Undesired reinforcement of harmful ‘self-evident truths’ concerning the implementation of wind power

Abstract

This ‘viewpoint’ draws attention to a lingering, simplistic and faulty interpretation of the complex phenomenon of acceptance of renewables and their implementation in concrete projects by all relevant actors—namely the ‘backyard theory’. During the last decade, research that investigated nimby has provided support to disprove the two prime hypotheses (proximity and decreasing property-value). The current mainstream trend in academic circles is clearly towards abandoning nimby explanations.However, in practice among developers and policymakers nimby thinking still prevails. Unfortunately there is also some academic writing that persists in recycling the ‘backyard theory’—despite ample research to the contrary—thus feeding this faulty interpretation of implementation problems. A recent review of the state of the art of wind power implementation is taken as an example; it presents nimby as a common-sense, self-evident truth, while to support this explanation it cites publications that actually refute this view and instead support the mainstream move towards abandoning nimby thinking. This shift is important, because further academic support for this concept would serve to hinder rapid deployment of wind power and also other renewables.