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ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST, 14th International ConferenceManchester Metropolitan University, 15-17 April 2009Working Paper - please do not cite or quote without permission
NIMBY, Network or New Social Movement? – CommunityReactions to Wind farmsABSTRACT
Climate change is now a major global issue. In 2008 MORI reported that some 77% of people surveyed by them were “Fairly” or “Very” concerned about climate change andthat 59% agreed with the idea of investment in renewables – even if this led to anincrease in energy prices. Nineteen percent agreed strongly with investment now,despite the pain of recent price hikes from energy suppliers.
Despite this there is stillsignificant opposition to the development of renewable energy generating facilities.Across the UK and many other western industrialised countries there are numerousopposition campaigns where on shore wind farms in particular are proposed. However,our knowledge of these opposition campaigns and groups is limited. Are they NIMBYresponses from locals who only want to “protect their turf” and stop their view frombeing spoiled? Or are they part of an organised social movement with clear aims,strategies and involving the mobilization of resources. Or are they a mixture of differentindividualized concerns coalescing around a particular issue?This paper briefly outlines the scale of wind energy development internationally andmore locally in the UK using data from Wales. It presents an overview of the literatureon wind farms and begins to theorise some of the possible explanations for wind farmopposition. Network mapping tools are used to illustrate the linkages between individualcampaigns and finally the issue of language is explored in the context of the NIMBY labelwhich is commonly used to describe such protest.
Keywords
: Wind farm, Protest; Network; Social Movement,Ian Gardner PhD Sociology & Social Policy University of Bangor Tel: 01745 550255 E-Mail:ian_gardner@btconnect.com
1.0Introduction1.1 Electricity Production via Wind – A Brief History
The first use of a windmill to generate electricity dates to 1887 when Professor JamesBlyth of Anderson's College, Glasgow, experimented with three different turbine designs,the last of which is said to have operated in his home for 25 years
.Shortly thereafter, in late 1887 / early 1888 in the USA, Charles F. Brush built a multiple-bladed post mill with a rotor 17 meters in diameter and a large tail designed to turn themill. The Brush Machine had a power output of 12 kW and operated for around 20 years
From the end of the 19
th
Century wind turbines were deployed across Europe, and by theend of the First World War 25 kW output machines had become quite common, notablyin Denmark.In the 1920’s and 1930’s small scale (1-3 kW) wind turbines were installed in farms andhomesteads across the USA and Canada – mainly to provide lighting and energy forradio equipment.
In 1931 George Darrieus patented the unusual design for the “Darrieus Machine” which is often referred to as the "eggbeater windmill". Large scaleenergy production also began in Russia in 1931 with a 100kW wind turbine in Balaclava.This operated for about two years on the shore of the Caspian Sea, generating some200,000 kWh of electricity.
In Germany during the late 1930’s and 1940’s, the National Socialist governmentexplored the use of wind power for reasons of “security of supply”. This interest in windtechnology resulted in the development of a significant research programme drawing onthe expertise of some of the country’s leading engineers – including Ferdinand Porsche.After the Second World War wind turbine deployment slowed, due in part to the fall in oilprices and the consequent availability of cheap electricity. However the technologicaldevelopment path continued to focus on larger machines. In 1941, in America a 1.25MW turbine was developed in Vermont and is commonly cited as the first really largemachine – having an output measured in Megawatts and a rotor diameter in excess of 50m.In the late 1940’s in Denmark, wind turbine development was taken forward by theDanish technician Johannes Juul. In 1948, Juul constructed a two blade 15kW turbinebased on the design principles of Ulrich Hutter, an engineer who had been influential inthe German wind energy programme. In 1952 Juul built a larger 40 kW turbine and in1956 he constructed a 200 kW machine with three blades and a rotor diameter of 24metres
. This machine, the Gedser turbine, operated for 10 years until 1967.The oil price shocks of the early 1970’s stimulated a renewed interest in wind technology(Haymann 1998). The US government, through NASA, commenced research into largecommercial wind turbines and thirteen experimental turbines were constructed in Ohio.By December 1980 this research had blossomed and U.S. Windpower had installed theworld's first wind farm, consisting of 20 wind turbines rated at 30 kW each, on theshoulder of Crotched Mountain in southern New Hampshire.Subsequently development of further wind farms in California and Denmark marked thestart of more widespread commercial production of electricity from wind power. By 1992there were nearly 16,000 wind turbines in California, and by 1994 the state wasproducing 47% of world wind energy generated electricity with Denmark and Germanytogether accounting for a further 34% (Woods 2003). Despite this internationalexpansion of wind energy during the 1980’s, the technology was not adopted in the UK.From 1990 onwards however, the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) framework provideda significant incentive and the UK wind industry was born.
2
Wind Energy Deployment
2
2.1 Wind Turbine Deployment Internationally
According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), in 1996 the potential worldwideelectricity generating capacity from wind turbines stood at 6100 MW. By the end of 2008this had increased to more than 120,791 MW (or 120.8 GW) of installed capacityworldwide.Growth of installed wind power has been steady since 1996 and apart from in 2004, therate of growth has increased year on year – with the single largest increase in installedcapacity taking place in 2008, an increase of just under 29%.
.The varying levels of Wind turbine deployment internationally can be seen below:
Global Installed Wind Power Capacity in MW - Dec 2008
CountryInstalledCapacityArea insquareKmInstalledCapacity inMW per KmOr One1 MW turbineevery Km
Denmark3180430940.07379213.55Germany239033570210.06695114.94Netherlands2225415260.05358118.66Spain167545047820.03319130.13Portugal2862923910.03097732.28Ireland1002702800.01425770.14
UK32412448200.01323875.54
Italy37363012300.01240280.63Austria995838700.01186484.29Taiwan358359800.009950100.50Greece9851319400.007466133.95France34046434270.005290189.02Japan18803778350.004976200.98India964532875900.002934340.86USA2517098266300.002561390.41South Korea236984800.002396417.29Sweden10214499640.002269440.71Poland4723126850.001510662.47Costa Rica70511000.001370730.00Norway4283238020.001322756.55China1221095969600.001272785.99New Zealand3262686800.001213824.17Turkey4337805800.0005551802.73Egypt36510014500.0003642743.70Tunisia541636100.0003303029.81Morocco1344465500.0003003332.46Canada236999846700.0002374214.72Australia130676868500.0001705885.80Philippines333000000.0001109090.91Iran8516480000.00005219388.24Mexico8519725500.00004323206.47Brazil34185119650.00004024961.77Argentina2927668900.00001095410.00Other 1454N/AN/AN/A
Total120,791---
2.2 Wind Turbine Deployment in the UK
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NIMBY, Network or New Social Movement? Community Reactions to windfarms
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