The decades-long push for expansion of “renewable” electricity generation—wind and solar power in particular—always has been driven by a combination of religious fervor and the rent- and vote-seeking cynicism of businesses and politicians. Renewable electricity supposedly is “clean,” a stance that ignores the heavy-metal pollution, wildlife destruction, massive and unsightly land use, landfill issues, noise, flicker effects, and other myriad environmental problems engendered by unconventional electricity.

And there is the amusing argument that because wind and sunlight are free, wind and solar power must be cheap, an argument that does not explain why massive subsidies, both explicit and implicit, are needed to make such electricity viable economically. Nor have the enthusiasts explained very well how the intermittent nature of wind and sunlight can be made consistent with the reliability that any modern economy demands of its power system, other than vague allusions to “battery backup,” a pipe dream the achievement of which would require staggering amounts of minerals and conventional energy, while yielding significant environmental damage, in the less-developed world in particular.

Energy policy analyst Robert Bryce has documented the sizable and growing opposition by local communities to wind and solar projects. Such political opposition is important in its own right; but in a new five-part video series on how rent-seeking corporations and allied politicians have weakened the US power system, he explores also in Episode 3 the successful efforts of the Osage Tribal Nation in Oklahoma to stop a massive wind project on its land by the Enel Corporation, pursued despite the Osage Nation’s property rights.

The land was purchased by the Osage tribe with its own resources. The tribe owns the subsurface rights and the associated mineral rights. In 2011 the Enel Corporation applied for the permits needed to build a large wind farm on the Osage land, which the tribe opposed because of the certainty of dead eagles and the large-scale disturbance of sacred sites. So much excavation of limestone and other materials was needed for the construction of the concrete-and-steel turbine foundations that this process qualified as “mining” under the relevant regulations. Accordingly, after the construction process began, the Department of the Interior issued a cease-and-desist letter to Enel.

Amazingly, it was ignored, for the obvious reason that powerful political forces favored the project, and also because Enel was receiving $10 million annually in tax credits for the Osage wind project. (The federal subsidy system allows the developers of wind farms to claim an investment tax credit in place of the production tax credit, in which case the owners of the wind projects receive the subsidies even if a given project never produces any power at all.)

And so the Osage Nation sued. A federal judge last December ruled in favor of the tribe, vindicating its property rights, and forcing Enel to remove all of the 84 wind turbines—each 420 feet tall—at an estimated cost of $300 million. In addition, the tribe is seeking additional millions in damages.

I love a happy ending.

Learn more: Reality Is Forcing Biden to Roll Back His Electric Vehicle Mandate | Exxon Turns to the Courts to Fight Back Against Activist Shareholders | Energy Security Does Not Mean What Many Think | The Beltway’s Energy Transition Relies on the Broken Window Fallacy