Governing Atmospheric Resources: State Institutional Dynamics in Wind Turbine Siting and Decommissioning in Contemporary China

Abstract

China has established itself as the global leader in wind turbine installation over the past few decades, but in recent years, it has also mandated the decommissioning of large-scale projects on lands marked for ecological preservation. What institutional setups and tensions explain these contradictory processes? By comparing the actors and processes that facilitated both the early success and subsequent malignment with state aims of two large-scale wind farms, in Inner Mongolia and Shandong, the thesis provides insights into how unresolved conflicts in national visions of development are worked out in localized energy development projects. Within a unique legal and governance context, China presents a configuration of wind energy development in which both the construction and decommissioning of turbines are occurring simultaneously, and debates over environmental and economic aims are another permutation of longstanding tensions on state actions toward natural resources for the national interest.