MORALITY SPACE AND THE POWER OF WIND ENE

MORALITY, SPACE, AND THE POWER OF WIND-ENERGY LANDSCAPES attitude is changing, however, as we turn toward wind energy, now the fastest-growing re- newable energy resource in the world.

MORALITY, SPACE, AND THE POWER OF

WIND-ENERGY LANDSCAPES

attitude is changing, however, as we turn toward wind energy, now the fastest-growing re-

newable energy resource in the world Because we cannot extract and transport the raw en-

ergy of the wind, reaping its many environmental benefits requires that we cope with the

landscape presence of its development wherever it occurs Sometimes this interferes with the

value of open space, and sometimes it may be close to subdivisions It is the immobility and

very visibility of wind power that makes its presence unavoidable In that regard it cannot be

hidden underground, stored in tanks, or moved by trains It is an energy resource that re-

minds us that our electricity comes from somewhere The more we wish to tap the power of

the wind, the less we will be able to avoid the responsibilities that our demand for energy

brings This necessary bargain, first evident near Palm Springs, California, is now being expe-

morality, wind

O w i n g to the sheer scale of today’s urban places, escaping the congestion that has

become their signature feature can be difficult Reaching the solace of open spaces

commonly requires a long journey, and sometimes the trip is punctuated by the

unexpected Heading east from Los Angeles on Interstate 10, for example, you

drive as much as 150 kilometers before traffic thins But just when you start to

relax your grip on the steering wheel, you sense a strong and even disconcerting

buffeting As you struggle for control, blasts of sand etch your windshield, ob-

scuring your vision Once you begin to exit this gauntlet, chaotic apparitions ap-

pear out of the clouds of beige dust: thousands of glinting, whirling machines

bordering the highway and crowning every visible ridge, at highway speeds a seem-

ing reversal of Don Quixote’s famous confrontation As if passing into a new di-

mension, you have entered a fascinating and challenging modern world, that of

wind power (Figure 1 )

This route has taken you through San Gorgonio Pass, a low, topographic “pinch

point” that is vital as a corridor for aqueducts, power lines, railroads, and highways,

whose geographical and economic importance is not new (Figure 2) Long before

San Gorgonio Pass was trenched and scraped and paved by modern society, Native

Americans used it as the most convenient travel route between the cool Southern

California coast and the searing Colorado Desert During their treks they became

acquainted with the strong winds and their invisible irritations Today the wind is

even more obvious because thousands of turbines march across the entire width of

the pass and on up the hillsides, becoming the dominant feature So striking is this

scene that it is used as a backdrop for advertisements, music videos, and motion

pictures It has become America’s most famous landscape of power

Copyright zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA0 zoo1 by the American Geographical Soclety of New York

382 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBATHE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG 1-Phalanxes of wind turbines obscure the view of Mount San Gorgonio, California, in the

winter of zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA1997 (Photograph courtesy of Paul Gipe)

The pass doubles as the stage for a morality play, pitting vocal public support

for renewable energy against the visible realities such advocacy can produce It

prompts questions: Which is it going to be, fossil/nuclear fuels and their conse-

quences, or renewable resources and zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAtheir costs? Are the advocates of wind energy

willing to reaffirm their backing, or have the landscapes that wind power produces

given them second thoughts? These questions have become relevant in the United

States as the public becomes spoiled by a widening physical distance between con-

sumers and their energy sources The wider the gap, the greater the effect that dis-

tance has had on buffering consumers from the environmental costs of energy The

recent rise of wind power is shrinking that distance once again, and this contraction

is reminding us afresh of the responsibilities we have for the energy we use

The San Gorgonio Pass experience is not unique Globally, the generating ca-

pacity of commercial wind turbines now exceeds 14,000 megawatts (MW) (Figure

3), and it is increasing more rapidly than any other renewable energy resource Vari-

ous forms and strata of government support have aided this expansion, but its prin-

cipal attraction is wind power’s inherent environmental attributes Producing no

global warming, wind power floods no canyons, demands no water, contaminates

no soil, and leaves no permanent and dangerous waste Wind generators can be

installed and removed quickly; they are well suited to isolated, off-grid locations;

and the cost of the electricity they produce is now comparable with that from con-

ventional sources In short, wind power is too good to ignore

WIND-POWER LANDSCAPES 383

FIG 2-View of San Gorgonio Pass from Edom Hill, California, looking west, in the winter of zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA1995

The white objects in the background are wind turbines Tamarisk trees that shield railroad tracks

from blowing sand form the horizontal dark streak in the center (Photograph by the author)

Despite the benefits of wind power and even its acceptance in rural communi-

ties where the transcontinental power grid is a distant and uneconomic thought,

the more vocal public reaction is one of hesitation and resistance to the distinctive

landscape signature of wind power (Thayer 1994; Nielsen 1996; Righter 1996; Elliott

1997) As I suggest in more detail below, such landscape imprints can be softened

and possibly even put to good use First, however, we need to appreciate more fully

that the degree of success that wind power achieves will depend on how well we

understand and accept the fundamental spatial costs it imposes

THE SPATIAL COSTS OF ENERGY Generation of electricity, unique among all industrial enterprises, places environ-

mental demands on water, air, and space while delivering a product that is pure,

invisible, and completely clean It is also unique in the variety of resources, process-

ing, and spatial commitment it employs to produce the same commodity

The earmark that most completely distinguishes conventional resources from

renewable ones is whether the fuel chain is separated or concentrated Fossil and

nuclear fuels that currently provide 85-90 percent of our electricity are all on lengthy

and dispersed fuel chains Coal and uranium are obtained from mines; oil and gas

resources are brought to the surface through wells Although some fuels, such as oil,

can be used right out of the ground, for best use each is processed This refining can

384 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBATHE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

1500

1250 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

al zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

x

R

v)

z 750

500

250

0

& 1000

5

2

Yearly Additions t o Global Wind-Power Generating Capacity

I NorthAmerica

I NorthAmerica

1980 81 82 83 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000

Year

FIG 3-Wind-power generating capacity in Europe, North America, and Asia, showing the quick

rise in generating capacity in recent years and the displacement of U.S dominance by Europe zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBASource:

Gipe 1999 (Adapted by Barbara Trapido-Lurie)

be extensive and complicated, especially for uranium, and usually requires separate

locations and, therefore, transportation links Water is essential for transferring heat,

but it is expensive to move, so all other processing steps accede to the location of its

adequate availability This results in a tendency for power plants to concentrate along

rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans

One of the most important spatial consequences of the dispersed processing

that characterizes most generation of electricity is the resulting visual and absolute

dilution of the aggregate impacts that result It is the reward of such dilution that no

single place must absorb or suffer cumulative environmental-including aesthetic-

insults Unfortunately, this “out of sight, out of mind” pattern misleads the public

by suggesting that the environmental costs of electricity are less than they actually

are

Dispersed fuel chains presently supply most of our electricity-indeed, most of

all types of energy-and for this reason it has become easier to evade many an im-

pact of supplying our needs But if renewable energy continues to grow in signifi-

cance, we will become increasingly aware of the sources we tap to supply the energy

we demand because several types of renewable-energy resources have limited spa-

tial flexibility For these resources, most of the stages between production and con-

sumption are spatially concentrated and immobile This characteristic erases the

potential for locational flexibility in the event that land-use conflicts are identified.’

Examples of such limitations abound The value of raw geothermal steam, for

instance, is usually insufficient to allow its transport even a few kilometers, provid-

ing developers no choice but to locate power plants near production wells Simi-

WIND-POWER LANDSCAPES 385 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA

larly, it would make no sense to build a hydroelectricity dam away from a river or to

put wind turbines in isolated and windless places just to keep them out of view

The inescapable accessory of renewable-resource immobility is the spatial in-

tensification of the impacts of its development Realizing this helps us understand

why renewable-energy developments encounter public resistance, especially where

land is sacred, protected, scenic, or otherwise sensitive It explains the battle that

erupted over geothermal energy development when hydrogen sulfide odors wafted

over resorts in California (Pasqualetti and Dellinger zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA1989), when plans for a tidal barrage across the Severn Estuary in Great Britain were shelved because of the eco-

logical damage it would create (Clare i992), zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAwhen calls were made to breach Glen

Canyon Dam because it had flooded picturesque terrain upstream,’ or when devel-

opments in San Gorgonio Pass incited debate over local landscape costs of wind power

(Pasqualetti and Butler 1987) Such spatial realities, even if amplified by only a few

vocal objectors, can rob momentum and dull enthusiasm for renewable energy

TURNING BACK THE CLOCK

When the primary fuel of Europe was wood, the consequences of its use were im-

mediate and local Not only did pollution shroud cities wherever households burned

it, but the forests that once defined the landscapes were felled faster than they re-

grew and were soon replaced by grass The more the expansive woodlands were

whittled away, the more the search for substitute fuels sharpened It was at this his-

torical confluence of technology and need that the shift to “king coal” began The

emergence of coal as a substitute for wood produced substantial changes in the

spatial arrangement of energy impacts As coal rose to prominence, there was a

change from the rather uniform, distributed impacts of the ubiquitous use of wood

to the nodal, intensified impacts of coal, the use of which was concentrated in rela-

tively few places

A case study of the change in the spatial character of impacts comes from the

transport of coal to London from the Midlands and northeastern regions of En-

gland, a practice that persisted for centuries Although coal mining reshaped the

countryside everywhere, people in nearby cities breathed few of the sulfurous fumes

that resulted from its use because virtually all of the coal was sent south In contrast,

Londoners suffered nothing of the landscape devastation or the personal privations

common in the mining lands of the northeast Neither place experienced the inten-

sity of the other’s fate This was a change in a centuries-old pattern, a result of the

transition from low-value, widely available resources such as wood to a spatially

more concentrated resource such as coal

Other changes in impact followed wherever radically new fuels gained popular-

ity As oil was changing the energy industry in the first half of the twentieth century,

supply chains and impacts spatially stretched out, and the aggregate impact, sub-

stantial and different as it was, became concentrated in more widely spaced loca-

tions Oil was easier and less expensive to transport long distances because it was

abundant in fewer places than was coal In the last third of the twentieth century

386 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBATHE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAGEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

uranium became significant in the generation of electricity, but the visible expres-

sion of its development was relatively small overall because the energy was concen-

trated in the physics of its use The separation was as much psychological as literal,

because the invisible and insidious risks of uranium encouraged further separation

of people from their energy resources, often a simple matter because uranium sup-

plies tend to be in areas of low population concentration

Today, as population rises and wind power becomes viable, the distances be-

tween supply and demand are shrinking once again We are also, at the same time,

experiencing a curious transposition: Whereas many of the impacts of coal-such

as air pollution and mercury deposition-are invisible and regional, those of wind

are apparent and local, just as those of wood once were In a spatial sense, we are

resolutely turning back the clock

COMPRESSION OF IMPACTS

As distance, technology, and our urbanized lifestyle came to cushion us from the

direct environmental costs of energy, we became increasingly less aware and even-

tually less tolerant of the intrusions of energy development on our personal space

With some resources, such as wind, that was not always the case Humanity became

accustomed to wind machines snatching energy from the sky, and, as they labored

for the pleasure and needs of surrounding citizens, they became permanent land-

scape fixtures In places they came to represent technical accomplishment and in-

creasing dominion over nature (Cosgrove and Daniels 1988) Eventually, wind

machines took on such a benign, even romantic, charm that, in places like the Neth-

erlands, centuries-old windmills once used to drain the polders still attract tourists

Such reverence is not manifested simply in the Old World: In Lubbock, Shattuck,

and other Great Plains towns, citizens proudly erect wind museums to help recall

an earlier, simpler time when water pumpers dotted the millions of acres of coun-

tryside and gave verticality to an otherwise horizontal land (Figure 4) With wind

turbines again rising from the land,3 we are beginning to reconnect with the energy

that supports us

The modern age of wind power was founded on the assumption that everyone

would want to leap aboard the renewable-energy boat: After all, the history of use

and familiarity is long and rich But developers forgot that “at the perceptual level,

the less conspicuous the technological landscape, the more it is likely to be valued

by the general public” (Thayer 1994,128) As it turn outs, the public appears to like

the idea of not seeing the sources of the supplies it uses, of not being “responsible”

for the source of its energy Ignoring this important perceptual predilection, and

seduced by the presumed close ties between people and wind machines, developers

conveniently, if tacitly, counted on public fondness for low-tech solutions But they

came up against strong feelings largely unmoved by appeals to whatever “green”

inclinations citizens possessed, against a public that had forgotten that there is more

to keeping homes supplied with energy than simply paying for it Because conven-

tional networks of power are confusingly complex and-more important-scat-

WIND-POWER LANDSCAPES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA387

FIG 4-The American Wind Power Center in Lubbock, Texas, July 1999 In this center, and in others

such as the one in Shattuck, Oklahoma, water pumpers have been collected to commemorate the

variety of designs and the important role they played in the settlement of the Great Plains (Photo-

graph by the author)

tered, the environmental costs of energy gradually had receded from the public’s

mind In a flush of enthusiasm for what wind power seemed to offer, the fact that

most renewable-energy resources involve a compressed and noticeable fuel chain

was often lost This vital spatial difference from conventional energy resources has

been neither adequately recognized nor adequately employed by the wind industry

to explain why people often oppose wind-energy developments Nor has it been

used to catalyze an appropriately framed or scaled program to educate those out-

side the wind-power industry The public, especially in the American West, has be-

come used to receiving its versatile electricity from a static switch on the wall and

not a turbine that spins in plain view outside the kitchen window This condition

seems likely to pass through at least a mild reversal as part of the ongoing restruc-

turing of the utilities industry With the increasingly informed consumer has also

come the rise of competitive “green” generators: Some customers are already pay-

ing a premium for their electricity in order to support alternative suppliers In Ari-

zona, and elsewhere, such offerings are swiftly oversubscribed

Too MUCH LAND?

In addition to, and as a part of, the aesthetic arguments against wind power, it is

said to take up too much space But is that true? The answer depends on one’s point

of view For example, North Dakota alone has enough wind energy at class zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA4 and

388 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAT H E GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG 5-Wind electric potential as a percentage of total electricity consumption in the contigu-

ous United States in 1990 Specifications: wind resources greater than class 4 at 30 meters (that is,

Elliott and Schwartz 1993 (Adapted by Barbara Trapido-Lurie)

above ( 6 m / ~ e c ) ~ to supply 36 percent of the electricity used in the lower forty-eight

states (Figure 5) Only 0.6 percent of the contiguous United States-that is, almost

nation’s demand for electricity Although that is a substantial land requirement,

only 5 percent of it-an area about three-quarters the size of Rhode Island-would

be occupied by the turbines, electrical equipment, and access roads Many uses,

such as grazing, could remain with little interruption (Elliott and Schwartz 1993)

A similar argument for low-intensity use can be made for other places In the

ate the same amount of electricity as a 1.5-GW conventional power-generating power

plant.5 Each of these 30-MW wind farms would cover an area of 9 km2, with the

base of the turbine towers perhaps occupying 1 percent of this area, or some 90 m2

Six gigawatts, or about 10 percent of the conventional generating capacity of the

United Kingdom, would require 400 30-MW wind farms occupying 3,600 km2-

about the size of Long Island-in total and 36 km2-about half the size of Bermuda

-for the towers (Elliott 1997) The larger figure is somewhat less than 1.5 percent of

the land area of the United Kingdom, albeit the range of visual impact is much

larger

In order to give these numbers a more concrete sense, one can compare them

with the land requirements of conventional generation By one estimate for coal-

WIND-POWER LANDSCAPES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA389

fired power plants, 8,072 GWh are produced per square kilometer of impacted land

over the thirty-five-year life of the plant (Pasqualetti and Miller 1984) Wind tur-

bines would generate 157 GWh over the same time period and land area The land at

a coal plant is usually unavailable for other purposes, however, whereas only 1-5

percent of the land in a deployment of wind turbines is physically occupied by the

equipment itself (Wilshire and Prose 1987) Using the 1 percent figure, we can ex-

trapolate that 15,680 GWh are generated per square kilometer over a period of thirty-

five years for wind Thus, when it comes to land actually withdrawn from other

uses, wind power is twice as efficient as coal-and without coal’s emissions or dis-

ruptions Even assuming that the results could vary substantially according to un-

derlying assumptions, these figures suggest that wind energy’s space commitment

alone is a questionable basis for opposing its development

A further element of the land question revolves around the potential for multi-

purpose use that wind allows When private land is leased for wind turbines, pay-

ments typically at 2-10 percent of the gross revenues are paid on an annual basis,

depending on use options For example, in Altamont Pass, 80 kilometers southeast

of San Francisco, the lease payments are relatively high, owing to the competitive

pressure from housing developments Lease payments in the more remote Midwest

are usually lower Landowners are the beneficiaries of these arrangements A 20-

MW wind plant, operating at 25 percent capacity, with an average energy payment

of $0.05 per kWh, would produce gross revenue of $2,190,000 If the landowner’s

lease is for 2 percent of the gross, this amounts to $43,800 (NWCC 1997) In effect, this

is like ranchers and farmers finding a resource on their property that fetches almost

$5,000 extra per hectare

THE “UGLY” LABEL

Another common public complaint about wind power is that arrays of turbines

degrade the quality of the landscape in which they are found The most colorful

invectives in this regard come from England, where the modern development of

wind power has been called “a new way to rape the countryside” (Economist 1994)

When some people tried to contrast wind’s benign reputation with that of nuclear

power and the scars of coal mining, the debate was called the “battle of the green

giants” (Western Mail 1993) Others derisively refer to wind turbines as “lavatory

brushes in the air” (Sir Bernard Ingham, quoted in Elliott 1997, 161-162) Similar

sentiments have greeted wind-power developments in Germany, Denmark, Swe-

den, Spain, and several parts of the United States These epithets suggest that the

public is concerned with the appearance of the turbines as much as with the actual

area of land affected

Why are feelings about the visual impact of wind power so intense? I offer three

reasons First, people expect “permanence” in their landscapes, a belief that has

developed with an understanding of nature’s slow work from the time of the earli-

est humans This perception is rudely violated when abrupt and fundamental land-

scape change occurs, such as when a road gashes through a wilderness or a housing

390 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBATHE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

tract rises along an isolated beach Such change can be fundamentally disturbing,

perhaps because we are not biologically evolved enough to cope with the modern

speed of change Change-especially that which is abrupt, conspicuous, or unfa-

miliar-is, at some basic level, threatening

Second, especially in the western United States, wind-power developments chal-

lenge the somewhat worn yet lingering image of “Big Sky Country.” Open space

remains the West’s greatest attribute and attraction, the inalienable right of all those

with the luck to have been born there or-as some believe-the sense to have moved

there

Third, in the western United States spatial separation buffers the places of en-

ergy development from the places of resource use Consequently, electricity seems

to come not from the earth but from a switch, the elaborate and almost omnipres-

ent industrial equivalent of magic

WIND POWER I N AN OASIS

We have been using wind from prehistoric times, but its application for the genera-

tion of commercial electricity is recent, having begun in earnest only in the mid-

1980s in three areas of California, including San Gorgonio Pass Attracted by the

rising cost of fossil fuel, lulled by years of public support for renewable energy, and

thinking that the windswept land of the pass had no public value, wind-power de-

velopers expected public encouragement, if not outright praise, for their initiative

Instead, they encountered strong disapproval, especially from people living in the

nearby resort city of Palm Springs

Soon after the wind turbines were installed, the city claimed that they were in-

dustrializing and thereby desecrating the principal gateway to the resorts Worried

Palm Springs leaders directed that a suit be filed against the managers of the land-the

U.S Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the County of

Riverside-claiming that the two bureaucracies had failed to follow proper environ-

mental procedures when they permitted the public land in the pass to be developed

for wind power Many local residents thought-correctly-that the turbines rarely

worked and that the economic incentives designed to stimulate wind power also

had tax advantages At a minimum, city leaders asserted, any electricity that was

generated was not worth the landscape changes the wind turbines produced And,

of course, the city was not receiving any direct benefit

THE GREATEST POWER OF WIND LANDSCAPES Although wind-power developments have been blamed for everything from bad

television reception to bird deaths, it is the imprimatur of wind generators on

the land that figures most prominently in the public consciousness One group

wants to use the land for the generation of electricity; another group wants it

for something else, possibly just for its scenery Land-use competition is the

core argument for those who consider wind power the rotten apple on the alter-

native energy tree