A bid to extend a controversial windfarm near a historic Banffshire castle has been criticised by Historic Scotland officials and council planning chiefs. ...Historic Scotland had raised concerns that the two turbines would have a "severe" visual impact on the unoccupied castle. ...The proposed turbine would be some 3,700ft from the castle, while the other two would be closer, around 2,600ft away.

Energiekontor Uk Ltd wants to put five 328ft (100m) turbines at Brightenber Hill near Gargrave, Skipton. A 250-strong group of residents have formed Friends of Craven Landscape and are campaigning against the plans. Craven Council has received 600 letters of objection and a 600-signature petition, but its planning committee has been asked to approve the plans.

The skyline of the Vale of Evesham will be dominated and the countryside killed if a wind farm is built in Lenchwick, a newly-formed group has warned. Vale Villagers Against Scottishpower (VVASP) are urging residents to find our more about the multi-million pound project - which could see up to 10 turbines, each 410 ft (125m) tall built in the Lenchwick area.

Residents weighed the greenness of wind power with the amount of visual pollution that the tall towering structures could bring to the popular 1860s-era tourist destination communities in the Comstock Historic District, designated a National Historic District. ...If placed on the ridge lines as the company proposes, the wind "turbines would be highly visible from Virginia City, Gold Hill and American Flat," [resident Ron] Reno said. Most of the wind turbine towers would be installed within the National Historic District and about half would in the Comstock Historic District.

The power of the people must be used to stop windmills from sullying the Tararua landscape - or the district will be ruined forever, Waitahora wind farm opposers say. ...[deputy chairman Stuart] Brown is urging people to read these submissions carefully. Power companies want to remove the protection of natural features, such as the skyline of the ranges, currently included in the plan, Mr Brown said. And their suggestions that council should consider windmills as "key parts of the natural landscape" and view all rural areas as "industrial" are ludicrous, he said.

Protesters campaigning against a wind farm in the countryside straddling Barnsley and Sheffield have been dealt a blow with a fresh council report which suggests the benefits of the scheme would outweigh the visual impact. The planning application for the five turbines, which would be 400ft tall, has gone to Barnsley Council because the land where they would be sited at Sheephouse Heights falls within the town's boundaries. But they would be so close to the border with Sheffield that the council there has been asked to comment before the application is considered.

The idea of looking out onto the foothills of the Blue Mountains from Highway 11 or Milton-Freewater and seeing wind turbines sounds like a nightmare for some people who look at that view every day. But not many of those people have had much of a chance to express their frustration. Citizen Richard Jolly hosted a meeting Thursday in Milton-Freewater where many people got a chance to vet their frustrations and discuss their concerns.

A government "in a muddle" over its energy policy has been accused of allowing developers to make a fortune out of ruining the countryside. Ivor Russell, secretary of the Carmarthenshire branch of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, said ..."What will our children make of it if they look back in a desert of useless wind turbines that have been made redundant by other major factors like nuclear power?" said Mr Russell in an address to the branch's annual meeting in Llanarthne on Saturday.

Hamilton is proposing a wind turbine farm on Bureau of Land Management property along the ridgeline of the Virginia Range, just east of Washoe Valley and west of Virginia City. The 72 turbines would be placed where the wind is strongest, beginning at McClellan Peak and extending northward to Geiger Summit, touching Carson City, Washoe County and Storey County. The whirlwind, if it comes, could be from officials and residents of Storey County, especially the Comstock Historic District, who aren't crazy about modern wind turbines being in view of the 1860s-era communities of Virginia City, Gold Hill and Silver City.

Genesis Energy, Trustpower, Meridian Energy and Mighty River Power have all made separate submissions to the Tararua district plan, currently up for review. They are campaigning for new policies to make wind farms a priority in the district, and pushing for a slackening of present guidelines. In the current policy on environmental heritage, the skyline of the ranges in the district is considered a protected natural feature. Trustpower wants this wording cut, with references to the protection of the "skyline of Tararua Ranges, Ruahine Ranges, Puketoi Ranges, and Manawatu Gorge", deleted from the plan entirely.

It is a landscape immortalised on canvas by JMW Turner and in verse by William Wordsworth, but Bolton Abbey, in the Yorkshire Dales, could be "ruined" by the construction of two wind turbines.

Opposition planning spokesman Matthew Guy said yesterday the Liberal Nationals Coalition would protect the state's greatest natural assets from wind farms. "The State Government's emphatic promise to defend our iconic natural assets from wind facilities is in tatters with the revelation that Acciona Energy has been allowed to build a $50 million 15-turbine wind farm on the doorstep of the Twelve Apostles and the Great Ocean Road," Mr Guy said.

Perth councillors drew public applause tonight when they denied permission for a new city building to site wind-turbine power generators on its roof. The three bright-red vertical turbines would have reached 9m above the roof of a five-storey building under construction on the southern side of Adelaide Tce, with frontages to Terrrace Rd and Victoria Ave. Neighbours in surrounding high-rise apartments had complained that the Dutch-designed turbines would create a visual eyesore and unnecessary noise, affecting the values of their properties.

Following a July 17 selection by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Gillespie County will be one of many counties in the state that will see new power lines in the next four to five years that will carry electricity from wind farms in West Texas and the Panhandle regions to the more metropolitan areas in Central and East Texas.

During a work session last week, the Ocean City Mayor and Council reviewed a presentation from Bluewater Wind proposing a 200-turbine wind farm off the coast of the resort with construction beginning by 2013. Delaware recently approved a similar, albeit smaller, project off its Atlantic coastline with an anticipated 60-70 turbines producing enough energy to supply about 50,000 homes in that state. While all agreed the idea has merit from an alternative, renewable energy standpoint, the biggest concern raised during Bluewind's presentation last week was the visibility of the massive windmills from the shore and their impact on the landscape.

However, not all Montanans are ready to raise their glasses. Among the skeptics is Ursula Mattson of East Glacier. She said she is all for the benefits of wind development, but worries about a potential downside, mainly "the negative impact of these huge wind farms right in front of the most spectacular scenery in our country." ..."We don't have much authority over wind farms," said Kristi DuBois, native species coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks in Missoula. She likens the state's current level of knowledge about the wind industry and its potential effect on wildlife to what was known about the impact of hydro-electric facilities on rivers and fish when they were first constructed. For example, the state has very little information about migration pathways of bats, she said. Without that information, it's difficult to for the state to provide input on the siting of facilities to lessen bat fatalities from turbine blades, she said.

Visibility was the top concern amongst Mayor and City Council members this week, as they heard the latest updates on the potential offshore wind farm off the coast of Ocean City. Bluewater Wind came before the Mayor and Council this week in an effort to keep the community updated on the potential offshore wind park, one they hope will come to fruition no later than 2013. ...Council member Jim Hall questioned the stability of residents' energy bills, pointing out that only 10 percent of energy bills would be affected by wind energy. "We would still have 90 percent, at least, of fluctuation in our bills," he said.

"We don't want to see them. Standing on the beach, we don't want to see them," he said during the council's work session Tuesday afternoon. Councilman Jim Hall echoed the mayor's sentiment, saying the project could prove far more popular if the turbines were invisible from land. "If you can't see it," Hall said, "then you can add acres and acres of wind farms. I think people are going to eat it up." For Bluewater, it's an expensive courtesy. Lanard said pushing the turbines farther out to sea makes it more expensive. It costs $1,000 for every foot of cable connecting the wind farm to the shore.

In evidence to the Central Otago District Council last year Meridian acknowledged the turbines each of which will have a rotor roughly the size of a Boeing 747 would have an adverse visual impact on the nearby Paerau Valley. But it produced photographic mock-ups suggesting that from other vantage points the mountain block on which they would be arrayed would remain the dominant visual feature. However, Sydney says the windfarm will "industrialise" the landscape for vast distances. "What happens when you put that number of wind turbines of that size in the landscape is that they actually become the landscape. You don't see anything else really."

The local authority warned stunning views of the Minster and St Mary's Church would be obscured - especially from the Westwood - if 12 huge turbines were allowed to be built at the village of Routh. A public inquiry into the controversial plans by RidgeWind Ltd to site the 100m-high turbines at Hall Farm began at the council offices in Skirlaugh yesterday. Megan Thomas, representing the council, maintains the visual impact would be significant and provides grounds for refusal.