Drive across vast stretches of the rural United States, and you might notice something unexpected. In some places, the horizon is dominated by white, silent, and strangely serene-looking wind turbines rising from fields of soy. Elsewhere, corn fields suddenly give way to vast stretches of bluish-gray solar panels. The plains abutting mountain ranges are dotted with oil derricks, silently oscillating. Chain link fences, arising seemingly out of nowhere, protect a jumble of pipes that signals a hydraulic natural gas well beneath. These are the outward, visible signs of the energy transitions that are changing the fabric of communities, restructuring economies, and raising tough questions about environment and identity in rural America.
Most often, rural America is characterized as being in a state of decay, not at the forefront of a nationwide energy transformation. News stories highlight the “graying” of rural America – an aging and declining population, failing industries, a stagnant economy – and politicians use rural Americans as political props. And in some ways this is true: rural America does have a higher median age than urban America, and fertility rates are low. The rural economy still hasn’t recovered from the recession of 2008, and unemployment is still high. Beyond this, what few new jobs have been created are primarily in the service sector, which has consequences for the health of rural communities and for their sense of identity. Rural identity and economic struggles have been co-opted by both sides of the United States’ increasingly-polarized political discourse, often without the input of the people actually living there. This is the typical vision of rural America today: old, angry, frustrated, and dying. But rural Americans themselves aren’t content to sit back and accept this fate.
In the face of these changes – and often to combat them – many rural communities, from Wyoming to Iowa to Pennsylvania, are embracing new and often controversial forms of energy production, both renewable and non-renewable. This semester, I will explore the faces, places, and difficult questions that accompany this emerging rural energy transition. The journey might take us to Sunburst, Montana – proud home to both the Sunburst Refiners, named after the town’s now-shuttered oil refinery, and Montana’s largest wind farm. We might meet the Chinese company investing in wind power and employing former coal miners in Wyoming, the families whose water has been poisoned by fracking in Pennsylvania, or the aging farmer who, facing labor shortages and rising costs, has signed a long-term lease for solar production. These are the hidden stories of a changing rural America, stories simultaneously central to and distant from the one-note portrayals of rural America in contemporary political discourse. What do these energy transitions mean for rural Americans, rural communities, our environment, and our politics? Answering these questions will be the central goal of my work this semester.