Sure, they are positive symbols on the front of corporate reports, far less for those who get them built close to their homes. They are still a very large and very obvious intrusion into nature.

But of course, if they are a positive external cost, maybe the people living close to them should actually pay the power company for the improved view? Though I'm not sure how well that would be recieved.

You might find them beautiful, well actually so do I, granted that they stay far away from my back yard.

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

I agree completely with Jerome on this. I took the train from Kyoto to the west coast of Japan a couple of years ago, and, across an enormously long lake (Ban, I think), there was a huge, gleaming white, graceful wind machine. It looked like it belonged just as much as the egrets in the rice paddy canals.

In October I was driving in central Washington state, and, across the Columbia River, there was a double array of turbines with the blades turning in random orientations. It was a magnificent sight.

The normal operating sound is sort of soothing. Can't wait to get one or more of "my own".

paul spencer