Technologies in Place: Symbolic Interpretations of Renewable Energy

This chapter considers stakeholder (including the public) responses to two specific energy technologies in two particular places – the Wave Hub, Cornwall, UK and Eccleshall Biomass, Staffordshire, UK. The focus is on the role of different interpretations of place and technology in shaping the responses that stakeholders had to these developments. Investigation of a bioenergy and a wave energy development allows comparison of terrestrial and marine issues and widens the dominant focus upon wind in studies of the social acceptability of renewable energy. It is argued that stakeholder responses to renewable energy developments are, in part, related to interpretations of what the technology and the location or ‘place’ are seen to represent or symbolize. Symbolism refers to more abstract meanings that stakeholders associate with the physical developments themselves. In particular, the interest is in the multiple and potentially conflicting symbolic interpretations of both place and the technology, and how these can explain why the development does or does not ‘fit’ in a particular location for different stakeholders. Previous work on renewable energy siting controversy has identified that opposition to particular renewable energy developments may be a substantial barrier to meeting renewable energy targets (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007). Although some authors have developed theoretical frameworks (eg Bell et al., 2005), much of the work on renewable energy siting controversy has tended to focus on description rather than explanation (Devine-Wright, 2005). Notions of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) have been commonplace in both applied and academic contexts and are used as a way of discrediting objectors (Burningham, 2000). Calls for more information provision and more ‘rationality’ (eg Upreti, 2004) or describing objectors as NIMBYs (with the accusations of selfishness