Hypothetical Garbage vs. Reality

It's not just cats that keep repeating the same fruitless exercise over and over again and each time hoping for a different result.  Apparently people do it, too.

With this drastically inaccurate public opinion survey about transmission lines "for renewables" on the table, why would anyone attempt to re-create it?  It doesn't matter what the results are, because the experiment is based on hypotheticals that bear absolutely no resemblance to reality.

Question:  Does opposition to new transmission become weaker when the transmission line is purported to be "for wind" or "for solar"?  Do people object less to "clean" transmission lines?

Answer:  NO.

Why:  If you ask a bunch of random people on the phone (or internet or wherever) if they would support a transmission line for "clean" energy, it's only a hypothetical transmission line.  Political correctness comes into play.  Green is good, or so we've been greenwashed to believe.  However, when the transmission is actually in the respondent's backyard, it doesn't matter what color it is.  They don't want a new transmission line IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD.  They only want to sound politically correct when the transmission line is hypothetically in someone else's backyard.

Communities threatened by new transmission lines, especially those purportedly for "clean" energy shipped to some other state or region, will oppose the transmission line every time.  Every.last.time.  It doesn't matter what the color of the electrons are, it's about the transmission line and its immediate and personal effect upon the community. 

It is absolutely NOT TRUE that opposition is weaker or more easily vanquished if the transmission line is "for wind."  Case in point:  Wildfire opposition to three different "Clean" Line transmission proposals.  It didn't matter to any of the thousands of landowners and residents affected by the transmission proposal whether the project was "clean."  What mattered was the idea of forced sacrifice to enable the transmission line.  Being for "clean" energy actually made things worse!  None of these affected communities were getting anything out of a new transmission line that would "fly over" their properties to bring "clean" power to distant cities.

And nothing has changed, except some "researchers" wasted private grant money trying to repeat the public opinion exercise that failed last time.  And the results of this new study?

Our results also suggest that transmission line developers may garner greater support from communities that will host such lines if they explain explicitly that at least one source of electricity is solar or wind.

My advice, after working with transmission opposition groups for over a decade?  Don't do it.  It hurts more than it helps.

Of course, no study of the hypothetical can substitute for reality.   So, developers, if you try this and it fails (like it failed spectacularly for the former Clean Line Energy Partners) here's a bit of a disclaimer.

Of course, higher support for transmission lines that carry renewable electricity may not be sufficient to overcome all opposition, especially from property owners most directly affected by the siting; nor is it guaranteed that a response to a hypothetical survey scenario reflects how one would respond to the same scenario in reality.

That.  That right there is why your entire research project failed before it even began.  How hard would it have been to set up your research project to deal with reality, instead of hypotheticals?  You could have asked any of the thousands of opponents of the Clean Line projects in 8 different states if it mattered to them if the project was for "clean" energy.  It didn't matter at all.  What did matter was eminent domain and the burden of living with the transmission line across their homes and businesses.  Maybe you should have asked them if their opposition would lessen if the project were buried, if it were buried on existing rights of way, if participation in the project was voluntary, or if public land was used exclusively for siting the project.  That's where you'd see a lightening of opposition.

But, you didn't.  You set up your experiment to bias towards your desired result by ignoring reality in favor of hypothetical situations influenced by greenwashing.  I'm not sure what good it does you to pretend your study is accurate, when the opposite is actually true.  You're not dealing with the real problem.  You're trying to pretend the real problem doesn't exist.  And that's why overhead transmission "for renewables" will fail every time.  I mean... EVERY TIME.