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Windfall: Wind Energy in America Today, by historian Robert Righter, was recently published by University of Oklahoma Press; it’s a follow-up to his 1996 book, a history of the industry through its first commercial boom. As a hearty advocate of wind energy and continued rapid growth of the industry, Righter may surprise some with his strong call for more sensitivity to quality of life concerns of rural residents. He spends chunks of three chapters addressing the increasing problems caused by wind farm noise in rural communities, chides developers for not building farther from unwilling neighbors, and says that new development should be focused on the remote high plains, rather than more densely populated rural landscapes in the upper midwest and northeast.
Righter seems to be especially sensitive to the fact that today’s turbines are huge mechanical intrusions on pastoral landscapes, a far cry from the windmills of earlier generations. At the same time, he suggests that a look back at earlier technological innovations (including transmission lines, oil pump jacks, and agricultural watering systems) suggests that most of us tend to become accustomed to new intrusions after a while, noting that outside of wilderness areas, “it is difficult to view a landscape devoid of a human imprint.” He also acknowledges the fact that impacts on a few can’t always outweigh the benefits for the many in generating electricity without burning carbon or generating nuclear waste.
But unlike most wind boosters, he doesn’t content himself with these simple formulations. He goes on to stress that even as recently as 2000, most experts felt that technical hurdles would keep turbines from getting much bigger than they were then (500 kW-1 MW). The leaps that have taken place, with 3 MW and larger turbines in new wind farms, startle even him: ”They do not impact a landscape as much as dominate it….Their size makes it practically impossible to suggest that wind turbines can blend technology with nature.” He joins one of his fellow participants in a cross-disciplinary symposium on NIMBY issues, stressing: ”Wind energy developers must realize the ‘important links among landscape, memory, and beauty in achieving a better quality of life.’ This concept is not always appreciated by wind developers, resulting in bitter feeling, often ultimately reaching the courts.”
