County leaders are working with state legislators to change the way wind farms are regulated in Texas. Robert Weatherford is the president of Save Our Scenic Hill Country, a group of land owners working to keep wind farms out of the area. "You will literally be able to see them for miles. So we do think that it would destroy the scenic beauty of the Texas hill country," Weatherford said. ...Gillespie County is worried that would mean less visitors like Jones. "That's why people come to these places, is to see the view," Jones said.

FURTHER objections have been made to plans to build four giant wind turbines near Hemsby. The Broads Authority planning committee has joined Hemsby villagers and Ormesby St Margaret parish councillors in voicing its opposition to SLP Energy's scheme for the 125m high turbines. The objections came at its committee meeting last Friday amid concerns about the detrimental impact on the countryside, outweighing the Authority's need to promote green energy. ...the development would also affect the ecology of the area, with large bird and bat populations at the wind farm site in an area known as the Trinity Broads which is bordered by Hall Farm Fen to the north, an area of fen grazing stretching to Hemsby.

Nigg and Shandwick Community Council chairman Richard Cross described the photomontages as "extremely dubious" and queried why a request for copies was refused. He said, "Why? Could it be that the images do not stand scrutiny? "They insist on referring to this development as 'small scale' but capable of supplying 6,000 houses. The Nigg and Shandwick Community Council area contains approximately 175 houses, 30 of which will be within one mile of the wind turbines.

A power company has reduced the size of a wind farm it hopes to build off Wirral's coast in a bid to reduce its visual impact. A revised layout for the proposed Gwynt y Mor wind farm has been submitted to the Government by the project developer Npower Renewables The amended plan would see the area in which the turbine would be built reduced by 16%. Last night, Npower said that would mean a "significant reduction in the visual impact". The proposed site is 11 miles from Wirral and between eight and nine miles off the North Wales coast.

With the talk of a wind farm sprouting in Sullivan County, New York, some members of the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) have expressed concern for the visual impact they could make on the Delaware River in this section....Phil Chase, who represents the NY Town of Deerpark on the UDC, interjected that he knew of "people who receive $6,000 a year to pollute a beautiful area with minimum electricity generated." He commented that wind farms require a road connecting turbines, cutting through the land, where trespass then becomes an issue. Noise is also a factor, added Charles Wieland, the UDC delegate from the Town of Tusten.

A public hearing over plans for a proposed wind farm at Morwenstow is to take place following demands from protesters.The Planning Inspectorate has agreed to the hearing after power company West Coast Energy appealed against the decision to refuse an application to build a wind farm at Crimp. North Cornwall councillors went against planning officers' recommendations and turned down plans by the company to build three 81-metre (260ft) turbines near the coastal village. One of the reasons for refusal was the "unacceptable visual impact" of the wind farm, which would have a cumulative effect with Forest Moor in Bradworthy, home to North Devon's first wind farm. Members of campaign group, Morwenstow Against Turbines - MAT - were concerned the appeal would be decided through written representations only and have welcomed a public hearing.

Croydon MP Malcolm Wicks has been refused planning permission to install a wind turbine on the roof of the house after planning officers decided it would have been too visible from the street. This is the second time Mr Wicks has tried and failed to get the £1,500 turbine installed in the last year.

Plans to build giant wind turbines at a Dales beauty spot look set to fall at the final hurdle because of their 'visual intrusion'. The proposal for four green-energy generators to power 5,591 homes, has been put forward by Carsington Wind Energy Limited but has met with a number of objections about the chosen location. And now Derbyshire Dales District Council planning officers have recommended that the application for the 335ft tall turbines at Carsington Pastures, two miles west of Wirksworth, should be refused.

BUSINESSES in north Northumberland rely heavily on tourism - but if plans to site huge wind farms in the area come to fruition, many fear this income may dry up. Alastair Gilmour reports.

Joel Serface, director of the Clean Energy Incubator at the University of Texas at Austin and a contributor to the report, adds that a recent University of California-Berkeley study found the solar industry produces seven to 11 times as many jobs on a MW capacity basis as coal-fired power plants - and has a larger positive trickle-down effect than wind energy

SEI, the school for renewable energy and sustainable housing technology, won approval June 4 from the Board of County Commissioners for its bid to erect a 106-foot-high tower on its year-old Paonia campus. The tower will support an electricity generating turbine with blades spanning 12 feet to be used for class instruction and to produce power for the school's use. The BoCC, sitting with commission chair Jan McCracken absent, voted 2-0 in favor of the schools proposal after hearing comments from neighbors both in support and opposition of the plan.

A proposal by Massachusetts-based UPC Wind to locate the 40-tower, 60-megawatt Cascade Wind Farm on Sevenmile would certainly change the landscape of that area. Scads of residents have, over the months, expressed disapproval over issues such as how 40 wind turbines, each nearly 400-feet-tall would damage the scenery around the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Others are troubled over the reported health hazards the turbines may pose to people in homes situated around them.

The view brought mixed emotions to the Riters. "To be honest, I was shocked when I first saw them," said 66-year-old Karl Riters, who enjoys hiking, backpacking and volunteering with the Poudre Wilderness Volunteers. "I saw them from maybe eight miles away and I started hoping that as I got closer they wouldn't be that apparent. But the closer we got, the worse it looked. I'm all for reducing carbon emissions, but when out in a desolate area like this, you don't want to see that." Lori Bell, the grasslands' acting district manager, said she has received numerous complaints about the turbines. She said there is nothing the U.S. Forest Service can do because the wind farm is on private land.

Fearing noise and bad looks, some communities are banning them.

The latest bid to build a windfarm near Kirkwhelpington has been opposed by Tynedale Council........ Their concerns were reflected by councillors who voted to agree with the recommendation that the Steadings development would "cause demonstrable harm in landscape and visual terms".

The Scottish Executive refused to respond to the P &J's questions on the issue, saying it was "for SNH to field these questions". SNH commissioned the work and states in its completed document that "many windfarm developers participated". There is currently no uniformed method of photomontage to assess turbines and the issue has consistently baffled Highland councillors who decide the fate of most planning bids. Critics have pressed for years for a definitive system of accurately assessing the visual impact of turbines.

The green light to build the world's biggest wind farm in Central Otago hinges on consent hearings which got underway on Monday. Meridian Energy wants to erect more than 170 giant turbines many as tall as a 45-storey building in an area opponents say is too beautiful to be spoiled.

Photo simulations submitted for LIPA's proposed offshore wind farm offer a limited, possibly undersized view of the 40-turbine array as it will appear in South Shore waters, a town supervisor charged yesterday. After a study it commissioned last fall by a third-party imaging firm, the Town of Babylon produced its own photo simulations of the wind farm and found that, by comparison, the turbines portrayed in the Long Island Power Authority's submissions "look smaller," according to a report expected to be released today. The study found the LIPA photo analysis, conducted by an outside company, to be "incomplete," lacking in resolution and a range of lens depictions to provide a breadth of viewpoints. Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone said the analysis, combined with a study his office conducted of the estimated construction costs of the project, lead to concerns.

The view from the beach could be radically different soon with wind turbines replacing uninterrupted coastline before long. The government is proposing to introduce a law to allow wind turbines to be built offshore, the Spanish daily El Pais reported on Tuesday. They would stretch around 4,000 kilometres of Spain's coastline.