Push for renewable energy gets rural resistance, which is sometimes driven by misinformation from outside activists

UPDATE, March 2: Peter Sinclair of Yale Climate Connections reports on protests and rejections of renewable-energy projects: "Some of these protests appear to have ties to fossil fuel interests. A major player in the renewable energy opposition in rural Michigan is Kevon Martis, who works for E&E Legal, a D.C.-based lobbying firm that gets funding from the fossil fuel industry."

A project site in Virginia (Photo by Ryan Kellman, NPR)

Ten years ago, the price of developing renewable energy was restrictive. Now that technology has caught up, another formidable form of resistance has moved in: people. "Across the country, a big backlash to new renewables is mounting," reports Robert Zullo of Successful Farming. "In Crawford County, Ohio, Apex Clean Energy had been signing leases with locals for a proposed 300-megawatt wind farm. . . .It was the most contentious thing [County Commissioner] Doug Weisenauer had ever seen.”

“The anti-wind people started converging on our weekly commissioners’ meetings and demanding that we do something,” said Weisenauer, who was in the minority when the commission voted 2-1 last year for a 10-year ban on wind projects. “I said all along I am not telling people what they can and can’t do on their property,” he told Zillo. “It got ugly. Our families have been split, friendships broken. It was bad for our community.”

"Crawford County, of course, is far from an isolated case,” Zullo writes. “Across the country — from suburban Virginia, rural Michigan, southern Tennessee, and the sugar-cane fields of Louisiana to the coasts of Maine and New Jersey and the deserts of Nevada — new renewable energy development has drawn heated opposition that has birthed, in many cases, bans, moratoriums, and other restrictions. . . . With states, corporations, utilities, and the federal government setting aggressive renewable energy goals, as well as big tax incentives . . . Wind and solar developers have been pushing projects that are igniting fierce battles over property rights, loss of farmland, climate change, aesthetics, the merits of renewable power, and a host of other concerns."

It isn't just about being told what you can or cannot do on your own land. Zullo reports, "Debates are often happening in a miasma of misinformation and skewed by political polarization. However, some who have seen the backlash to renewable development up close and personal also say developers need to do a better job of being upfront with communities and convincing them of the benefits of their projects."

Page County, Virginia (Wikipedia map)

In Virginia, a misinformation campaign quashed a solar projects in Page County. "Roger Houser's ranching business was getting squeezed. But Houser found another use for his 500 acres. . . . An energy company offered to lease Houser's property to build a solar plant that could power about 25,000 homes," reports Miranda Green of National Public Radio. "It was a good offer, Houser says. . . . But soon after he got the offer, organized opposition began a four-year battle against solar development in the county. A group of locals eventually joined forces with a nonprofit called Citizens for Responsible Solar to stop the project on Houser's land and pass restrictions effectively banning big solar plants from being built in the area."

CRS founder Susan Ralston "told NPR that Citizens for Responsible Solar is a grassroots organization that helps other activists on a volunteer basis," Green reports. "But her group's rhetoric points to a broader agenda of undermining public support for solar. Analysts who follow the industry say Citizens for Responsible Solar stokes opposition to solar projects by spreading misinformation online about health and environmental risks. The group's website says solar requires too much land for 'unreliable energy,' ignoring data showing power grids can run dependably on lots of renewables. And it claims large solar projects in rural areas wreck the land and contribute to climate change, despite evidence to the contrary."