Nimbys 'thwart plans' for cheap green energy

Protesters are going against majority Scottish opinion, says expert
Paul Kelbie
The Observer, Sunday 26 April 2009

Scotland risks being left behind in the race for green technology by an epidemic of nimbyism holding up planning applications and threatening to derail government targets for renewable energy.
While the UK and Scottish governments argue over the need for nuclear power, experts claim that numerous multi-million-pound projects which could create thousands of jobs and provide cheap and efficient power to millions of homes are being thwarted by a highly vocal opposition.
While 48 per cent of the population believe Scotland's energy should only come from renewable sources, the number of groups objecting to plans for wind farms, wave turbines and waste-to-energy plants tells a different story.
There are more than 12 separate pressure groups protesting against the development of renewable energy sources across Scotland and that number rises to over 100 throughout the UK.
Opposition groups claim potential developments on their doorstep will detract from the natural beauty of the landscape and harm local economies driven by tourism.
"I don't believe nimbyism has anything to do with it," said Gillian Bishop, a spokesperson for pressure group Views of Scotland. "Opposition to wind power comes from the feeling that it doesn't provide enough electricity and doesn't stop enough emissions from coal-fired power stations to justify damaging the environment. Getting 50 per cent of power from renewable sources is a ludicrous target - real pie-in-the-sky stuff."
Despite landfill taxes rising by £8 a tonne per year to encourage alternative solutions, numerous groups have sprung up against the burning of waste to create cheap energy.
"Opposition to wind farms and waste-to-energy plants is in danger of undermining what are ambitious government targets for renewable energy," said Professor Andrew Wheatley, of Loughborough University. "If we were to rely on wind power alone something like three new windfarms a day would have to be built. Waste-to-energy plants definitely have their part to play in the provision of renewable energy, but there's a lot of education to be done in terms of letting the public know how they operate."
Later this year proposals for a state-of-the-art recycling village, incorporating the latest waste-to-energy technology, are to be unveiled for a new development south of Glasgow in East Renfrewshire.
The developers claim the site would be among the most modern and efficient in Europe, create numerous jobs and could provide enough cheap power for thousands of surrounding homes and businesses. Although full details have yet to be released, opponents have already started attacking the idea.
The Westminster government is so concerned about the scale of opposition to renewable energy developments that, in the wake of The Energy White Paper and the Energy Review of 2006 which pledged to increase the development of renewable energy technologies to provide 20 per cent of total electricity supply by 2020, they have started a major national programme to examine the fears of objectors.
The Beyond Nimbyism project is funded by the Government's Economic and Social Research Council and is a multi-disciplinary investigation into the public's views. "Generally, objectors would say they were all for renewable energy but that 'this is the wrong place'. It might sound like a nimby response but there are often genuine concerns about viability. They honestly didn't think it was the best place," said Judith Parks, research associate with the Sustainable Cities Institute of Northumbria University, who has studied several protests.
And Green MSP Patrick Harvie said waste-to-energy plants, along with wave and solar power, had a key role to play in the future. "We should be thinking about waste material as a resource rather than a problem to be got rid of," he said. "No matter how you dispose of it there will be some sort of environmental impact so the key to the argument is about reducing the amount of material that goes through the product chain.
"What can be recycled should be recycled and we should try and extract the maximum benefit from what's left."