is rippling through the windy

and sunny parts of the United States.

In the Midwest, newer and bigger wind turbines

are rankling the locals,

and fights over solar farms have broken out

in California and Virginia as well.

In these fights property rights advocates

and environmentalists have joined forces

to push back against clean energy.

New research says that if this movement continues,

it could stall the country's green energy transition.

- We used to think that there's sufficient land

for the wind that is needed,

but now we believe that there could be

some land use conflicts that would actually hit

some of the limits to wind development.

- [Narrator] The fights about solar and wind

are all about how land is used.

In several parts of rural America,

locals say that the installations

are dominating the landscapes.

- So these projects are as big as they are

because that's what makes them as cheap as they are.

- [Narrator] Samantha Gross,

who studies energy security at the Brookings Institution

says that, "Most US wind turbines are roughly 500 feet tall

and are spaced more than half a mile apart.

These installations can be seen for miles."

- You have projects being put in place in those areas

where people aren't used to seeing a lot of development,

and they're there because that's where they need to be,

but they can generate public opposition

because they're a real change to the use of the land.

- [Narrator] Researchers say that,

"It takes at least 10 times as much land

to develop renewables when compared to fossil fuels."

- Well, if you think about making electricity

from natural gas and the kind of land footprint that has,

it's about one 10th of the land area, per unit of power

that you have for a wind facility,

You can do other things with that land.

You can farm underneath it, have it for pasture land,

but still that land will be occupied by the wind facility.

- [Narrator] Despite these land use issues,

financiers and leaders in Washington

are pouring money into new green energy projects.

- What we as a country should do

is make smart, sustainable investments

with appropriate financing

to make this nation more productive,

to advance America's leadership in clean energy,

to win the jobs of the future,

or mitigate the threat of climate change.

- [Narrator] The high level of interest in clean energy

is causing controversy as the rubber

hits the road out in the country.

Several states in the US wind quarter

are grappling with how to deploy

more renewables for the grid.

The state of Indiana started to experiment

with utility scale wind power in 2008, as of 2021,

40 of the state's 92 counties

have some amount of wind or solar development,

but a groundswell of activism

has taken over county and state level politics.

Citizens across Indiana have campaigned

against new clean energy developments,

arguing that the structures are an economic scam

that will be a nuisance to public health,

biodiversity, and local property values.

The movement gained influence over the years.

As of 2021, more than 30 Indiana counties

have restricted the development of utility scale renewables.

Many use setback requirements,

which determine how far away projects must be removed

from existing properties.

This tactic can keep turbines away from homes

which reduces the flickering shadows

and noise created by the installations.

But some residents would like to see the bans

on renewables come to an end.

- There are folks who were saying,

"Wait a minute, my county lost

millions of dollars in tax revenue."

- [Narrator] State legislators like Ed Soliday,

a Republican representing Valparaiso, Indiana,

say that the restrictions may harm the region's economy.

In 2021, Soliday wrote and introduced House Bill 1381,

which would have prevented counties

from issuing outright bans on wind and solar projects.

- The one thing we know for sure

is there's a market for renewable energy,

and we can either pay ever rising transmission costs

to buy it from someone else,

or we can participate in the market here in Indiana.

- [Narrator] The bill introduced by Soliday

died in the state's 2021 legislative session

as locals pushed back.

He says a similar battle is unfolding over solar energy.

- That same group that opposed wind

has now come up with health arguments,

visual arguments against solar panels.

And most of those will not stand up to peer review.

- It's important that these projects are designed

to be serving the community as a whole.

Because if they're not designed that way,

it can lead to downstream flooding.

It can lead to resentment and therefore antagonism,

and therefore opposition to these projects.

- [Narrator] Jesse Kharbanda is the executive director

at the Hoosier Environmental Council.

His group supports renewable energy

but they argue that locals should maintain control

over how development is managed.

- By the end of the decade,

the overall land footprint of the solar farms in Indiana

could be of the size

of the entire Indiana State Park system.

And so how solar farms are designed

in the backdrop of climate change really matters

because they can act as an agent for community resilience

in the face of more intense and more frequent flooding,

or they could exacerbate it if they're designed poorly.

- [Narrator] Critics say that the solar farms

will eliminate farmland and could disrupt natural habitats.

Similar conflicts have broken out across the plains

of Kansas and Ohio in the sunny California desert

and along the windy Northern Atlantic coast.

Plans for wind farms in the Northeast

were introduced in the 2000s.

But as of 2021,

little had been built beyond a five turbine project

near Rhode Island, that didn't keep developers

from pursuing the area.

Biden officials have given final approval

to a $2.8 billion project to place 84 turbines,

12 miles off the coast of Nantucket island.

Researchers at National Renewable Energy Laboratory

are modeling how these political battles

will affect the country's energy supply.

- It's very difficult to capture people within models.

The social or human side is always hard to distill

into a set of equations.

- [Narrator] Trieu Mai is a senior energy analyst

at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

His team's research shows that the US has enough

wind resources to power the grid,

but the local opposition movements

are starting to limit the supply of land

that can be used for wind farms.

When Mai's team modeled out a scenario

where populated counties keep banning renewables

development was concentrated

into the relatively unsettled mountain west.

- We never expected land to be a constraint for wind

and renewable deployment

for all the energy needs that we have.

But now that we've looked into this further

land use conflicts is a very important issue here.

- [Narrator] Experts say that the bans on renewables

will push up the costs of the energy transition.

That's because wind and solar

are among the cheapest sources of energy

according to levelized cost estimates

from the consulting agency Lazard.

Renewables have been deemed critical

to the future of the global economy,

but the backlashes unfolding in the US

show a latent risk as the green energy markets heat up.

(lighthearted music)