That's the difference in locations and politics. Just because it doesn't work there and you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't work here and I don't like it. either.
As far s the environmental concerns behind their construction I could careless. To much of the concerns are more overblown hype and political special interest group spun agendas than truth.
Look up QR5 wind turbine, these are the **** our local primary school purchased. I now have them in bits, they cost £45,000 for 3 of them and each was rated at 5.6KW when purchased.
The ones at the school sat on 30 meter steel towers, the scho0l was also sat on a hill. Because of the design and the way the electric brake worked, they cost more to run than they produced! But the feed in tariff made a small difference.
Every Kw of juice they made gave the school 40p. The problem is/was they made around £3 a month net profit! The feed in is for 20 years.............Never going to payback what they cost! Actually for the QR5 a university report was done on them, which is why the local council had them removed.
That aside, factor in how much electric goes into making them, how many miles for delivery (800 round trip for the lorry), all the miles taken for each of the components and you get a massive carbon foot print. that isnt political, that is just a fact, the concrete base alone has a bigger carbon foot print than the turbines will ever have replaced. You have to get way up in the 2 Mw range to even start to make a business case for them.
If the Government hadnt of introduced the mad feed in payment, you would not have many wind Turbines in The UK, simply because they dont make enough juice to cover what they cost to make and install. This isnt spun agendas, I looked after these things and I saw the meter readings. I also saw them turning alot, so I assumed they made alot of electric........... Then I looked after them, I discovered they have a Linux pc inside on 24/7 and a mad system of speed control, they have a very narrow band of operating speed. When the wind goes over 10Ms the controller kicks in and slows them down. The controller is a ABB motor speed controller designed for conveyor systems! So even when generating they used alot of the power just to control and run themselves.
I will take some pics out the back of my house tomorrow. The view was stunning as you will see, look at the pics though. It makes them looked photo shopped because there is literally hundreds of HUGE turbines now. So here is an idea............
How about places like Vegas, which lets face it is just a playground, swap the 100W bulbs for LEDS? Lets think about saving some electric, then just maybe we wont have to ruin the landscape and country side as much as we are doing.
Alot of people can afford to leave a 100W light on in a room, even when no one is in that room. But how about we turn the light off and save the electric

. What is so wrong and offensive about wanting to not waste energy? Show any scientific or business study that shows wind turbines produce more electric than it takes to make them and set them up. For off griders in colder climates they may make sense, I have no issue with that. But as a means of alternative green energy they are ****. So by all means use them, but its wrong to call them green energy or environmentally friendly.
And lets not forget the post office, hotel,shop,bank and 3 caravan parks that have closed in the last three years around here. The drop off was sudden and coincided with 140 new turbines being put up in 12 mile radius of my house. So a few people get rich off the feed in tariff and a community gets destroyed, that is the reality of wind power.
What would of made sense up here is hydro, but Hydro cost more initially and originally didnt get a tariff. Scottish electric put the cost per unit up to cover the feed in rate. So everyone who is a customer pays for a few wind farm owners to get rich.
And why should you care about the environment concerns? Isnt you thats going to have to put it right is it

. Isnt me, is unlikely to be my kids in the future, but it could well be my grandchildren. That makes it matter to me.