In Everyone’s Backyard? Facing the Challenge of Energy Sprawl

A new international movement is rising. First as a breeze, then a gale. Soon, perhaps, a Category 5 hurricane? What is it? It’s the movement against wind power. Solar, too, has its opponents, but it is wind that, until now, has faced the stiffest resistance.

In the United States, the opposition to both wind and solar is becoming more organized. ¹ For several years, Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has been keeping track of opposition to renewable energy projects in the United States. ² Its most recent report (May 2023) identified 293 renewable energy projects that have encountered significant grass-roots-led opposition, and no fewer than 45 states have introduced restrictions of various kinds to the siting of wind turbines. ³

In all but three states (Alaska, Arizona, and Mississippi), either local governments have enacted laws and regulations to block or restrict renewable energy facilities or local opposition has resulted in the delay or cancelation of projects. The report found “at least 228 local restrictions across 35 states, in addition to nine state-level restrictions, that are so severe that they could have the effect of blocking a renewable energy project.” ⁴ The state-by-state assessment concluded that, “local opposition to renewable energy facilities is widespread and growing and represents a potentially significant impediment to achievement of climate goals.”

Most of the restrictions on wind have been related to noise (thus sleeplessness, headaches, etc.), vibration, shadow flicker, and the impact on farm animals as well as bats and birds. In late July 2023, county commissioners in Erie County, Ohio, voted unanimously to ban all large wind projects. One told the local press, “We have been contacted by more citizens who have asked us to do this than anything else in my time as commissioner.” Another said that residents “don’t want a wind turbine that’s 750 feet tall to be located near their homes.” ⁵

As we will see, the United States is not alone. The pushback against wind and solar installations is a global phenomenon, and not just in rich countries. In the Global South, indigenous groups and rural communities have clashed with wind project developers who, they claim, have stolen land, misled local populations, and resorted to bribery and physical force to get their projects approved. ⁶

Greta and the Reindeer

The emergence of this movement poses a challenge to both the United States and the international left, as well as climate activists, presenting what appears to be a “which side are you on?” moment. But although the question is clear enough, the answer is not.

The challenge for the left and the climate movement was captured by the circumstances surrounding the March 2023 arrest of Greta Thunberg in Oslo. Along with others, the internationally known 20-year-old Swedish climate activist was carried away by police officers during a sit-in. The protest was not against the disingenuous “blah blah blah” climate do-nothingness of politicians. Neither was it against investors who continue to finance fossil fuel projects. Rather, she was arrested for protesting a wind farm that was built on the land of the indigenous Saami community in western Norway, whose traditional lands stretch across Scandinavia and western Russia. Time magazine reported, “[Saami] herders say their animals are terrified by the noise and sight of the turbines leaving the lands unsuitable for grazing and the fate of the area’s Saami in jeopardy.” ⁷ A year before Thunberg’s arrest, the Norwegian Supreme Court determined that the project violated the right of Saami families to practice their culture of reindeer husbandry. But the 151 turbines, each standing at 285 feet, remain in operation.

[T]here may be . . . no workaround that can address climate change without massive disruption and social conflict . . .

So here we have a situation where the world’s most well-known climate activist was arrested for protesting what the mainstream policy consensus maintains is a key technology in the fight against climate change: wind turbines. This raises the possibility that there may be no obvious solution to the problems posed by what mainstream climate policy calls the “high renewables strategy” and no workaround that can address climate change without massive disruption and social conflict. If this is indeed the case, then the left has an obligation to facilitate an honest debate about energy options.

The Daily Grind

For many urban-based progressives and climate-movement activists, wind turbines appear majestic; they stand like gladiators championing a new energy landscape and pushing back the grimy frontiers of coal and gas. They are symbols of nature and technology working in harmony.

But for many people who live close to them, turbines are a curse. They disrupt farming, fishing, and natural habitats, and despoil pristine landscapes. It is perhaps no accident that the wind industry makes promotional videos where the cameras are positioned in light aircraft kilometers above the ground and the audio features music that evokes the euphoria of a bright new dawn—because the sound of turbines grinding and groaning in the uncertain wind might conjure a different mood altogether.

Similarly, the sight of solar panels on rooftops is pleasing to the eye of climate-concerned citizens. And particularly so when those same citizens own the rooftop and can sell power into the grid at an above-market rate (not everybody has that opportunity). But rooftop solar systems generate just 1 percent of the world’s electricity, and most new installations are large “utility-scale” arrays that often stretch for miles.

For example, the Solar Star project in Los Angeles and Kern counties in California hosts 1.7 million solar panels distributed across 13 square kilometers. It’s the country’s largest array, but there are scores of others whose physical footprint is comparably large. They don’t make noise, but they do change the landscape in ways that, opponents claim, can affect tourism, disrupt wildlife, interfere with agriculture, and impact quality of life.

Before 2020, opposition to solar farms was both occasional and scattered, but in the United States at least, the number of objections has grown dramatically. Conservative commentator and author Robert Bryce keeps his own “renewable rejection database.” Lovingly compiled, his most recent data (September 2023) suggest that for two consecutive years, solar project rejections have outstripped wind project rejections by some distance. ⁸

The No-Carbon Footprint

If the growing opposition to wind and solar already presents a formidable obstacle to the effort to reduce CO₂ emissions, then the obstacle could become much larger in the coming years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s authority on climate science, has concluded that reaching climate targets will mean that, in the electricity sector, coal and gas must be completely replaced by renewable or “clean” energy before 2050. ⁹

Analyses of current policy commitments project that electricity generated from wind will increase globally from around 7.3 percent in 2022 to 35 percent by 2050. ¹⁰ And the share of power from solar panels (or solar photovoltaics [solar PV]) will increase from 4.3 percent in 2022 to 25 percent by 2050. ¹¹ Meeting these targets will require 6,000 GW of wind power and 8,500 GW of solar PV. ¹² But current policy commitments are not going to reach internationally agreed climate targets. According to the International Energy Agency, to achieve “net zero” emissions, 600 GW of solar PV and 340 GW of wind will need to be added each year from 2030 to 2050. ¹³ In other words, the build-out could be massive.

Staying within 1.5°C would require solar PV systems to cover a land area considerably larger than Bangladesh.

It would be unwise to underestimate the potential impact of the high renewables strategy on the world’s geography. Most modern turbines have a 3-MW capacity, and their average height has increased almost 80 percent since year 2000. At roughly 100 meters, they stand taller than the Statue of Liberty. Offshore wind turbines are even taller. ¹⁴ Either way, we are talking between 2 and 2.7 million turbines installed globally by 2050. ¹⁵

Solar power requires a lot more space than wind to generate the same amount of power. As a rule of thumb, 1 MW of solar requires about 2.5 acres, or 1 hectare, of land. Because 1 GW of solar requires 10 square kilometers, the current policy commitment of 8,500 GW will require 85,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Austria. ¹⁶ Staying within 1.5°C would require solar PV systems to cover a land area considerably larger than Bangladesh. ¹⁷ Several studies have also attempted to calculate what these levels of build-out would mean for just the United States alone. A Princeton University report estimates that reaching “next zero” in the United States, based on onshore wind, would mean that wind farms occupy land areas equivalent to Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. ¹⁸ Technically feasible? Perhaps. But brace yourself for some big fights along the way.

Fields of Gold?

The Sabin Center study confirms that, across the Midwest, there has been a growing community-based movement to prohibit solar energy systems from farmland, and it’s a movement that is clocking up an impressive number of victories. For example, two Michigan townships (LaSalle and Milan) adopted ordinances limiting utility-scale solar energy projects to industrial districts and prohibiting such projects on land zoned for agricultural use. In Virginia, at least seven counties have adopted restrictive solar ordinances or moratoria. Pittsylvania County now prohibits the construction of any solar farm within 5 miles of any other solar farm. It also issued regulations that limit utility-scale solar projects to 2 percent of the total acreage of any zoning district. These examples are just a few among many.

Another site of opposition is DeKalb County, roughly 60 miles west of Chicago. During 2019-2020, the county board approved three solar projects that together would cover 7,100 acres. In 2021, an application for two industrial solar farms was submitted by, respectively, Texas-based Leeward Energy and Samsung. The two projects would cover an additional 6,000 acres of land. Having calculated the taxable property revenues to be around $30 million annually, the board approved both applications. But, soon after, the board declared a 12,000-acre cap on the amount of land that could be designated for commercial solar projects in the area.

The debate in DeKalb County divided the community in a manner reminiscent of the fracking fights in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere in the late 2000s. On the one side stood farmers who, having signed contracts with solar developers, argued that they had a right to use their land in any way they pleased, and in any case, growing solar panels was more lucrative than growing corn. On the other side stood farmers and citizens who referred to the potential impacts on farmable land use, proximity to residential property, and the size of the panels. ¹⁹

Misinformation and Truth

A quick glance at the websites and social media of U.S.-based groups opposing wind and solar will reinforce any number of red-state stereotypes. There is plenty of Make America Great Again speak, along the lines of “President Trump wanted to tear up the Paris Climate Agreement, and so do we!” This is normally enough for many liberals to compost and recycle with renewed fervor while railing against deplorable NIMBYism (not in my backyard). But a dismissive “suck it up for the planet” response will play into the hands of the political right.

In the war against wind, misinformation is a key weapon.

Groups opposing wind turbines can go a bit overboard. Photos of turbines breaking, burning, and falling have gone viral, as have links to stories about, for example, turbine noise causing birth defects in horses in Portugal. ²⁰ Sections of the conservative media have suddenly become committed to saving the whales who, they say, are being killed by site-mapping work for offshore wind farms along the New England coastline. ²¹

In the war against wind, misinformation is a key weapon. One anti-wind activist said, “A lot of farming requires 300 horsepower, or more, to run the machinery. How much food will farmers grow if they have to go back to working the fields with a team of horses? . . . In Venezuela they are eating their pets.” ²² Some chime in on the benefits of CO₂, saying “We can’t live without it!” which is, of course, true, as any plant or tree would surely verify. Others appear to be frequent visitors to right-wing platforms that are more sophisticated in terms of presenting data and research that promote climate change denial, spiraling subsidies, and the need to continue burning fossil fuels. ²³

Despite this right-wing involvement, it would be foolish for progressives to conclude that the issues that are driving the anti-renewables movement are either trivial, mostly fear-based, or ideologically motivated. The concerns raised by opposition groups are serious. The reasons are mostly legitimate, and they need to be treated as such—ask Greta. Ultra-conservatives might weaponize the truth for their own purposes, but progressives must take steps to avoid hiding from it.

Significantly, resistance to wind is strongest in countries where the levels of deployment have been high—such as Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. ²⁴ This suggests that the opposition is not based on fear of the unknown; rather it is based on day-to-day living with turbines. But word gets around. Japan recently witnessed a flurry of project cancelations for onshore wind projects even though, on a per capita basis, it has installed barely 6 percent of the onshore wind capacity installed by Germany. ²⁵

Legal actions against German wind energy projects have multiplied in recent years, leading to a dramatic decline in the number of new onshore wind farms. ²⁶ This presents a serious challenge to a country that aims to meet 80 percent of its electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030. Reaching this target will require an estimated 57 GW of new onshore wind and 22 GW of offshore turbines. To illustrate just how off-track Germany is, in 2022, the country installed 2.4 GW onshore, when it should have installed 8 GW. ²⁷ Local groups have complained that new wind projects are being built too close to residential areas, and the transmission cables needed to bring the electricity from the windy north to the industrial centers of the south involve an industrial-level felling of trees, thus disfiguring wooded landscapes. Right now, Germany’s 2030 wind target seems way beyond reach. ²⁸

Opposition to wind turbines in Germany and the United Kingdom partially explains the growth in the offshore deployment in the North Sea. And it is no accident that offshore wind has grown in tandem with the decline in onshore installation levels in both countries. In the United Kingdom, a 2015 law effectively banned onshore wind in England. Just one community objection was, under this law, enough to stop a proposed project. Only two onshore wind turbines have been built in England since 2020. ²⁹

[R]esistance to wind is strongest in countries where the levels of deployment have been high . . .

But the opposition to offshore wind is also growing, but in this case, it’s being led by U.S. coastal communities that have yet to see a turbine. For example, a group called “Save our Beach View” has been formed to fight a large 300-turbine project off the coast of Maryland and Delaware. ³⁰ Anti-offshore wind groups appear to be proliferating. The recently formed American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP) describes itself as a network of “beach communities and public policy institutes from North Carolina to Maine” who are against “misguided federal and state offshore wind policy.” ³¹

Left Response: No Easy Answers

How, then, should the left respond to the movement against energy sprawl? There are, it seems, no easy answers to the “which side are we on?” question. The question is normally presented as a “yes-no” litmus test for class loyalty and worker solidarity. But in the context of the climate crisis and the need for a rapid and far-reaching energy transition away from fossil fuels, the issues are more complex. Following her instincts, Greta chose to support indigenous rights over for-profit wind interests. Was she right? Did she assume that there is a climate-friendly alternative to industrial wind projects? We don’t really know, perhaps because we don’t know how to pose the question.

That said, both in the United States and internationally, the resistance to wind and solar is politically and ideologically more heterogenous than it might first appear. Class issues are present, even if they are not always obvious. Some U.S.-based anti-renewable activists are scathing in their criticisms of large corporations and developers sucking in federal subsidies and how those subsides are used to buy off landowners. Others acknowledge climate change but wonder if there is a better way of reducing emissions. Many express concerns about wildlife, landscapes, and pollution from wind and solar technologies (oil lubricants, the use of rare earth metals, etc.) Opponents of offshore wind are alarmed by what they see as the “industrialization of the oceans” and the potential impact on biodiversity and the role oceans play in CO₂ absorption. The left and environmental groups have supported similar issues in the past. This is not a time to stop doing so just because, in the case of the United States, there might be a Trump poster on the movement’s front lawn.

As noted earlier, in the Global South, indigenous groups and rural communities are also mobilizing against large wind and solar projects. ³² In Mexico, rural dwellers in Oaxaca have been fighting wind projects for over a decade, a struggle that has been well documented. ³³ In northern Colombia, the Italy-based energy multinational Enel recently canceled a wind project after a three-year confrontation with local indigenous Wayuu communities. ³⁴ In Chile, representatives of the indigenous Mapuche recently protested the approval of the Angelini group Viento Sur wind project that was rushed through in the last days of the right-wing presidency of Sebastián Piñera. ³⁵

[T]he benefits of wind and solar energy are . . . distributed . . . towards investors and developers, while the costs . . . fall on . . . workers, farmers, and the rural poor.

Africa, too, has seen some intense battle. In Kenya, major wind projects have been canceled following a clash between developers and farmers over compensation for loss of land. One pro-renewables source noted, “The transition to renewable energy has been synonymous with the displacement of local communities. For investors, it has meant protracted court battles, stalled projects, and loss of revenue.” ³⁶ Built to export electricity to Europe, large solar projects in Tunisia and Morocco have been resisted by local communities. ³⁷ In the Middle East, thousands of Druze residents in the Golan Heights protested the installation of a large wind project on their traditional lands. According to the Israeli Press in June 2023, “intifada” against wind turned violent: twelve police officers were wounded, and four demonstrators were seriously injured, one of them from gunfire. ³⁸

When viewed alongside the anti-renewables fights in the United States, we see many of the same issues—struggles over land use, corporate greed (and corporate welfare), and profit-motivated arm-twisting. ³⁹ Whether in the Global North or South, the benefits of wind and solar energy are currently distributed upward toward investors and developers, while the costs—both social and ecological—fall on the shoulders of workers, farmers, and the rural poor. But in the Global South, a quite different opposition narrative is emerging, one that is more anti-capitalist and emphasizes the neocolonial dimensions of green land grabs and resource exploitation that serves the interests of local elites as well as large multinationals. ⁴⁰

[D]oes buying off income-strapped local and/or rural communities . . . make wind or large solar projects okay?

While more appealing to progressives, this narrative does not answer how, given the need to dramatically reduce emissions, the left should respond to the opposition to energy sprawl and the growing “no-carbon footprint.” Of course, if communities were in control of wind and solar deployment in ways that met local needs, for energy, income, or perhaps both, then maybe wind turbines and solar arrays might look a little prettier. In such instances, beauty would be in the eyes of the beneficiaries.

But does buying off income-strapped local and/or rural communities make wind or large solar projects okay? The coal communities in East Kentucky and West Virginia succumbed to mountain-top removal believing that it would bring economic benefits, but the ecological damage turned out to be horrendous. Only the smallest fraction of the coal that was so violently excised from those mountains was ever used in those (still poor) regions. Although less extreme than blasting for coal, the overall environmental impact of widely dispersed wind and solar technologies has yet to be fully assessed. It is conceivable that there is something intrinsic to wind turbine technologies and large solar arrays that will turn out to be unacceptable from a social as well as ecological standpoint. If so, what is the alternative? Is it energy efficiency and conservation? Less consumption? Nuclear power?

Either way, the left cannot afford to ignore the likely impact of a high-renewables strategy and the growing phenomenon of energy sprawl. But “we’re on your side, if you are on our side” is surely not compatible with a principled approach to dealing with what might become a formidable social movement in the coming years.