Research Highlight |
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Power Politics:
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This project seeks to contribute to an understanding of this opposition movement with the goal of proposing conflict mitigation strategies that simultaneously aid rapid climate mitigation while empowering rural communities. This research examines social conflict over wind energy development in Wyoming and investigates claims made regarding unfair burden-benefit distribution, attachments to unindustrialized natures, and the (not insignificant) visual and physical landscape changes that are a result of utility-scale wind farms.To approach the interface of differential access to power and contestations over renewable energy development, we bring into conversation the literature of political ecology. We take for our case study the three-year battle over a 100 MW wind farm in Converse County, Wyoming, where a local opposition group has stalled the project and rallied local residents against the developer. A webcast of Shawn’s talk about this project can be viewed here. Shawn Olson |