling it a “pro-wind” ordinance. He said the company is eyeing about 10,000 acres in Porter County for the new wind farm. * * *

Both ordinances spell out various regulations dealing with height, setbacks, noise and other technical concerns.

Among the requirements for individual wind turbines is a rule that a property owner has at least 2.5 acres or else obtains a special exception from the Porter County Board of Zoning Appeals.

North Porter County Commissioner John Evans questioned if that requirement is too restrictive. Noting that turbines can require an significant upfront investment, Evans said individual property owners who want to be energy conscious might not be able to recoup their costs if they must have that large of a lot size.

But Joseph said the ordinance as it is now is only a starting point for Porter County, noting that wind turbines are a relatively new technology that the county has never regulated before.

Harper suggested suspending the rules to finalize the ordinance rather than wait for another meeting, since there are people in Porter County lining up contractors to get their wind systems in place.

The second ordinance dealing with the large-scale wind farms includes a requirement that the turbines must be located at least 1,000 feet away from minor subdivisions and 3,000 feet away from larger subdivisions and places of worship. The setbacks rules, however, can be adjusted by the BZA.

The maximum height of a wind farm turbine can be up to 500 feet. Joseph said that height is needed because the wind in Porter County tends to be of a higher elevation. The ordinance also spells the agencies that must be contacted of the route used to transport the wind turbines during construction and a ban on shadow flicker on houses and on road intersections.

"Counties hide untapped energy" is the headline to a story today by Gitte Laasby in the Gary Post Tribune:
MERRILLVILLE -- Northwest Indiana has great potential to provide renewable energy, especially wind power and biomass, according to a report released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Lake and Porter counties have a combined 475 square miles of land that's commercially viable to produce wind power.

"When wind power first began to be commercially developed in the 1980s, Indiana was thought to have insufficient wind to be a leader in commercial wind development.

But recent advances in wind power technology have doubled the height of turbines and the efficiency of production, greatly raising Indiana's future wind potential, states the report, "A Clean Energy Economy for Indiana."

Upping Northwest Indiana's wind potential is the fact that wind turbines are now as tall as 100 meters, which makes them more efficient at capturing the wind.

When BP's Fowler Ridge wind farm in Benton County became fully operational this year, Indiana became 14th in wind development in the nation.

Indiana could supply as much as 12.5 percent of its electricity use from wind, the report states.

Each of the southern halves of Lake and Porter counties also have the potential to produce 250,000 to 500,000 tons of crop-based biomass annually, the report states.

Biomass is fuels developed from crops and can be used for co-firing in existing coal-fired power plants.

Martin R. Cohen, author of the study and an independent energy policy analyst, said Indiana has "great potential" to become a nationwide leader in renewable energy because of its farmland, ample water and steady winds.

"Tapping into this vast reservoir of clean energy would create tens of thousands of high-quality jobs and give a big boost to farm income and rural communities across the state," he said.

In 2007, only 0.5 percent of Indiana's electricity was generated using renewable resources.

More about the NRDC report here. The full report is available here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 8, 2009 01:27 PM
Posted to Environment