ABSTRACT Renewable energy enjoys broad popularity as an abstract concept, yet specific cases of industrial renewable energy development consistently encounter local opposition commonly characterized by the phrase ‘not in my backyard,’ or NIMBY. Scholars have recently attempted a broader, more thorough understanding of wind opposition focusing on discursive forms of investigation, but even these efforts are limited by unspoken assumptions of motivation and aim. These attempts have led to a sophisticated understanding of local scale arguments mobilized by wind opponents, but have ignored arguments on other scales. In a case study of Keyser, West Virginia, I discovered a broad range of arguments not included in the scholarly literature. This thesis will investigate arguments on scales including the global, national, regional, local, and individual. I will connect the local scale objections to broader scales through the lenses of landscape and placemaking theory, and I will investigate the emergent discourse of health impacts and Wind Turbine Syndrome through embodiment theory and parallel phenomena. Perceptions of Wind Power, Community, and Renewable Energy Landscapes Meridel Hanna Newton 2013 Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2013 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisors, Dawn Biehler and David Lansing, for their invaluable help and advice. This project would not have been possible without them. I'd also like to thank my family for their support and understanding as I made my way through the last few years. Finally, the Allegheny Front Alliance was a crucial partner in my field work, and I thank them for their cooperation and willingness to participate. ii Table of Contents Chapter One - Introduction 1 The Problem 1 Wind Power in America 3 Study Site 6 Research Questions 10 Literature Review 11 The Power of NIMBY 11 Place and Landscape 13 Embodiment and Health 17 Methods 21 Outline of Thesis 23 Citations 25 Chapter Two - Beyond the Merely Local: Wind Opposition on the Extended Scale 30 Introduction 30 Methods 32 Literature of the Extended Scale 33 Background 36 The Extended Scale 38 Role of Government 40 Viability of Wind 44 Alternative to the Alternate 52 Conclusions 54 Citations 57 Chapter Three - The Local Scale: Place, Past and Present 59 Introduction 59 Literature of the Local Scale 61 Challenge to the Environment 66 Environment as Scenery 66 Environment as Ecology 71 Challenge to the Future 73 Decommissioning 75 Challenge to the Community 78 Conclusions 81 Citations 84 Chapter Four - The Individual Scale: Wind Turbine Syndrome and Post-modernism 86 Introduction 86 iii Approach 88 West Virginia as Wild 88 Health and Landscape 92 Wind Development and Health 94 Wind Turbine Syndrome 96 Overview 96 Wind Turbine Syndrome in Keyser 103 Constructing Turbines Through the Senses 109 Conclusions 111 Citations 113 Chapter Five - Conclusion 116 Summary 116 Key Findings 118 Limitations of the Study 120 Policy Implications 120 Citations 124 Appendix A - Interview Questions 125 iv List of Tables Revised framework of factors affecting public perceptions of wind farms. Source: Graham, Stephenson, and Smith, 2009 ..............................................................................33 v List of Figures Illustration 1: Keyser, West Virginia and surrounding wind farms. Source: maps.google.com .................................................................................................................8 Illustration 2: View of Pinnacle Wind Farm from Keyser, West Virginia. Photographer: Meridel Newton ...................................................................................................................9 Illustration 3: United States Wind Resource Map. Source: nrel.gov .................................47 vi Chapter One Introduction THE PROBLEM The sociologist Mhairi Aitken recently argued that the vast majority of scholarship on opponents of industrial scale wind development premise their work on a number of assumptions: that wind energy is broadly popular, and therefore, opposition to wind power is “deviant,” and that the reason to investigate wind opposition is to overcome it through the development of “trust” between residents, developers, and policymakers (2010). Aitken argues that these assumptions overwhelmingly frame scholarly work on wind opposition, and as a result, the literature is limited in scope and ineffective at furthering understanding. After conducting seventeen interviews among a variety of wind activists in Keyser, West Virginia, I concur with Aitken’s assessment. In my interviews, I encountered a wide range of opinion and reasoning behind wind opposition. Some people very specifically objected to the destruction of forest habitat necessary to construct industrial turbines, while others were more concerned with the effects the wind industry has on American manufacturing and trade. The framework of assumptions described by Aitken does not have room for such wide ranging dissent. In this thesis, I will explore the array of anti-wind arguments that I encountered in an effort to understand wind opposition on its own terms. While scholarship has increasingly become more nuanced, researchers investigating wind opposition still cleave to a limited view of the motivations and logic behind opposition to industrial development. Recent publications have sought to dismiss 1 the long accepted notion that industrial wind opponents are driven by NIMBYism – Not In My Backyard-ism – and replace it with multidimensional explanations of landscape, environment, history, and community (Wolsink, 20006; Devine-Wright 2005; Fisher and Brown, 2009). Even so, these investigators present a concept of wind opposition limited by their presumptions, their assumptions, and methodological barriers. While the effort to discredit the popular myth of NIMBYism is admirable and necessary, current scholarship on wind opposition needs to look further, to broaden its range and move beyond the assumptions Aitken identified. These assumptions have limited the field in ways which make a total understanding of wind opponents impossible to achieve. One of these limitations lies in the identification of arguments mobilized by wind opponents. Even in case studies using open-ended surveys or interview methodology, scholars tend to identify similar arguments from case to case, arguments centering on environmental issues, questions of community participation in the planning process, or unease over the appearance of industrial turbines. These arguments are local in scope, and frequently lead authors of the studies to suggest that a more integrated planning process utilizing greater community participation would resolve concerns. However, opponents of industrial wind power actually make their arguments across a large range of scales, by no means limited to only the local. Opponents analyze wind power from viewpoints as diverse as international economics and personal health. While local scale arguments of the environment and community are certainly important, opponents are also concerned with how industrial development impacts both global 2 issues and those as small-scale as individual human health. Yet despite this diversity of mobilized arguments, wind opposition literature continues to focus on the local and the local alone. This oversight may well be a result of the assumptions identified by Aitken. By ignoring all arguments that do not fit the established narrative, academia ensures that wind opposition will never be fully explored or understood. Understanding and acknowledging the full range of arguments mobilized by wind opponents is a vital step forward for the field, and one that must be taken. WIND POWER IN AMERICA The wind industry in the United States is emblematic of the renewable energy industry, and has grown as a result of a broad range of policy initiatives intended to encourage the spread of renewable power. These policies find their root in the 1978 Public Utilities and Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA), which for the first time required utilities to buy power from third parties at an avoided cost rate – that is, the cost of the utility’s typical output minus the costs avoided by buying from the cheaper third party. This act created a market for third party power, leading directly the first large-scale industrial wind farm in the country in New Hampshire, and the famous Altamount Pass in California (Martinot, 2004). In the 1990s, policy initiatives enacted on multiple levels of government boosted the incipient industry by encouraging specific governmental regions to set quotas and goals within their own jurisdiction. Several states adopted policy tools known as Renewables Portfolio Standards (RPS), in which state governments (and, in a few cases, 3 county governments) could require that their energy portfolio include a certain percentage of energy from renewable sources. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have enacted these portfolio standards. Despite a 2012 campaign by the American Legislative Exchange Council to roll back portfolio standards, states have kept their quotas and, in a few cases, passed laws requiring greater percentages of renewable energy. Though there is no federal RPS, the United States federal government has supported renewable energy development in several ways. A 2008 study by the Department of Energy found that a goal of 20% wind energy was