A wind farm is an industrial installation of vast proportions, and, if erected on the loftiest ridges, its industrial flavor becomes the new focal point for all view-sheds within a 15-mile radius.

Londonderry recognizes industrial wind energy for what it really is - an unreliable and very very modest energy source masquerading as a solution for global warming with significant costs to the town’s environment, economy and quality of life.

“Wind power may have a small place in the long-term energy future, mostly at the household and residential level. But its impact on the near-term security scene will be minimal and the enthusiasts (and lobbyists enriched by subsidies) who have rushed into extensive wind farm developments will be seen in due course to have taken public opinion for a colossal ride, although this may take some years to emerge.”

What am I going to do with a house I can’t live in?

But most of those who are pumping money into the alternative energy sector -- and investing heavily in ethanol, wind and solar power -- are just shrewd people, who understand that it's hard to go wrong when Uncle Sam is helping hedge your bets and guarantee a return on investment.

Even if wind turbines were built in Hawaii, excess capacity would have to be built to handle peak loads in the event that the winds weren’t blowing or the islands would experience brown-outs or black outs. The fact that the periods of highest demands would coincide with a drop off in wind speed means wind turbines cannot be counted on the meet peak load demands in Hawaii. So electrical generating capacity would have to be built twice, first as wind turbines and second as backup peak capacity protection.

The UK targets were 'extremely challenging'. Future wind farms will need to have thousands of turbines, each so big it would be like a football field turning on top of a steel mountain.

The recent proliferation of wind turbine farms is just one more case of the serious aggression and destruction that reflects the continuing expansion of an extremist private property and commercialism agenda. This socially, legally and politically defective agenda and process is being exploited by corporations, some local residents, and local governments. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not freedom and it is not democracy; it is vandalism and oppression in the name of commercialism.

Environmental activism is a new religion infecting science. The crucifix has been replaced by the wind turbine.

Wind power is becoming one of the most scandalous planning issues of our time, guided in England, Wales and Scotland by advice documents which presume in favour of the industry almost irrespective of public feeling

The landscape is being raped [by large wind turbines] with governmental collusion and fraudulent claims.

If I were an investor and wanted to keep my green image intact, I would be deeply concerned about building turbines on forested ridgetops.

“By far [habitat fragmentation] is bigger than climate change. While the serious effects from climate change are 30 years away, there’s nothing left to save then if we don’t deal with fragmentation. And the spearhead of fragmentation are roads.”

The cumulative impacts on bat populations from proposed and/or constructed wind farm developments, especially in the eastern United States, may lead to further population declines, placing multiple bat populations at serious risk of extinction.

Believing all renewables, let alone just wind, will produce 20 percent of America's power anytime soon requires a leap of faith only fools would attempt.

Wind power is a problematic energy source, requiring constant back-up from conventional generation as fluctuating winds vary output by up to 70 per cent. It produces a third of installed capacity at best.

In the end, we remain convinced, the entire state [VA] will see clearly that wind power....is wrong for our mountains and that those who pursue it are driven not by concern for the environment, but by the opportunity to pocket huge profits offered by huge taxpayer subsidies. When the smoke clears, there can be no other conclusion. Whether reason will triumph over the leverage of powerful special interests remains to be seen.

Wind needs to be part of that solution. But a critical question is this: How far do you go in trying to save the planet by destroying it? Plastering Pennsylvania's ridgetops with massive wind turbines, to the possible decimation of bats, raptors and migrating songbirds, coupled with the visual impairment inflicted on these green mountains, erosion of thin mountain soils and the loss of public access, suggest to us that we need to find more suitable sites for wind and invest in less environmentally problematic solutions to climate change.

“The environmental benefits of wind are not as great as its champions claim. You’ve still got to have backup sources of power, like coal-fired plants.”

Wind power is an idea that is appealing to the imagination. It sounds like a "free" source of energy that would be non-polluting and stable in cost. I am an optimist, and I love technology. If I thought for one moment that windmills would be a source of low cost energy, I would be building them. The reality is quite the contrary--wind power is wasteful of human and natural resources.