The impossible dream

Contextualizing the finance news you need to know.

I get it: “Beautiful mountain wind turbine view” doesn’t sound so spectacular. But with record-high temperatures, catastrophic flooding, and extended droughts, the call for clean energy grows louder. And to achieve some of these climate change goals, green energy infrastructure needs to be built somewhere for all of us hoping to survive on this li’l planet we call home.🌎

NIMBY groups are saying no thanks, though, and they’re putting up a fight against those dreaded windmills, Don Quixote-style. But instead of wielding a lance on horseback, NIMBYs are armed with demands for zoning law reform, protest signs, and mountains of paperwork—all in a bid to preserve the status quo and escalate property values.

Getting renewable energy projects off the ground and settling for suboptimal project sites is expensive. A Berkeley study of UK projects linked systematic investment misallocation in renewable energy (fueled in part by NIMBY obstructions) to a 10%–29% increase in wind energy installation costs. That’s 23 billion British pounds that could’ve been invested in other projects lowering carbon emissions. 🙄

What kinds of inefficiencies could carry such hefty price tags, you ask? One example is giving up on land wind farms due to local opposition and betting on (more expensive) offshore turbines. “In some places like the UK and Maryland, onshore wind development has become almost impossible, mainly because of how many people feel about industrialization of the landscape,” said Johns Hopkins environmental management professor, Dr. Benjamin Hobbes. “Despite the much greater cost of offshore wind energy [...] Maryland is turning offshore rather than further developing onshore resources.”

Most Americans—including Maryland locals—do favor clean energy as a *concept*, with 87% of residential property owners considering renewables to be important for the future. They just don’t want to deal with the headache of setting them up nearby. (Shout-out to my Econ 101 professor who’d get all worked up to explain that this is a classic case of the free rider problem.)

According to energy policy consultant Rob Gramlich, old-school energy political backers also play a key role in blocking clean energy developments. “As renewable energy has grown to be a more significant threat to conventional sources, there are a lot of astroturfing efforts to try to block development,” Gramlich told Money Scoop. “There’s unfortunate stratification in our society these days where everything seems to be partisan. People in rural America, where a lot of these wind and solar projects are, are getting their news from different sources and hearing from politicians that wind turbines cause cancer or other bizarre, contrived myths.”

Some opponents do have worries beyond health issues and lower property values, including damage to wildlife, noise pollution, and inefficient public spending. But studies have shown no evidence of wind farms affecting home values, and experts agree that, despite any potential negative effects, investing in renewables is necessary to mitigate climate change.

So, hopefully we won’t reach air fryer-level temperatures before we start prioritizing our, um, survival and begin praising the collateral positives of renewable energy projects: more jobs, income for farmers and landowners leasing out their land, and increased local tax revenue. Oh, right, and pushing back a climate apocalypse. 😬— Isabel