Wind turbines as new smokestacks: Preserving ruralness and restrictive land-use ordinances across U.S. counties

by Inhwan Ko, Nives Dolšak, Aseem Prakash

Renewable energy (RE) facilities provide a global public good of climate mitigation but impose local costs such as landscape disruption and harming the rural character. Because of their land-intensive nature, utility-scale RE facilities tend to be located in rural areas with plentiful and cheap land. In the U.S., about every fourth county (729 of 3,143) has enacted ordinances restricting the siting of RE facilities. Drawing on a novel dataset of county-level restrictions on wind and solar RE facilities for the period 201o-2022, we explore whether, all else equal, levels of ruralness motivate the onset of such restrictions. As the policy literature on problem visibility suggests, we find support for this hypothesis for wind energy facilities only, probably because wind turbines due to their height tend to disrupt the rural landscape and are visible from long distances. We also find that counties are more likely to adopt restrictions for both wind and solar when adjacent counties have enacted them, thereby suggesting a contagion effect in the onset of restrictions. Contrary to the prevalent view on partisanship in climate policy, liberal counties are likely to restrict wind facilities. Our paper points to important sociological and quality-of-life factors that might be impeding the clean energy transition.