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That’s according to a new Heatmap poll — but it is still possible to win their support.
Attending a public hearing is the most important civic duty that nobody actually does. (Well, not nobody — we’ll get into that.) But despite attendance at public hearings being one of the most effective ways to directly shape one’s community, the average American probably isn’t going. And heaven forbid you ask them to speak.
Heatmap’s latest poll looked into, among other things, the actions someone would take if they had concerns about a hypothetical clean energy project in their area. What we learned is that Americans are more willing to join a lawsuit (41%) than they are to talk at a public hearing (30%). But there is a demographic that is bolder than the rest of us glossophobes — people who owned 50 or more acres of land were nearly one-and-a-half times as likely (43%) to speak up in such a scenario. Overall, these large landowners were also more likely to say they’d attend a public hearing about a clean energy project (71%) than the general population (60%).
Community opposition is one of the leading causes of delays and cancellations of renewable projects, with about one-third of wind and solar siting applications in the last five years killed by local pushback. It’s also true that Republicans are more likely to live in rural areas with renewable energy development, meaning “conservatives’ opposition could prove more decisive to the future of wind and solar than liberals’ support,” The Washington Postwrote last year. (Heatmap’s polling backs that up: 70% of the large landowners we surveyed said they plan to vote for Donald Trump, compared to 17% who said they intend to vote for Kamala Harris.)
Clean-energy advocates who work with rural partners, including large landowners, told me they weren’t surprised to hear of the group’s high levels of in-person engagement. “Obviously, it takes land to build wind and solar, and a lot of that land is in rural America,” Jane Kleeb, the founder and director of Bold Alliance, an environmental advocacy organization based out of Nebraska that helps landowners navigate new infrastructure projects, told me.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest concern Heatmap encountered among large landowners was that potential clean-energy projects could “take up farmland” (70%), followed by worries that they’d “harm wildlife or local nature/environmental sites” (58%; this is also the highest concern among the general population, cited by 54% of all respondents).
Kleeb said she often encounters these anxieties when working with partners in rural states. “When we’re talking with a community that for decades has supported land being used to grow ethanol, which is also an energy source — solar will take much less land and not use water, which is a depleting resource in the Midwest and all across the country,” she pointed out. (To be clear, Bold Alliance does support ethanol.) As for environmental concerns, “wind and solar have way less impact than fossil fuels on wildlife, period,” Kleeb said. “There’s no comparison. It’s not even a close call.”
Another worry large landowners had that stood out from the general population was that nearby land might be developed “by non-local companies” (57% of large landowners vs. 37% of the general population). “What’s not been happening well is that some clean-energy companies will come into a community, and they won’t disclose where the projects are going,” Kleeb said, adding that “community after community that we’re engaging with wants to know that from the beginning, and they want to be engaged in the discussions about where a project may or may not be better suited to be placed.”
While Heatmap specifically looked at who would be the most likely to speak out at a public hearing if they had concerns about a clean-energy project in their area, Kyle Unruh, the Idaho and Montana policy manager for Renewable Northwest, which works with regional partners to create a cleaner grid, said he’s seen that landowners will also “advocate for development on either their own land — as a means of making feasible the continued ownership of a small farm — or on behalf of a fellow landowner who should be entitled to their own property rights and decisions about what happens on their private land.”
At the same time, Unruh has seen landowners testify that they believe development on a nearby property could hurt their property values — a concern raised by 45% of the large landowners who responded to Heatmap’s survey — though he stressed that the claim that renewable energy development decreases nearby property values “is not borne out by the research.” He cited this worry as another reason large landowners evidently show up and speak out at public hearings more than their suburban and urban neighbors. “Landowners tend to have an elevated personal interest in whether energy development takes place, given this development has the real potential to increase the value of their land or the perceived effect of reducing the value or desirability of their land,” he told me.
On the flip side, when Heatmap presented landowners with reasons why they might allow renewable projects to be developed on their land, people living on six or more acres were more likely to pick “none of the above” (44%) in Heatmap’s polling than tax benefits (29%), diversifying their income (28%), or starting an agrivoltaics venture with solar generation and agriculture co-located on the same property (20%), among other options. Of potential upsides“having a long-term source of income” (35%) had the plurality, and “environmental benefits” (31%) also held high appeal.
Clean-energy developers should be making a concerted effort to reach out to large landowners from the start, but not just because they’re one of the more vocal contingents at the local town hall. More often than not, the energy transition will take place in literal backyards, and many opportunities for collaboration or partnership are lost when misinformation, conspiracies, or sneaky development tactics lead instead.
“The climate movement, in general over the past decade, has missed the boat here,” Kleeb of Bold Alliance told me. “There’s a major opportunity to engage with the rural folks who will be shouldering the responsibility of making sure that wind and solar are being built.”
The Heatmap poll of 5,202 American adults was conducted by Embold Research via online responses from August 3 to 16, 2024. The survey included interviews with Americans in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
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And more of this week’s top renewable energy fights across the country.
1. Otsego County, Michigan – The Mitten State is proving just how hard it can be to build a solar project in wooded areas. Especially once Fox News gets involved.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Opponents of offshore wind in Atlantic City are trying to undo an ordinance allowing construction of transmission cables that would connect the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project to the grid.
3. Benton County, Washington – Sorry Scout Clean Energy, but the Yakima Nation is coming for Horse Heaven.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now…
In Connecticut, officials have withdrawn from Vineyard Wind 2 — leading to the project being indefinitely shelved.
In Indiana, Invenergy just got a rejection from Marshall County for special use of agricultural lands.
In Kansas, residents in Dickinson County are filing legal action against county commissioners who approved Enel’s Hope Ridge wind project.
In Kentucky, a solar project was actually approved for once – this time for the East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
In North Carolina, Davidson County is getting a solar moratorium.
In Pennsylvania, the town of Unity rejected a solar project. Elsewhere in the state, the developer of the Newton 1 solar project is appealing their denial.
In South Carolina, a state appeals court has upheld the rejection of a 2,300 acre solar project proposed by Coastal Pine Solar.
In Washington State, Yakima County looks like it’ll keep its solar moratorium in place.
And more of this week’s top policy news around renewables.
1. Trump’s Big Promise – Our nation’s incoming president is now saying he’ll ban all wind projects on Day 1, an expansion of his previous promise to stop only offshore wind.
2. The Big Nuclear Lawsuit – Texas and Utah are suing to kill the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license small modular reactors.
3. Biden’s parting words – The Biden administration has finished its long-awaited guidance for the IRA’s tech-neutral electricity credit (which barely changed) and hydrogen production credit.
A conversation with J. Timmons Roberts, executive director of Brown University’s Climate Social Science Network
This week’s interview is with Brown University professor J. Timmons Roberts. Those of you familiar with the fight over offshore wind may not know Roberts by name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work: He and his students have spearheaded some of the most impactful research conducted on anti-offshore wind opposition networks. This work is a must-read for anyone who wants to best understand how the anti-renewables movement functions and why it may be difficult to stop it from winning out.
So with Trump 2.0 on the verge of banning offshore wind outright, I decided to ask Roberts what he thinks developers should be paying attention to at this moment. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Is the anti-renewables movement a political force the country needs to reckon with?
Absolutely. In my opinion it’s been unfortunate for the environmental groups, the wind development, the government officials, climate scientists – they’ve been unwilling to engage directly with those groups. They want to keep a very positive message talking about the great things that come with wind and solar. And they’ve really left the field open as a result.
I think that as these claims sit there unrefuted and naive people – I don’t mean naive in a negative sense but people who don’t know much about this issue – are only hearing the negative spin about renewables. It’s a big problem.
When you say renewables developers aren’t interacting here – are you telling me the wind industry is just letting these people run roughshod?
I’ve seen no direct refutation in those anti-wind Facebook groups, and there’s very few environmentalists or others. People are quite afraid to go in there.
But even just generally. This vast network you’ve tracked – have you seen a similar kind of counter mobilization on the part of those who want to build these wind farms offshore?
There’s some mobilization. There’s something called the New England for Offshore Wind coalition. There’s some university programs. There’s some other oceanographic groups, things like that.
My observation is that they’re mostly staff organizations and they’re very cautious. They’re trying to work as a coalition. And they’re going as slow as their most cautious member.
As someone who has researched these networks, what are you watching for in the coming year? Under the first year of Trump 2.0?
Yeah I mean, channeling my optimistic and Midwestern dad, my thought is that there may be an overstepping by the Trump administration and by some of these activists. The lack of viable alternative pathways forward and almost anti-climate approaches these groups are now a part of can backfire for them. Folks may say, why would I want to be supportive of your group if you’re basically undermining everything I believe in?
What do you think developers should know about the research you have done into these networks?
I think it's important for deciding bodies and the public, the media and so on, to know who they’re hearing when they hear voices at a public hearing or in a congressional field hearing. Who are the people representing? Whose voice are they advancing?
It’s important for these actors that want to advance action on climate change and renewables to know what strategies and the tactics are being used and also know about the connections.
One of the things you pointed out in your research is that, yes, there are dark money groups involved in this movement and there are outside figures involved, but a lot of this sometimes is just one person posts something to the internet and then another person posts something to the internet.
Does that make things harder when it comes to addressing the anti-renewables movement?
Absolutely. Social media’s really been devastating for developing science and informed, rational public policymaking. It’s so easy to create a conspiracy and false information and very slanted, partial information to shoot holes at something as big as getting us off of fossil fuels.
Our position has developed as we understand that indeed these are not just astro-turf groups created by some far away corporation but there are legitimate concerns – like fishing, where most of it is based on certainty – and then there are these sensationalized claims that drive fears. That fear is real. And it’s unfortunate.
Anything else you’d really like to tell our readers?
I didn’t really choose this topic. I feel like it really got me. It was me and four students sitting in my conference room down the hall and I said, have you heard about this group that just started here in Rhode Island that’s making these claims we should investigate? And students were super excited about it and have really been the leaders.