Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2006
Abstract
The last two decades have seen a rebirth of wind machines on the rural landscape. In ironic fashion the wind's kinetic energy has grown in significance through its ability to generate commercial amounts of electricity, the commodity that a few generations earlier hastened the demise of the old Great Plains windmill. Yet the reemergence of wind machines on the landscape has been slowed by local opposition. Many places across the country have seen resistance to the construction of vast wind turbine arrays. Although wind energy fulfills both the businessman's requirement for profit and the environmentalist's desire for clean electrical production, building hundreds of wind turbines to carry out this dual promise in one's "backyard" has been met with intense local protest. The literature has shown that wind energy is generally popular at a national level, but local wind farm developments have been the source of bitter opposition.l This opposition, which has appeared virtually everywhere wind farms have been proposed, is characterized as a NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard") phenomenon. That is, a majority of those opposed to a local wind farm agree with the need for wind energy, but for a number of reasons (increased noise, increased bird death, and aesthetic blight) they do not want the turbines located in their immediate area.
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:2 (Spring 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.