Wind turbines - beatiful elegant structures or a blot on the landscape?

I agree - they are really beatifull and almost hypnotic to watch. We have a field of them near where my sister lives, in the summer on a nice day we go up there for picnics in the fields. I think in the feature people will see them in the same way as we do old windmills today. As for nuclear power - I don't think they are worth the risk.

They are a great political gesture to appease 'green' voters. It is just a pity that they don't actually make much of a contribution to our power needs. I read one report that if you take into account the amount of energy used to make them (the tons of steel, copper, carbon fibre, glass fibre, etc) and the power losses incurred in distributing the power from a mountain top or offshore sandbank to the Grid, it will take a UK wind turbine 137 years to pay back it's energy cost! By that time it is anticipated that it will be uneconomic to maintain it. Also when the wind drops the turbine uses power from the Grid to keep the blades turning to overcome the huge inertia required to get them turning from a standstill. An indipendent report of all the existing wind turbines in the UK showed that the best results were from wind farms in the Hebrides at 56% of theoretical output and the worst was 14% for one close to London. It would take 2,000 wind turbines running at 100% output to produce the same amount of power as one nuclear power station. I have had a nuclear power station in my 'back garden' for 27 years with no problems at all. If you take ill informed emotion out of the argument there is no contest.

I think they can be elegant. I think the designs can only get better and become more efficient. I know I'd much rather has a wind turbine in my back garden instead of a coal power station or a nuclear power station. And I'd rather put up with any irritating noise from turbines rather than having plutonium waste lodged in my bone cells or sulphates in my lungs.

Who wants a wind turbine in their back garden. These things are loud, awfully loud. One can not sleep at night and one can not hear one`s own voice with the rotorblades running. It is just like with airplanes. In my country there is turbines everywhere. All the wild animals run away from them. They cluster up the landscape. No, they are not beautiful, especially if one gets close to them. The only advantage is: they are safer than an atomic power plant.

yeah man...... nuclear is very dangerous....and expensive.... i hope someone can teach me how to build a wind turbine.... i live in a coastal area.. so wind power is not a problem.... i wanted to have one... it is free electricity.. and no one will bill you for consuming......