Maarten Wolsink

Wind power and the NIMBY-myth: institutional capacity and the limited significance of public support

In many countries, the development of wind power capacity has proceeded more slowly than expected. Levels of public acceptance are usually considered primary indicators of support for wind power within society. Surveys generally show strong overall public support for wind power, while concrete projects are felt to suffer from the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome. This paper questions the significance of these outcomes. It argues that other barriers to wind power implementation exist beyond attitudes among the population. The argument is made that institutional factors have a greater impact on wind energy facility siting. We will discuss two examples of how institutional factors shape the level of support when implementing wind power.

Dutch wind power policy. Stagnating implementation of renewables

Since 1985 the official goal for wind power development in the Netherlands is 1000 MW by the year 2000. About 200 MW had been installed in 1995 and in 2000 only about 300 MW appears to be feasible, which is far behind the official goal. Essential government choices that have made policy less effective are relying on large-scale application by utilities, stimulating capacity instead of energy yield, entanglement of energy policy and industrial policy and most of all aloofness in the process of obtaining sites. There was no programme on making sites available and there were no instruments to stimulate crucial actors in the process of decision making of sites. This started a vicious circle: economic feasibility has not been reached, because there is no mass production of turbines, which in turn is a result of the lack of available sites.

Reshaping the Dutch planning system: a learning process?

The Dutch physical planning system is at a turning point. Recently the government proposed a new institutional framework for spatial planning. At first sight, the intended changes look like an example of improvements resulting from a learning process. However, the main lines of the proposal blatantly deviate from the insights into planning, balanced decisionmaking, and ‘governance’ that have emerged during the past decade. This is illustrated and explained from three perspectives. First, the growing need for change was put forward several times by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, a think tank whose task is to advise the government from a certain intellectual distance. The development of ideas by this agency is an example of cognitive learning. Second, the example of infrastructure planning that is crucial in this cognitive development is used to illustrate this by confronting the ideas with the experiences in two major national projects. As a third line, the deviations between the empirical evidence, the analysis, and the advice to the government on the one hand, and the governmental proposal on the other, are explained in relation to the ‘advocacy coalition framework’ theory on policy-oriented learning.

Contrasting the core beliefs regarding the effective implementation of wind power. An international study of stakeholder perspectives

This paper analyses patterns in beliefs about the implementation of wind power as part of a geographical comparison of onshore wind power developments in the Netherlands, North-Rhine Westphalia and England. Q methodology is applied, in order to systematically compare the patterns in stakeholder views on the institutional conditions and changes in the domains of energy policy, spatial planning and environmental policy. Three factors represent support for wind power implementation from fundamentally different perspectives. The fourth perspective is critical opposed to wind power developments as well as critical to the manner in which wind projects are proposed, planned and implemented. These four perspectives exist across the geographical cases; however, some perspectives are prominent in one case and marginal in another. This relates to different legacies and varying implementation achievements in the three cases. The analysis shows that an approach that focuses on implementing as much wind power as possible, relying on technocratic reasoning and hierarchical policies is in practice the least successful, whereas collaborative perspectives with more emphasis on local issues and less on the interests of the conventional energy sector were particularly dominant in the most successful case, North-Rhine Westphalia.

Wind energy policies in the Netherlands: Institutional capacity-building for ecological modernisation

Abstract The research question of this paper is how institutional conditions affected policy and planning processes for wind energy implementation. This is studied from the perspective of building institutional capacity in order to start policy learning. Implementation in the Netherlands has been ponderous, due to an emphasis on centralised policy-making, and an underestimation of issues of spatial and environmental planning and problems of local acceptance. Over time, little support has been mobilised for wind power developments, and resistance has increased. Nevertheless, as an unintended consequence of liberalisation, locally owned wind projects have accelerated implementation achievements in recent years.

Policy beliefs in spatial decisions: Contrasting core beliefs concerning space making for waste infrastructure

In planning the existence of structural differences in policy, beliefs among stakeholders are crucial. This study concludes that the most salient contrasts in beliefs about spatial and environmental planning concern the way the process is managed. Some of those contrasts reflect fundamental assumptions about the possibilities for reaching consensus and the relevance of involvement of actors in the process. The beliefs of the key actors involved in six siting decisions about waste infrastructure were identified and analysed by using Q methodology and cultural theory. This revealed that core beliefs about choices in environmental policy and waste management are connected with beliefs about spatial planning. The contrasts mainly concern issues of scale linked to competences regarding decision-making. The belief system of dominating actors is mainly hierarchical, combined with a technocratic approach to waste management prioritising incineration. Two alternative belief systems emphasised prevention as priority and egalitarian views on spatial decisions. Although the hierarchical approach of dominant coalitions was far from effective, the tendency remains of increasing top-down planning. Facility siting is increasingly framed in terms of larger areas and the reliance on hierarchical planning fits the authoritarian bias that emerges in such rescaling processes.

The structure of the Dutch waste sector and impediments for waste reduction

The way in which organizations collect, treat and dispose of waste in The Netherlands frustrates the achievement of waste reduction goals. The possibility that directed modification of the structure of the waste sector may contribute to stimulating consumers (i.e. all waste producers using services from collectors) to limit the generation of waste at the source by means of source reduction, re-use and recycling, is the subject of research of which the first results are presented here. This article describes the structure of the Dutch waste sector and indicates impediments for waste reduction linked to it. The analysis starts with a categorization of organizations with vested interests in the handling of waste. The ways in which these organizations manage to gain influence on the manner in which waste is handled will be explained, as well as the mutual relationships between organizations.

Co-production in distributed generation: renewable energy and creating space for fitting infrastructure within landscapes

Abstract This review describes the infrastructural elements of the socio-technical system of power supply based on renewables and the role of landscape concerns in decision-making about emerging ‘intelligent grids’. The considerable land areas required for energy infrastructure call for sizable ‘distributed generation’ close to energy consumption. Securing community acceptance of renewables’ infrastructure, perceived impacts on the community, and ‘landscape justice’ requires two types of co-production: in power supply and in making space available. With co-production, landscape issues are prominent, for some options dominant. However, ‘objectification’ of landscape, such as the use of ‘visibility’ as proxy for ‘visual impact’, is part of lingering centralised and hierarchical approaches to the deployment of renewables. Institutional tendencies of centralisation and hierarchy, in power supply management as well as in siting, should be replaced by co-production, as follows from common pool resources theory. Co-production is the key to respecting landscape values, furthering justice, and achieving community acceptance.

Waste Sector Structure: Institutional Capacity for Planning Waste Reduction

This paper examines some major institutional factors determining the possibilities for successful waste reduction policies. In a multiple case study, four geographically defined cases of markets for municipal solid waste are compared on four core elements in the sector structure. It shows that the structure is shaping institutional capacity for achieving waste reduction. This capacity is determined mainly by combined structural elements. Privatisation, for example, should definitely not be seen as the only effective solution. Only under very specific conditions (unbundling and separation of functions) can privatisation have positive results. On the other hand, when authorities act as regulators, they should not have interests in waste collection and disposal. They should stick to either regulation, collection or disposal. Copyright Royal Dutch Geographical Society 2001.

Environmental education excursions and proximity to urban green space – densification in a ‘compact city’

The value of urban green space for environmental education fieldwork is empirically investigated in a study among all secondary schools in Amsterdam. The article describes how the proximity of schools to green spaces emerges as a new factor in the ‘sustainable city’ and the ‘compact city’ debate. For fieldwork excursions proximity to green spaces is crucial for establishing a pattern of outdoor environmental education. Once established, it shapes teachers’ attitudes on excursions. A linear structural path analysis reveals how this in turn results in more fieldwork excursions to other destinations. Interviews with teachers show how this can be interpreted mainly as a result from iterative positive experiences with excursions close to the school, which are triggered by the availability of nearby green space. Remarkably, beside the effects of green spaces for well-being and health, the significance of green space for environmental education of children remained under-investigated. This argument came prominently to the fore in a case of urban densification within the framework of compact city policies. In the dispute about the elimination of green space, citizens claimed a high educational value would vanish, but they felt this value was not recognized in the decision-making process.