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Hm. There are no "previously untouched areas" in France or the UK. They have been fashioned by human stewardship for thousands of years.

In previous centuries, people had a more pragmatic approach to unsightly windmills. They knew they needed the energy. These days, we have our priorities wrong.

That's not to say that all potential wind sites should be used indiscriminately. Actual nuisance should be reduced. Seeing windmills on the skyline doesn't count as a nuisance.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 12:18:05 PM EST
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Seeing windmills on the skyline doesn't count as a nuisance.

The right to define a nuisance lays with those who live next to it.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 12:52:42 PM EST
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Right, and the farmers leasing out a few hundred square meters of field space to allow a turbine to be constructed have spoken with their signatures on the dotted line.
by asdf on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 01:38:22 PM EST
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The people who live next to the turbines are often not the same ones as the people who own the land. For example, the previously mentioned company SCA is erecting turbines close to where some of my friends live, and this company own land equal to more than half the area of the Netherlands, 2.6 million hectares.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 02:25:56 PM EST
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When I talk about "skyline", I'm talking about five or ten km away, not the people who live next to the windmills, who are interested parties and must be listened to.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 03:39:09 PM EST
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If the windmill had been invented in India 3000 years ago they night have been studded with multicoloured gods and demons, their basse daily laved with coconut water and festooned in marigolds and tuberose.
Om

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 01:29:45 PM EST
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"previously untouched" by industrial installations or industrial agriculture.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jul 19th, 2012 at 03:55:59 PM EST
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