Wed June 26 2024 Gerlach Meetup

[some seeing eye]

Gerlach is the host for the Gerlach regional burn. It's a small town, less than 200 people and a median income of about $50K. It's home to Friends of Black Rock High Rock which facilitates care for the surrounding public lands year around with feet on the ground. Some year-around residents are retired, and some residents work for the Burning Man Organization, housed in town and at the work ranch/Fly Geyser art project. There may even be a board member or two in town. Burners passing through burn week and burn months do their best to support the school, the fire department, and the few local businesses; Burning Man brought solar to the school. The community center and library just got high speed internet on fiber. The Burning Man Organization is supporting Gerlach residents on opposing drilling and industrialization of the town. When you visit, sit down and listen to the residents.

Wednesday 5:30PM-7PM at the Community Center that is exactly what the Burning Man CEO will do is listen, and update our Gerlach hosts on what is going on with the Org in Gerlach.

Sometimes they webcast these, interested readers can look that up.

[some seeing eye]

The event has speakers on energy sustainability and savings for Gerlach. The attachment has the agenda and Zoom link for webcasting.

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[some seeing eye]

https://bit.ly/3XlF0bs

three ex ell F zero bee ess

[some seeing eye]

Woops kids, it is tomorrow Thursday June 27!

[Just_Joe]

Thanks for posting these.
Both meetings were informative and the Community Center swamp cooler is always nice to experience.

[some seeing eye]

Hey Just Joe,
Thanks, hope to meet you and the Friends of Black Rock High Rock in person sometime.

As BRC and other playa campouts want more sustainability, do you think there is a place for portable solar and batteries used year around in Gerlach, then rented to visitors for a week at a time? With the proper deposits and rental fees, do you think Gerlach residents could benefit? Maybe they want to vacate their homes burn week anyway.

Pick up, drop off in Gerlach would mean they would not be an Outside Service subject to BLM management. A nonprofit could do financing and logistics resulting in resident income.

I'm cheap, so I try to have year around use or resale value for all of my BRC camping and supplies. Things like batteries don't store well for 50 weeks of the year. But I think some camps with containers or fly-in do not understand that.

[Just_Joe]

That's a great idea, and one that I know has been bantered about in some form or fashion.
As a homeowner, Ima look into this with the county. Thanks for the nudge.

[Popeye]

That's a great idea, and one that I know has been bantered about in some form or fashion.
As a homeowner, Ima look into this with the county. Thanks for the nudge.

The problem I've seen with this type of loan/rental is a lack of user operational knowledge. Campers expect the same type of performance from a solar system as they get from a generator.
Everyone kind of understands how a generator or utility works. If you overload those systems a breaker trips or the generator trips. There is a constant availability of power up to the limits of the generator.
Solar and batteries are different. They are more like a tank of electricity that the sun tries to fill up during the day. To fulfill the expectations of campers you need a surplus of panels, batteries, and charge controllers.
I think this is a good idea, and may be the future of power at the Burn, but it will require a lot of education for renters, a change in expectations.