Also (and please tell me where I'm going wrong), it would be a HUGE project employing many many engineers, companies, construction workers, etc...--helping them leap out of the oil business--not to mention materials design, structural design, and as the project developed new features, better equipment etc. would be brought on line.  It's what happened with cars, I think, and so (leaping wildly) would change our social nexuses (nexi?) at the same level.

(Facilities growing up around the windmills...new towns linked to renewable energy...transport to the next windmill guaranteed....)

A european project tying together the various groups in Europe (I think I'm still on topic), reducing emissions, creating better public transport, reducing plane travel, tying us physically to our neighbours (psychological difference between a journey on train and a journey by car or air)...

(So many technical issues to solve.  Massive injections of finance to universities, a boom in post-graduate work...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.