Cool Rationalities and Hot Air: A Rhetorical Approach to Understanding Debates on Renewable Energy

Abstract

A key obstacle to the wide-scale development of renewable energy is that public acceptability of wind energy cannot be taken for granted when wind energy moves from abstract support to local implementation. Drawing on a case study of opposition to the siting of a proposed off-shore wind farm in Northern Ireland, we offer a rhetorical analysis of a series of representative documents drawn from government, media, pro-and anti-wind energy sources, which identifies and interprets a number of discourses of objection and support. The analysis indicates that the key issue in terms of the transition to a renewable energy economy has little to do with the technology itself. Understanding the different nuances of pro and anti wind discourses highlights the importance of 'upsteaming' public involvement in the decision-making process and also the counter-productive strategy of assuming that objection is based on ignorance (which can be solved by information) of NIMBY thinking (which can be solved by moral arguments about overcoming 'free riders')..

An Array of Deficits: Unpacking NIMBY Discourses in Wind Energy Developers' Conceptualizations of Their Local Opponents

“…Some recent work has emphasized the importance of considering discourses employed by local project supporters as well as opponents (e.g., McLachlan, 2010). Relatively little attention has been paid so 248 K. Burningham et al far to the perspectives of developers and technology promoters (but see Barry et al 2008;Wolsink and Breukers 2010). This is significant, as public responses in particular sites are not developed in a vacuum but emerge through interaction with others who have an interest in RET development, particularly those advocating and promoting it.…”

Nearshore Wind Resistance on Denmark’s Renewable Energy Island

“…All these concerns sound like well-known NIMBY arguments and are similar to arguments voiced in other controversies over renewable energy projects (for an analysis of the rhetoric of wind opposition, see Barry et al, 2008). In that sense, we are dealing with a specifi c 'genre' of public protest, one that tends to follow quite predictable logics.…”

Contending Expertise: An Interpretive Approach to (Re)conceiving Wind Power's ‘Planning Problem’

“…Tackling the array of contentious issues associated with windfarm developments has often rested on the assumption that ette i fo atio will generate consensus and thereby resolve dispute (Barry, et al, 2008). Despite criticism of this view (Owens, et al, 2004), the generation of such information in planning practice remains inured to linear-rational models of knowledge production that a e assu ed to p o ide the fa ts of a situatio y virtue of their internal merits (Adelle, et al, 2012).…”

“…Authoritative subject positioning is particularly important in contentious planning debates, such as those frequently characterising wind energy development, where the emphasis given to the consideration of different issues is often contested and the facts egula l disputed (Barry, et al, 2008;Cowell, 2010;Woods, 2003 (Throgmorton, 1993). (Aristotle, 2012, 7).…”

“…Drawing on the work of Plough and Krimsky (1987), Barry et al (2008) that stresses the centrality of empirical evidence is therefore resonant with this rationality.…”