Listening to renewable energy technologies

Linda O'Keeffe

pp. 179-195

in: Milena Droumeva, Randolph Jordan (eds), Sound, media, ecology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

This chapter is focused on the development of a methodology called Listening as Practice. O Keeffe discusses the development of this method and insights drawn from the field. The research draws on three years of listening within several unique soundscapes with very different natural landscapes: the southern region of Iceland and the northeast region of Spain. Each space contains significant sites of renewable technologies from hydroelectric power to wind farms. A key question to ask with the emergence of any new technology is what is its potential impact on the sociological and ecological environment. This is even more important when there is an almost unilateral consensus that the use of renewable technologies to replace more harmful energy sources takes precedence over any possible socio-cultural or environmental impacts.