The Constraint Ahead: Consent as a Permanent Feature
The comfortable story is that this is a phase, a burst of local anxiety that better outreach will smooth over, after which the empty hearing room returns. I do not believe it, and neither should you. The consent constraint is tightening, not loosening: moratoriums are spreading, opposition is professionalizing, and the underlying costs residents worry about are real and growing with the size of the projects. The right posture is to treat community consent as a permanent siting input, on par with power and water, and to build the discipline of earning it into the front of the process rather than bolting it on at the end.
Knowledge check
What is Faraday's central prediction about the community-consent constraint, and what posture does it recommend?
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The prediction is that the consent constraint is tightening and permanent, not a passing phase, driven by spreading moratoriums, professionalizing opposition, and real costs that grow with project scale. The recommended posture is to treat community consent as a first-class, permanent siting input alongside power and water, and to build the discipline of earning it into the front of the siting process.