Landscape and Wind Power

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Landscape and Wind Power

An International Workshop on landscape and wind power policies

An event sponsored by

The French Energy Council (CFE)

The French Ministry for the Energy and the Environment (MEEDM) The National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)

The Region Ile de France and the GIS-R2DS Network

The National Agency for the Energy and the Environment (ADEME)

Nogent-sur-Marne, CIRED, Dec. 10

th

- 11

th

2009

Organizing committee: Alain Nadaï (CIRED, F)*; Dorle Dracklé (Department of Cultural Research, University of Bremen, D);

Ana-Isabel Afonso (Department of Antropology, New University of Lisbon, P).

*Contact: Alain Nadaï, CIRED, Jardin Tropical, 45 bis Avenue de la Belle Gabrielle, 94736 Nogent sur Marne Cedex, France, tel/fax : +33 1 43 94 73 87/ 70, emai -

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Landscape and Wind Power

An International Workshop on landscape and wind power policies

Nogent-sur-Marne, December 10th - 11th 2009

-

The international Kyoto process and the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have progressively imposed the evidence of global warming as the future and most urgent challenge for humanity. National and supra-national energy policies are at the core of the strategies developed in order to face it. The growing agreement in favour of a global development of alternative energies has brought technological innovation and deployment in fields such as solar energy, biomass production and especially wind energy at the top of the national and international agenda. Due to their decentralized pattern, renewable energies have a considerable impact on the composition of mostly rural spaces. The focus on space provides a link between the globally accepted necessity of alternative energy generation and the implications of its deployment in specific places. It reminds us in many ways that our energy comes from somewhere, and it contributes to raise awareness for the changes brought forth by the emergence of new energy landscapes. Landscape studies focus on the spatial impacts of these new energy policies and their consequences on the regional and local level; they shift attention on the processes set into motion through the localization of the global and the inevitable recomposition of the social. Thus, the focus on landscape provides a necessary link between global discourses and local practises, between the demand for new energies and the multiple implications of their implementation. The ethnographic approach to landscapes understood as spaces that are simultaneously inhabited, imagined, administered and subject to ever new changes sheds new light on governance strategies; it adds a new perspective on energy policies and decision processes. The notion and practice of landscape reconsiders planning and siting processes in order to reach a better understanding of the often times dramatic recomposition of the local through the implementation of global strategies. The proposed two-day workshop will have a strong focus on the cross-fertilisation between policy research on energy transition / wind energy policy and the more theoretical research strands on landscape. It aims to explore landscape-energy issues by structuring discussions around a number of empirical and more theoretically oriented contributions stemming from a three years international research program in France, Germany and Portugal. These contributions will include keynote speech about the energy transition, its significance in the field of landscape, the politics of wind power as well as local case studies about the deployment of on shore and offshore wind energy.

The organising team aims for the workshop to result in an international publication. For more details please contact Alain Nadai:

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1. List of participants (18)

Afonso Ana Isabel, PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, lectures in the Department of Anthropology, FCSH - Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Antrop Marc, Geographer, professor at the University of Ghent (Belgium, Flanders), head of the Department of Geography. Main areas of interest: landscape sciences, remote sensing, GIS, planning, strategic environmental impact assessment (SEA), landscape genesis, European landscapes, landscape perception / evaluation, land assessment, landscape ecology and landscape architecture.

Chaabane Naceur, PhD in economics, research engineers and General Manager CIRED / CNRS, prospective modeling in energy, environment and development, in relation with Climate Change issues.

Drackle Dorlé, Professor for Social Anthropology and Intercultural Studies at the University of Bremen, Germany. Gaspard Albane, Sociologist at the French Energy Agency, specialised on issues of social acceptance of renewable energy.

Hinkelbein Oliver, Anthropologist, Research fellow at Department of Cultural Research, University of Bremen (Germany), offshore development in the Baltic Sea.

Gee Kira, Kira Gee studied Zoology and Conservation at Oxford University and UCL. In 2003 she joined the German national research project “Coastal Futures”, working on visions of the coast, perceptions of seascape and stakeholder conflicts in the context of offshore wind farm development in Northern Germany. Until recently based at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin, she is now with the GKSS Research Institute at Geesthacht, Germany.

Krauss Werner: Werner Krauss, adj. assoc. professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Dept of Germanic Studies. PhD in social anthropology. Main areas of interest: anthropology of landscapes, political ecology, science & technology studies, European studies, multi-sited ethnography.

Labussière Olivier, Geographer, Post-Phd CNRS / EHESS / CIRED (Paris, France), renewable energies, aesthetic issues, landscape and planning issues in wind power developments and high-voltage lines developments.

Luginbühl Yves, Geographer, Member of LADYSS (CNRS - Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces) and of course "Gardens, landscape and territory" (Université de Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, École d’Architecture de Paris La Villette), advisor for the European Council (co-rédactor of the European Landscape Convention); Chair of the scientific committee of the research programme ”Paysage et développement Durable”.

Mendes Carlos, PhD doctorant, Department of Anthropology, New University of Lisbon (Portugal), wind power development and policy, nature conservation insitutions and policy in Portugal.

Nadaï Alain, Senior Research fellow at CIRED (Paris, France), socio-economist: environmental issues, renewable erergies, landscape issues and design, science and technology studies. Co-ordinating an international research project on landscape and wind power; IPPC Leading Author, Special Report on Renewable Energy (SRREN) (Chapter “Policy, Financing and Implementation”).

Neri O’Neill Rebeca, PhD in Sociology at CIRED, studying the social process of the capture and the storage of CO² - legislation in Europe and social controversies.

O’Neill Brian Juan, Anthropologist, Professor Catedrático at Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL), Department of Antropology.

Olwig Kenneth, Professor with specialty in landscape theory and history at theDepartment of Landscape Architecture and Planning at SLU – Alnarp (Sweden) (since January 2002).

Pereira dos Santos Henrique, Landscape architect, has worked on landscape protection plans and wind power planning until January 2009 as official at the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity (ICNB, Portugal).

Szarka Joseph, Reader in European Studies at the University of Bath, UK: politics and policy-making, economic, environmental and energy policy.

Toke David, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy at the Department of Sociology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. His fields of interest are environmental policy, energy policy, especially wind power and renewable energy.

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2. Preliminary workshop program

(20mn presentations; 20mn discussion slots indicated in light grey)

Day Time Content Presenter / discussant

9.30AM -> Welcoming coffee (9.30-10.00)

Introduction Ana I. Afonso (P) / Dorle Dracklé (G) / Alain

Nadaï (F)

The globalist agenda, reassessing landscape drivers Kenneth Olwig (Sw) / Marc Antrop (B) The politics of wind power Joe Szarka (UK) / Brian J. O’Neill (P)

Power from below David Toke (UK) / Krauss Werner (G)

Dec

10 th Lunch (12.20-14.00)

The emergence of wind energy landscapes in France, Germany and Portugal: a comparative approach

Alain Nadaï (F) / Ana I. Afonso (P) / Dorle

Dracklé (G) / Joe Szarka (UK)

Coffee pause (15.20-15.40)

From Watt to Megawatt: the local emergence of global

wind power (North Sea, Germany) Oliver Hinkelbein (D) / Kenneth Olwig (Sw) Becoming offshore, recomposing the sea

(Veulettes-sur-mer, France) Olivier Labussière (F) / Marc Antrop (B)

Conclusion Brian Juan O’Neill (P)

-> 5.40 PM Gala diner

9.00AM ->

Landscapes as Energy Infrastructures

(Bremer Haven, Germany) Dorle Drackle (G) / Kenneth Olwig (Sw)

Wind power and Infrastructure in Viana do Castello (Portugal)

Carlos Mendes (P) / H. Peirera dos Santos (P)

Werner Krauss (G) / Kira Gee (G)

Aesthetic pollution? Wind energy and the ambiguous roles of nature and landscape in Germany Wind power planning in France (Aveyron), from state

regulation to local planning Alain Nadaï (F) / Joe Szarka (UK)

Conclusion of the morning Marc Antrop (B)

Lunch (12.20-14.00)

Landscapes under negotiation – from invisibility to musealization

(Wind Power in Protected Zones, Portugal)

Ana I. Afonso (P) / Brian Juan O’Neill (P)

Dec Reinventing a visual landscape (Eure-et-Loir, France) Alain Nadai (F) / Marc Antrop (B)

11th

Becoming on shore, recomposing the social

(Seine-et-Marne, France) Olivier Labussière (F) / Dave Toke (UK)

Conclusion Joe Szarka (UK)

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Presentation rules and abstracts

Presentation time is 20 mn. Discussion time 20mn (incl. discussant time).

Presentation paper, when available, will be displayed on a table, in the seminar room, during the workshop. However, dicusant can obtain them, if available, by asking in advance. As the audience will be interdisciplinary, presenters shall be very didactic as to the analytical framework and notions they rely on in their presentations, so that discussions can be eased.

Discussant shall mostly ease the discussion and exchanges, with brief comments and questions (5 mn). The Globalist Agenda, Reassessing Landscape Drivers - Kenneth R. Olwig

The globalist agenda encompasses the campaign against global warming, but also a wide range of phenomena ranging from the economical to the political. The common denominator is the idea of the globe as a means of comprehending, and simplifying, a wide range of complex phenomena within a particular spatial, and scalar, framework. The globalist agenda has had an enormous impact upon environmental policy, but one can question whether or not this agenda is favorable to that of landscape, at least as landscape is understood by the European Landscape Convention? And, by extension, one can question whether this agenda is ultimately favorable to the environment? This paper will seek to answer these questions with specific reference to wind power and energy more generally.

The politics of wind power - Joseph Szarka

Situating the ‘politics of wind power’ within the context of the electricity system as a whole, the paper focuses on three policy framing processes: (1) the role of mobilising discourses (mostly facilitating the uptake of renewables); (2) the impact of industry structures (mostly obstructing renewables through both technological lock-in and incumbent strategies) and (3) the influence of institutional frameworks at local, national and supranational levels (which operates in multiple directions). Taking France as the main case in point, it links renewables target setting in domestic and EU institutional venues to mobilising discourses. However, the impossibility of France meeting its 2010 EU target of 21% electricity consumption from RES-E is noted, and the cause is attributed to the impact of industry structures, particularly the predominance of the nuclear sector. A scenario is then elaborated in which the 21% target is met, based on a high level of wind power penetration. Factors variously impeding or facilitating the conversion of this scenario into reality are explored. Whilst acknowledging the considerable uncertainties associated with the coming energy transition, the conclusion investigates the new Renewables directive 2009/28/EC - and associated National Renewable Energy Action Plans - as illustrations of the institutionalised translation of mobilising discourses into policy obligations and of the potential to reformat the politics of renewables.

Power from below – Dave Toke

Ecological modernisation theory is a central theme in my approach to the politics of renewable energy. My presentation will argue that we need to combine the positive aspects of mainstream ecological modernisation’s concern for industrialised technologies as a solution with more radical versions which argue for bottom up deliberation into a version that sees popular support for technology (in this case renewable energy as a solution). From this perspective, a solution to the specific issue of landscape and wind power which will be discussed is less to consider having more deliberation and consultation (some has to be done as a right) which does not get windfarms built, but more to think of what incentives we can give to local people to less oppose the technology.

The emergence of wind energy landscapes in France, Germany and Portugal: a comparative approach

Due to the global acceptance of the reality of global warming and the imperative of changing energy patterns, ever more countries are in the process of implementing alternative energies such as wind power. In this presentation, we summarize some outcomes of a three year research project focused on the transformation of space as a consequence of these newly established alternative energy policies. We analyse the deployment of wind power in France, Germany and Portugal through the lens of ethnographic landscape studies. Landscapes are the level at which political visions and policy decisions endorse (or not) their very materiality. We highlight the differences, commonalities and potentials for the production of wind energy in different national contexts. The ethnographic focus on landscape gives an insight into the practice of the implementation of wind power policies. We argue that the global demand for low carbon futures and its successful implementation is highly dependent on the respective national cultures of administration as well as on local practices, initiatives and perceptions of space at the local level.

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In recent years, the North Sea became a political object for wind energy production. While the landscape of this area is already densely populated with windmills, the open sea is still an untouched resource. Industrial entrepreneurs, but also a regional organization of citizens of the area underwent a long, expensive and complicated planning procedure, while politics tried to keep up with the legal process to frame these activities. In this process are involved legal, ecological, financial and especially technological risks. Contrary to general opinion, the seascape itself is already an industrialized and regulated area, and the realization of the plans will affect the landscape enormously. The project starts at the assumption that there always was a close relation between land- and seascape, and takes this relation as a strating point for the investigation of off-shore projects.

Becoming offshore, recomposing the sea (Veulettes-sur-mer, France) – Olivier Labussière, Alain Nadaï

Offshore is increasingly seen as the future of wind power in many countries, especially those where (e.g. Denmark, Germany) the onshore territory is thought to already be saturated with turbines. France has recently set targets for its offshore wind power development (6 GW out of 23 GW national wind power capacity for 2020). Different from other European countries, France did not proceed by first planning the marine space. In spite of internal administrative tension, it launched a tender and decided to develop a first near-shore project (Veulettes-sur-mer) in order to learn from it about how to proceed with the future of its offshore wind power policy. The case study follows the process of developping the Veulettes project. Following an actor network theoretical perspective, we approach this process as a case of heterogeneous engineering and point at the ways in which both the technology and the sea milieu get recomposed in order to bring turbines off shore. In doing so, the case study shed lights on social recompositions which are inevitably at work in any wind power development, and point at key issues for the future French offshore wind power.

Landscapes as Energy Infrastructures (Bremer Haven, Germany) – Dorle Dracklé

Bremerhaven has a long history in transformations of its landscapes, which is related to the drainage of the wetlands, to two world wars, to the rise and fall of the fishing industry and only recently to the end of the ship building industry. The infrastructures of this landscape, understood as the structural elements such as transport systems, energy supplies, places of production, administration, systems of regional knowledge etc, are reorganized towards new goals. The technological infrastructures as well as the knowledge rooted in this area, recently start to undergo a spectacular transformation from dockyards to the production of wind turbines. Bremerhaven will be one of the centers not only of the national, but also transnational production of high technology wind industry. The project will research in detail this transformation of a modern industrial landscape, with a special focus on the change of infrastructures

Wind power and Infrastructure in Viana do Castello (Portugal) – Ana Isabel Afonso, Carlos Mendes

This case study aims at analyzing the social and economical impacts of wind power industry in Minho (a province in Northwestern Portugal). In the region, two wind power-related facilities are to be found in the town of Viana do Castelo and in Lanheses, both managed by the German company Enercon as a partner of an international consortium, where rotor blades, concrete towers and generators are manufactured and the turbines assembled. Local staff is trained in Germany, while German staff members regularly visit the facilities in the Minho province. The wind power industrial cluster is reshaping Viana and the region, being perceived as an opportunity to put Minho in the expressway of “modernization”.

Aesthetic pollution: Wind energy and the ambiguous roles of landscape in Germany – Werner Krauss

Landscape plays a central role in the German wind energy discussion, for both the advocates and the opponents. In my presentation I will argue that an approach to the wind energy controversies through the lens of landscape offers new insights into the very nature of these conflicts. In the beginning, I will present two literary examples, which present opposite attitudes towards wind turbines while making use of an identical concept of landscape. In the second part, I will analyze the discourse against wind power as an integral part of the ‘Energiewende’ (energy transformation) in Germany. Again, landscape is a central argument in the debate about the ‘Verspargelung’ (mushrooming of wind turbines). Examples from actual conflicts in Northern German municipalities will demonstrate the messiness of these conflicts, with science and administration not as neutral arbiters, but deeply involved agents. In the conclusion, I will come back to the overall concept of landscape deeply rooted in the German mindset and as the source of conflicts about wind energy; I will argue that the nature of these conflicts are beyond the reach of science induced governance strategies.

Based on several prominent media campaigns against windmills in some typical “Germanic” landscapes, this project will explore the German attitude towards nature, landscape and the discourse about climate change. While Germany is the leading producer of wind energy in the world, the project is based on the hypothesis, that the mainly elitist arguments

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against wind energy in the own backyard is an integral part of the historically complex German relationship to nature. Own backyard means here the typical German cultural landscape, which is a refuge for weekenders or (re-)tired citizens. Wind power planning in France (Aveyron), from state regulation to local planning

The development of wind energy in France presents an exemplary case of contrast between the policy instrument and its effectiveness in terms of installed wind power capacity. After 7 years of one of the highest feed-in tariffs in the world, the installed capacity in France is still very low. This is notably due to a diffuse pattern of administrative landscape protection which impacts on the construction of wind power potential. In turn, the pace of wind power development can be understood only by looking in more detail at the way in which landscape is dealt with in local planning processes. This paper examines the question using the case of Aveyron in southern France.We follow the shifting ways in which landscape is enrolled in wind power planning, in a context where new planning instruments favor an incipient decentralization in wind power policy. The case points to a change in both the networks and the concepts involved in the design of landscape representations that underlie the construction of wind power potential. We show that this change has been forced by the far-reaching and decentralized visual impacts of wind power technology, suggesting that technology is recomposing the social as part of its development process and questioning the very meaning and perception that is given to landscape.

Landscapes under negotiation – from invisibility to musealization (Serra D’Arga, Portugal)

This case study consists of examining the debate on the visual impacts of the installation of the Arga Wind Park in the municipality of Caminha (Northwestern Portugal). Inaugurated in 2006, the wind farm occupies a classified area under the Natura 2000 network. Popularly known as the “Saint Mountain,” Arga is the home of the São João d’Arga Monastery that is visited by hundreds of pilgrims yearly. During the licensing process, the promoters were asked to modify the initial plan in order to preserve the landscape observable from the monastery. This process of negotiation is an apt illustration of flexibility in face of religious values and the needs of built heritage conservation in an emblematic place.

Reinventing a visual landscape (Eure-et-Loir, France)

In 2003, wind power arrived massively in La Beauce (outskirts of the Parisian basin, 100 kilomtres south of Paris). La Beauce has historically confirmed its vocation as a major agricultural area through land consolidations and mechanisation. This « beau ce » (literally ‘pretty this’), which Gargantua praised as a place for good living (Rabelais, 1534), is nowadays a place often considered of low landscape quality, especially by non-natives. Industrial cultures have replaced sheep grazing. They shape an open, almost abstract space, punctuated by church steeples and villages, and by small valleys in the west. The northern part is dominated by the imposing and symbolic presence of the Cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres.

While the Cathedral had always been the main focus of French heritage protection in the area, the emergence of wind power turned La Beauce into a central issue for the landscape administration. This case is interested in how wind power made La Beauce emerge as a landscape for the French State. It is about re-inventing a visual landscape and about the processes through which forms and aesthetic codes might emerge in planning. We follow the administration at work in reconstructing this visual landscape. We analyse the way in which wind power has forced civil servants to quit a perspective centred on the Cathedral in order to capture wind power presence and bring it into visual existence through the language of sensation and experience. We analyse the processes through which new forms and aesthetic codes emerge in planning. We point to two different types of objectivities at work in civil servants attempt to re-invent a visual landscape that can be administered.

Becoming on shore, recomposing the social (Seine-et-Marne, France) – Olivier Labussière, Alain Nadaï

The Ile-de-France region, with Paris at its centre, is an interesting case for studying the emergence of wind power landscape. Wind power development meets a vivid opposition (11 projects under way, 7 projects stopped, 10 anti-wind power NGOs), which is most often described by outsider as based on landscape concerns and sustained by Nimby concerns and neo rural population – i.e. former urbanites who have left the city in search for an improved quality of life. This case study tries to adopt an insider’s perpective on the construction of local opposition. We follow the development and structuration of networks of so-called “opponents” to wind power, from their emergence until the present time. We do this on the basis of interviews and participant oberservation with the actors of these networks. The analysis traces the ways through which their viewpoint on landscape, territory and wind power policy is assembled and brought into collective and political existence at the local level. In doing so, the case points at the relation between French policy framework, local politics and the emergence of a local opposition to wind power. It analyses the ways in which wind power deployment recomposes the social, eventually constructing its own opposition.