Wind Power advocates like myself and Mark Diesendorf need to take note of the comments in this forum and in the media. Many people who are close to wind farms don't like them.

My first thought was that a huge open cut coal mine is more of a "monstrosity" than any wind turbine could ever be, but the people have spoken. Open cut coal mines are hidden from the public. High berms are built and revegetated so that you can't see the mine from the highway and other public acces is restricted. Smart thinking by the mine managers. Out of sight, out of mind.

The nature of wind power is that the wind turbines must be exposed to the wind, so it is hard to hide them. The Dutch are used to them, where they used to help pump water out of the Polders where everybody lived and farmed, so windmills had a very positive feel. Not in Australia it seems.

My second thought was that people would understand that although there may be some noise from wind turbines, that is far better than breathing in the variety of air pollutants spewed forth night and day by coal fired power plants. And besides you don't really notice the air pollution. It might be slowly damaging your lungs, but it doesn't smell.

Last I thought that the land issue favoured the wind power. Coal mines and ash dams make a significant scar on the once beautiful landscape. A scar that is far larger and more damaging than a wind turbine. The difference is that the coal fired power companies own the land that they are destroying and the wind power companies only lease their land. The general view seems to be that it is not an issue to destroy your own land, especially if you block the view.

When we are trying to get wind power and any new technology going we need to consider these factors and try to make it work with the community. This is just another challenge.

You fail to see the point, Ericc.

Windfarms are not a solution, period. Have you ever considered the random intermittency factor, and the subsequent need for 24 hour backup by polluting conventional plants spinning in reserve?

What we need are REAL solutions. And in effect, the huge subsidies to inefficient windfarms delay the efficient tackling of global warming through effective solutions: energy efficiency, clean coal technology, geothermal energy, wave and tidal power, solar energy, fuel cells and other new technologies (for one of them, see: http://www.iom3.org/news/windenergy.asp )

Did you know that large quantities of CO2 emissions could be saved by cleaning up the act of Australia's coal power stations? The "clean coal" technology is available.

The upshot is that there is no short-term gain for politicians in real solutions, or for Greenpeace, WWF and FOE. But there is plenty in windpower. Just look at the deals negociated between the RSPB and Scottish & Southern Power, for instance, or the logos showing on the Yes2wind webpage. Or the money to be received by town councils in payment of building permits, plus rental of the land (this is evident in Spain - I don't know the details of these transactions in OZ).

It is not about saving the earth, Ericc, it is about dirty old money

Mark hit the nail on the head. To compare wind to coal is silly and misleading. We could have thousands of turbines across this land and we will still have a greenhouse gas problem, nothing would have been saved however billions of dollars will have been spent. Coal fired power stations will still be chugging away while we are conned into thinking something is being done when in fact nothing has been done.

We haven't even touched on the issue of bird kills.

There are so many issues to do with misplaced wind power stations.

The huge amount of money being spent on these white elephants could be used to help people afford solar panels and solar HWS's. There are other sources of renewable energy other than wind. Geodynamics www.geodynamics.com.au are close to building their geothermal power plant in SA and claim to be almost 1/2 the cost of wind power. Geothermal can also be a base load power, something wind simply cannot. Why is it that people who are wind power zealots appear to have blinkers on and only promote one source of renewable energy.

I feel we as a community, if we can all be included in public policy making, can come up with a workable solution. However if governments, so called environment groups and big business keep trying this big stick approach we won't even get to the starting line.

mark duchamp - Why does wind power preclude the use of "energy efficiency, clean coal technology, geothermal energy, wave and tidal power, solar energy, fuel cells and other new technologies." We need all of these technologies and more to be sustainable.

I've never heard a proponent of wind power say that wind is the only answer. Mark Diesendorf doesn't say that. It seems only opponents of wind power say that. I can't see how excluding wind power will make all these other sustainable technologies take off.

Which of the new technologies is more efficient than wind? Geothermal / geodynamics is untried in Australia, but got a $5 million grant from the government (43% of the money they have raised). No existing plants use "Clean" coal, it got a massive grant from the government and old plants are scheduled to run until 2030. Energy efficiency works, but it does not generate electricity and often requires costly retrofits. Government buildings don't have to have a 4 or 5 star ABGR rating, so it must not be too important. Fuel cells don't generate electricity. Photovoltaics are much more expensive than wind. Tidal and wave power are untried on a large scale in Australia. All of these technologies are going to need grants and subsidies to get up compared to coal. We need them all to be even close to sustainable. Throwing wind power away just makes the job harder.

If 84% of our electricity comes from coal, isn't that the technology that wind and all other new technologies should be compared to?

When mark duchamp says that it is all about dirty money I agree. Sustainability costs money and most Australians would prefer to pay less for cheap unsustainable, high polluting coal fired power than expensive sustainable energy technologies. I hope that can change.

My family has connections with a small rural village in NSW where it is very very windy. The pub talk amongst the local cockies is that they can't wait for someone to come along and offer to put a wind farm up on their dirt-poor drought-ravaged holdings, so they can make a bit of rent money on the side to see them through. They have no interest in the environmental issues and scorn the wind power sceptics as nothing more than whinging hobby farmers and know-nothing city slickers. These blokes have made their minds up on who the latte sippers and chardonnay swillers are in this debate.

My experience is that support for wind power development -- not to mention its immense profit and tax shelter possibilities -- are in fact your latte sipping chardonnay swilling city slickers. It's the rural people who are fighting them.

Sure, a small pay-off is attractive to those in struggling areas (I live in such a place myself), but only a sucker would think that it would be followed by anything else than a kick in the pants.