if it means jobs and expanded economic activity.

Unfortunately the jobs appear to be temporary (for the life of the installation) and most of the profits from the development get hoovered out of the community to the carpet-bagger developers and the Wall Streeters who finance them.

In the US the community probably doesn't even get the new community bus shelter the developers toss them over here in the UK for not resisting too hard.

What's needed is a "Community Energy Partnership" development model that keeps the turbine in community ownership and pays a community dividend in perpetuity in energy or sales proceeds from energy.

It's not too hard use an LLC to achieve that result.

 

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson