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I fell in mid-August. The chimney built 79 years agoThe vertical logo of the Pease Power Plant represents simultaneously a multi-generational economic engine to which, for many locals, they or their predecessors contributed.
For the team that has demolished hundreds of chimneys, it was like chopping down a tree and poking a big enough hole in the side, and that’s where it will fall. This event was different from the usual tree-cutting events, with many people coming, either applauding in the background or watching with sadness the end of a period. In any case, the fall of the chimneys was a clear sign that the landscape is changing and the habits formed so far must adapt to new ones.
Public space is changing
The space around us is constantly changing, but we are so used to it that we usually consider the current spatial situation to be normal, which has been successfully integrated into our consciousness. This is also the reason why people go to take pictures or look at large infrastructure objects at sunset.
All the rail corridors, the larger viaducts, the chimneys of power and thermal plants, and other such elements were good space destroyers when they were built, but time has turned them into part of the landscape, and other systems have had to adapt to them. Rotation.
Therefore, all the changes that seem new and strange will one day become part of the new normal. More importantly, we still see them as symbols of the good old days. In this way, the fall of the Puth chimneys may also be an event for some people, marking the end of an era and the stories told by those who lived through it.
At this year’s Perspectives event, I moderated a rather lively discussion on “Landscape Change in the Wind of Renewable Energy.” The biggest surprise in the discussion was a comment from a young man in the audience from nearby Pusey who said that the landscape associated with oil shale is a thing of the past for him and his peers. They have also seen up close the damage that the oil shale industry has caused to local communities (the podcast “Ruumilood” discusses sinking landscapes and residential buildings) ‘Sinking and shrinking’). Renewable energy and related spatial changes are the new hope of modernity and the new engine of local development.
When I visited the community wind farm discussion, I felt a similar sense of positivity and care while preparing for the panel discussion. I went there expecting to see emotions flare up and people talking over each other and throwing out different conspiracy theories. Instead, I encountered a culture of discussion that was mutually respectful, thoughtful, and analytical.
“People want information,” said one local woman I interviewed for the podcast. It was revealed during the conversation that this wasn’t the first time their community had hosted an event, but that such a large crowd had never come before. The reason was both her own excitement and the fact that the event showcased specific landscapes from familiar places to illustrate how wind farms can change familiar landscapes.
The Estonian national goal is to ensure that by 2030, we generate at least as much electricity from renewable sources as we consume. Given that we are currently primarily an energy importing country, this means that there will be a lot of change in the coming years. Therefore, a number of local government master and special planning processes are underway across Estonia to prepare for the corresponding changes.
“It’s just a tiny dot on the map,” said Climate Minister Joko Arend at the Avams Festival, explaining that it’s not worth thinking too much that all of Estonia will suddenly be covered in wind turbines. Looking at the whole of Estonia, the amount of lint required is achieved on a relatively small area of land.
However, the minister said it was important to consider carefully whether there was a cross-utilization approach, that is, to mainly use areas that have been transformed by humans to produce renewable energy and plan new industrial areas. In other words, prefer a circular economy approach with large-scale planning.
A suitable example is the Aidu wind farm, which was inaugurated the day before the Püssi chimney collapsed and where 17 wind turbines were planned in the area of a former oil shale quarry. Likewise, networks must be taken into account when making spatial decisions. “That is why it makes sense to consider areas that are as close to the grid as possible. If we build a wind farm in a suitable location, but the grid is not close and therefore its construction costs are very expensive, then overall it does not provide a beneficial solution for anyone,” says Ivo Palu, director of the Institute of Electrical Energy and Mechatronics at Tallinn University of Technology.
However, it must be noted that while in Estonia we have become accustomed to larger energy production volumes and the fact that energy-related infrastructure is distributed in Ida-Virumaa, renewable energy and distributed energy production are to some extent shaping the landscape across Estonia. Defense Minister Hanno Pefkur also spoke at the opening ceremony of Aidu: “From a security perspective, it’s easier to build them in where possible.
People living in Llaneland were used to large chimneys and factories being located far away, close to the border with hostile neighbours, but now you also had to get used to “chimneys” being close to home, which were impossible to get too. No longer spewing smoke, but spreading their spinning blades across the horizon.
How Estonia’s space will develop in the future, whether in terms of demographic development, the location of related infrastructure, new industrial areas and energy production, are topics that will be discussed in the coming years in the Estonian National Plan 2050. According to the leaders of the process, Anna Semjonova said that despite the small population, we already feel the competition for space, which is why we are thinking more and more deeply about how to cross-use space in a way that has the least negative impact on the environment.
At the same time, spatial planning is the best way to achieve social consensus because it is essentially a participatory process involving a wide range of expertise.
There are many aspects to belonging
A lot has changed in 79 years. Back then, no one asked the community whether we were going to build a power plant here or there, and no one discussed the future of energy and job creation more broadly. Now, the culture of discussion is immediately normalized, part of the general democratic culture, and it often goes further (i.e. closer to the community) than legislation would otherwise allow.
In addition, the community event I visited was not a formal public hearing of the planning process, but an additional initiative by the local wind farm developer. At the event, with the help of digital tools, people could observe how the views related to the construction of the wind farm changed from various familiar places, roads, intersections or farmhouses. As the Minister of Climate said during the discussion: “If these are windmills of large foreign companies, they are ugly. But if they become local windmills, they are much more beautiful.”
There are many aspects to belonging. First, if you yourself have the opportunity to correct the number of windmills, their location, the rhythm of their position in the landscape, such a decision-making place gives one the power to define for oneself how to change my habitual perception.
Another source of ownership is financial. For this purpose, a wind farm fee was also established at the initiative of the state, with the support of which the local government received considerable additional income (considering the situation in many smaller municipalities in Estonia) to further promote wind power development and invest in the region.
When the event discussed which wind turbines could be removed, it was indeed too dramatic, with everyone muttering and admitting “Look, take less and the wind turbine costs will be lower”. In the end, it is usually agreed with the developer during the planning process to invest in other infrastructure while building the wind farm. As one woman said, the problems in the village are very simple, water, network and road failures.
The great joy of the Arvamusfestival discussions was that we never used the word NIMBY.Not in my backyard” or “not in my back yard”), an expression that indicates opposition to any change.
The term has received enough criticism, and rightly so, since no objection arises in a vacuum. Moreover, people’s opinions and experiences vary widely, and the relevant divisions cannot be divided by a single slogan.
Instead, if we want to successfully lead change towards a sustainable future, we need to listen more and hear behind the words what we cannot or do not want to say. As landscape architect Karin Bachmann summarizes, everyone has a myth that they live by.
Instead of obligations and numbers, we need to tell the story of our place and understand more broadly why renewable energy serves the interests of all of us, our families and the environment. Only by answering the question of “why” can we understand what needs to be done and how it should be done.
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