Click bait headline with the claim about "Environmentalists" opposing clean initiatives. There was ONE environmental policy maker in the whole piece - Mr. Jesse Kharbanda. He struggled to come up with reasons to not develop wind/solar farms. The Hoosier Environmental Council website literally states this: HEC supports, and actively advocates for, public policies that facilitate investment in utility-scale renewable energy, customer-owned renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Farmers are paid good rent for the 1% of their land that is used by wind farms. WSJ needs to do better.

Similar issue occurred in Denmark when wind turbines were first installed, people living in the country side didn't like them in their backyards. In general, offering co-ownership (and some nice subsidies) help turning the tides. When you can see your wind turbine generating money, all of the sudden they become much more welcome :) However, they shouldn't be placed as close to homes as seen in this video, nobody would like that.

You failed to show me an environmentalist who opposes renewables

I'm not sure I would say anyone in this program should be referred to as an "environmentalist." Simply calling yourself a patriot or environmentalist does not make one so. Good highlight nonetheless.

As someone who lives in Indiana, there is very little fight for the natural habitat/farmland when it's going to be used for another housing development...

I"m a fan of wind turbines but always imagined them at least a kilometer or two from any houses. I think they look nicer than power lines or highways. *Added: to clarify, I realize power lines are needed with wind turbines but if we learned to live with power lines, we can learn to live with wind turbines. The wind turbines should be 1 km or 2 from any houses, either off-shore or part of a pumped storage set up. If someone is against any wind turbines but ok with power lines, please provide a logical explanation

The US is so large this seems like a minor issue.

3:15 I can see how that would be extremely annoying

Then go Nuclear and SNR's

I wonder if the government offered like tax breaks or insensitive to having windmills in peoples farms, land etc would change their tune?

A smart sustainable investment would be investing in nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power ?

Wind turbines look so cool though 😕

This headline is stupid and deceptive. Environmentalists aren't fighting renewable energy development, they are having to fight FOR renewable energy development. What a failure - but I guess this is what to expect from the WSJ of late.

Yeah, it definitely sucks to have a windmill block your view of a whole lot of nothing Indiana.... "It's an eyesore" is the most american reason I've heard to not install renewable energy.

"Not in my backyard!"

*CLICKBAIT!* Not actually _environmentalists_ fighting renewable energy development. Way to go WSJ, misleading viewers about environmental concerns just so you can get some views.

Video is misleading as it uses out dated 10 and 12 year old footage from anti-wind sites to portray supposed impacts of wind turbines. In reality the opposition to clean energy does not come from farmers, who generally are the biggest supporters - but from newcomers to ag communities who expect the farmers to shut up and be compliant groundskeepers, maintaining an unchanging backdrop for their gentrified country lifestyle - and insist on "setback" rules that in fact are seizures of the farmer's right to use his property.

…All I’m hearing from the whiners is “I don’t want a future for kids, I want my view”

Misleading title

Environmental activists are unhappy. What. A. Shocker.

More Nuclear please

The mind boggles. Just why don't the turbine operators give the neighbours free electricity to make them feel the benefits?

People love wind turbines until one appears in their backyard

Build nuclear. Problem solved.

I was registered lobbyist in Brussels (EU Parliament). They are using the same “why not” as the oil and gas lobbyist in Brussels. Only difference is that nobody listen to them in Brussels. Difference between US and Europe is that EU actually want to be climate neutral in 20 years and want to cancel coal and gas from energy networks.

Only now have you came to this conclusion? In Portugal, windmills have ruined several mountain skylines, especially in Oliveira do Hospital and Serra da Estrela

There were no environmentalists fighting renewable energy in this article.

While they can “dominate the landscape,” so can air pollution.

The solution is using the solar panels for the charateristic that really makes them game-changers: they can be fragmentedly placed everywhere. They need to be placed over every roof (especially those large ones covering industries) and on parking lots. This way we would generate electricity without using land that could host homes or farms

There are 500+ Million Parking spots in US, covering all of those with Solar Panels would power most of the country. Don't know why that is so difficult. Large quantities of parking usually correlates with high power usage.

The turbines donot look great but still better looking than an old coal mine or oil spill.

The same power that fuels the Sun must be developed as a green source of energy.

a farm of solar panels or wind turbines seem a lot more favorable to me than a mass mine of coal and crude oil 🤷‍♀️

This is such a minor concern compare to Global warming…..

This is a highly minor and insignificant argument of land usage for wind power vs land usage of fossil fuels. The real attention should be on the carbon output and pollution output of the two power generators. Obviously wind and renewable energy is a long lasting better alternative. The arguments against such are from ppl who couldn’t help themselves if they wanted to

I laughed when they said solar farms take up much needed farm lands. Have you been to the grocery store. Much of Americas food is grown in other countries. Soon, you Americans will be buying your energy from other countries. Some nations have to learn the hard way.

Renewables aren't that cheap if you factor in the cost of backup power.

You ignore the land used to produce the fossil fuels which is far worse than the land use for renewables.

Lol @ how they pronounced Lazard… I am sure some MD there is furious right now 😂

Would be interested to see how many of these environmental groups are actually funded by oil and gas companies.

I never even thought about the shadows from the turbines doing that or more specifically how annoyingly irritating that would be if the shadows flashed across my yard and across my roof and against the walls of my house and through the windows. It'd be like there is a strobe light outside the windows flashing in. That beyond stinks. And it is breaking into and smashing the peace and privacy of those folks homes. I know that much I wouldn't like that very much at all.

Misleading headline. Makes it seem like environmentalists are saying not to use renewable energy. Missing research into farms that benefit from renewable energy in conjunction with agricultural plots. This is very poorly done.

One of the many overlooked issues is maintaining renewables. Just like all other mechanical items, they need maintenance and solar panels do as well. We currently have many roads and bridges that we cannot find the money,time or will to take care of. What makes us think we will take care of these projects as needed? I’m not anti renewable. I just see that in the hands of the same folks that matting the rest of our infrastructure, we will be left with broken piles of trash ready for the landfill. 😢

Nuclear energy solves all problems

First comment: Nuclear

To install appropriate amount of supply to meet 100% demand needs incredibly enormous land areas compared to land space which is needed to conventional generators. For countries which don't have large land area need high efficient power plants which don't emit CO2 to achieve 100% renewable energy.

Imagine thinking non-renewables will last forever. The scarcer the resource the more expensive it becomes

Solution: Go Nuclear!!!

This is Greenwashing and not environmentalism

Put wind offshore where it's possible. Put panel farms under the wind turbines where it's not possible. Put panel farms up on stilts so things can still grow/live underneath them and the scaffolding might even be used for harvesting of watering. Use Small Modular Reactors to lower the land requirements from wind and solar.

The facility pays rent to the landholder which increases property value as the landholder is able to generate more income from their land than they would otherwise.

They also the ones who complain first when there a power outage in the area.

Twenty five years ago, in California, when we would travel and see the wind turbines on beautiful hills we would be disturbed by how they looked. We didn't like them. However, now twenty-five years later, when we see them, our mind sees the good they are doing the planet and we are no longer bothered by seeing them. In fact, we are appreciating them.

I’ve always been curious about these mines the precious metals come from that make up many of the parts on electric cars

There are also wind turbines that are tubes with the blades touching the axle on a long side instead of short Like The blades we see would be the cross section

Nuclear is future , hydrogen is future 🙌 because it is sustainable and it provides uninterrupted power

If you don't start the conversation about clean energy with nuclear power you're not serious about decarbonizing the energy grid, everything else is a joke.

Nice video.

Here in Massachusetts, people who call themselves environmentalists are fighting against an offshore wind farm that would be built over the horizon, out of view from Martha’s Vineyard. They are making all sorts of false claims about it. The very same folks don’t want new natural gas pipelines (even though natural gas power plants are preferable to oil fired power plants).

Reducing emissions > wah wah nuisance issues

Agrivoltaics combines solar and farming. Proven benefit to both

If you want to ban wind and solar, can you suggest better alternative clean energy.

I just don't understand why people hate nuclear energy. Considering how little land it consumes and how little waste is created, it's oftentimes more responsible than wind and solar

I'm just saying nuclear wouldn't use that much land to produce a greater amount of electricity

But I mean, it's actually such a cool sight. For me these giant engineering wonders spinning elegantly are always awe-inspiring, especially when viewed from up close.

This is such a ridiculous piece. Every oppositional argument could be crushed by a 10 year old.

This clickbait title makes it sound like they're fighting all renewable energy development. Do better please

NIMBYs gonna NIMBY

why not install wind turbines on top of city skyscrapers?

if people want to use renuable energy they can do it at there house put solor pannels on your roof and put up your own wind generator dont put them hundreads of miles away in some one elses back yard and transfer that energy 100s of miles at about 60% loss put the pannels on your own house if you open a solor plant 1 your transfering large amounts of power over lines that cant handel the load you must upgrade transformers and double the amount of wire needed to move that energy and 2 that wire has to be mined coper comes out of the ground and you would need thousands of miles of wire and you would have to dig up a area the size of a small country to get it if the solor pannels are on your roof you need maybe 100 ft oif wire and your breaker box should be more than enuff to handle the load we dont need a new transformer cause your not trying to ramp up the voltage cause theres no heavy power loss it would take alot of the load off the already failing power grids so no more fire danger and your not distroying thousands of acers of natural raw land i power my house by 6 solor pannels im not hooked up to the grid at all i have a normal fridge and ac and everything any other house dose its not that hard people if your not willing to put solor pannels on your roof or a wind gen in your yard then why would you push large scale use of sead renewables on other people some people are just to stupid to understand i do it in my yard so so can you

Blades are the problem. They are not recycable, last for 10-15 years and end up in landfields.

A lot of this negative rhetoric comes from wind turbines it seems. I work in solar development and I specialize in building solar projects on already build structures like buildings and parking lots.

The wall street journal need to talk about ecosia they are a search engine that plants trees.

best practice is to organize renewables as local energy coops. it is amazing how much more beautiful a wind turbine looks to the locals when they directly profit from it.

this is hilarious!😂 1:20 says it all

Nothing can make environmentalist​ happy

Nuclear is the answer

Stupidity & greed will be the downfall of humanity. We need to act on climate change now. We should have acted 20 years ago. Now there is no time for arguing.

Lol, flickering shadows and land use. That's it? Plant trees (be in their shadows), and use the land underneath solar panels for crops. Vines and some other crops grow much better when protected under a solar panel roof (higher than installed now), plus the panel is colder, increasing efficiency by up to 5%. It's not a either-or situation. Plus, you did not mention which "environmental groups". If you want us to take this seriously, show how many are for, how many are against, the credentials and financial ties of each. But you mention that management should be local anyway. That's always true.

Levelized cost graph needs a citation

go nuclear. new small modular reactors can now used spent fuel as well as uranium.

Windmills aren't ruining the view; NIMBYists are.

FYI, here in Australia, we have a famous and influential environmental activist called Bob Brown who's leading a campaign against a new wind farm in his home state. This guy is also against renewable hydropower and he led a successful activist campaign in the 1970s to stop new hydroelectric stations from being built. Other activists here have also protested against a silicon production plant that produces raw materials for solar panels, and mines to produce minerals used to make renewable energy technologies. Frankly, it seems these people just want us to live in caves....

So what do environmentalists support?

They say they are "environmentalists" huh

Why isn't there a drive to bring solar on to roof-tops? There are SO many 1-family homes in the US with oodles of roof-space. In Germany many local energy providers install solar panels for free in return for a fixed price on the elecricity...

Sounds like the solution is to get the locals invested in the projects and not allowing companies to reap all the profits.

0:23 Modern problems requires modern solutions 🤣

And with so much potential to directly utilise wind energy, banning them is kind of going backwards.

I thought this was going to be about pollution from soil enrichment for turbines & solar panels.

The question is, is it efficient??? Economically.. it's expensive to maintain. Plus can't even supply big cities without nuclear energy.. It is still young and politics is using it for their interest.

Thank God in India we don't have Right to property

Fossil Fuels and nuclear energy rules!!! Stupid solar and wind

Research in Europe has shown that electricity costs rise from €c10/kWh to €c90/kWh, a cost overhead of 9 times, when unreliable wind and solar are added to the grid.

ROFLMAO - only people whove never left a lab or city wouldn't realize that Land is the issue.

George Carlin called these people out a long time ago. Some don't really care about environment just there own personal habitat and they might be personal inconvenienced...

One obvious clean alternative is missing - nuclear. It only appears on Lazard LOCE graph which is also misleading as other organisations like UK's Barkleys bank show the opposite. Taking all costs into consideration, renewables are more expensive than current nuclear.

I love it when pro renewable people say renewables are cheaper. That would explain why Germany has the highest renewable energy generation in Europe and also the highest costs by 43% and why California has one of the highest costs for power in the US. These claims are just the climate industrial complex sucking the life out of consumers

What about how wind blades go to the landfill?