Clean energy project spur disputes. A new MIT course trains mediators.
As the United States injects hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy through its signature climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, criticism is growing louder about where, how and whether to allow new development.
As opposition grows, previously routine regulatory processes are taking several years, if they are completed at all. Some communities are concerned about changes to the landscape, some property values and others about wildlife conservation. On top of these debates is misinformation, sowing doubt and distrust among developers and communities.
A new class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a glimpse into a new way to resolve these types of conflicts.
MIT offers a unique course that trains students to become mediators in conflicts over clean energy projects. Under the supervision of a professional mediator, students work directly with developers, local officials and community members. Students receive academic credit and hands-on experience tackling real-world dilemmas, while the community and developer receive free help in resolving conflicts.
“Most coverage of the opposition to clean energy sloppily reaches for the term NIMBYism,” said Larry Susskind, the MIT professor behind the course, during a recent class a reporter attended. He was referring to the common abbreviation for “not in my backyard” opposition. Ultimately, Mr. Susskind said, such framing delegitimizes affected community members and fuels bitterness.
Curbing climate change – and extreme weather for future generations – depends entirely on society’s ability to quickly build new clean energy infrastructure, despite the messy puzzle of local, state and federal assessment projects that must be overcome.
Today, the technologies being built are mainly wind and solar farms, storage facilities and power lines. In the coming decades, new projects will include everything from carbon dioxide pipelines to facilities that capture CO2 directly from the air to the production of renewable hydrogen.
There has been discussion in Washington DC and elsewhere in the country about how to expedite project reviews. Most have focused on streamlining permitting processes, such as limiting the time local officials can spend on reviews and giving state and federal governments the power to override local authorities. New York and California recently passed such laws and they could become models for the entire country.
But “Doing so risks simply ignoring community concerns rather than finding ways to make the placement process more fair in the eyes of those protesting,” Mr. Susskind and research colleagues write in an article to be published in the January issue of the 2024. scientific journal Cell Reports Sustainability.
In Mr. Susskind’s class, called the MIT Renewable Energy Clinic, he hopes to create collaboration that can initially slow projects down by incorporating more inputs but ultimately speed them up by avoiding conflict at a later stage.
During a recent Friday afternoon class, students debated everything from environmental justice concerns to misinformation and oil companies. Ultimately, several students said they will have to put aside their own opinions to take on the role of mediator.
“We have to find a way to be fair and create a level playing field for all parties,” said Leyla Uysal, a Harvard University design school student with an urban planning background. “It will be difficult, but I will teach myself not to take sides.”
The students, about two dozen from different disciplines, ages and other area schools, recently took a certification exam. The certification prepares them for the real part of the classroom. The projects in this first course are two solar farms proposed by Chicago-based Ranger Power for Michigan counties that are already facing opposition.
“We’re not starting at the beginning,” Mr. Susskind said. “We come in because they’re stuck.”
It is not Mr. Susskind’s first hands-on academic endeavor. He helped establish the first student-run cybersecurity clinic in 2021 to help protect public infrastructure from hacking. It has since expanded to 15 universities and received $20 million from Google this summer.
He hopes to create a similar national consortium of universities to serve clean energy communities and projects in their respective regions.
Columbia University is already talking to Mr. Susskind. Abraham Silverman is leading a new initiative at the university that focuses on permitting and other non-technical challenges in the clean energy transition, and said he is in favor of processes that focus more on expediting permitting decisions, but that he is “intrigued ” is through Mr Susskind’s approach to more directly involved communities.
“That’s a very Jeffersonian democracy approach to siting and licensing,” said Mr. Silverman, a former top official at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. “It’s refreshing to have people like Larry looking at this stuff.”
A fundamental challenge facing Mr. Susskind is a potential lack of trust from community members who are skeptical of outsiders.
“Some students may naively think that getting into MIT is a good thing, but they may find out soon enough that that’s a bad thing,” said Patrick Field, a senior facilitator at the Consensus Building Institute who oversees the class and recently visited Cambridge. .
Student Anushree Chaudhuri has a cautionary tale. She faced angry phone calls (if at all) while studying projects in California this summer for research related to the clinic. Part of the problem, she said, was wording on the clinic’s web page that favored development over engagement, which has since changed, she said.
“For students who are new to this type of community engagement, it can be difficult to develop empathy unless you start having conversations,” says Ms. Chaudhuri. “And it can be hard to have empathy when everyone is glowering at you.”
Students will look to work with representatives from local businesses, public regulators and community members on the two Michigan solar projects in the coming weeks, with the goal of making progress by mid-December.
Progress will not be measured by the progress of projects, but instead by all stakeholders finding greater understanding for the other side. Mr Field said: “Did people walk away with rejected emotions and a sense of understanding and respect, even when an agreement had been reached? does not exist?”
On the topic of trust, Sarah Mills, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan who is not involved with the clinic, noted the rural-urban divide that exists in many states. Rural residents often trust schools with deeper ties to rural areas more than universities like hers, she said. She examines the potential of agricultural extension programs to act as facilitators in conflicts over the location of renewable energy.
The next version of the MIT course, scheduled for the spring, could involve communities and developers in projects that are not (yet) at odds, according to Mr. Susskind.
“We don’t give up if we fail the first or second time,” Mr. Susskind said. “It could be a function of the places we work. It might be easier to start in a place where no battle has yet been fought.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press in association with Cipher News.