My impression is that the construction of wind turbines is opposed only in the sorts of place where no one would even consider strip mining - e.g. places where wealthy people live. Aesthetic sensibility is a luxury.
Edit: I’m not saying this to imply that people are wrong to develop aesthetic sensibility once they can afford to. I’m not so wealthy that I can afford to do anything about, say, a building being built that ruins my view, but as a member of the middle class I can participate in collective opposition to something like a nearby strip mine, whereas I wouldn’t if I were so poor that I would welcome working as a miner.
The picture above is likely Garzweiler or Hambach in Germany. Schleswig-Holstein and Niedersachsen, two states in Northern Germany have a lot of excess wind energy both off- and on-shore, but Bayern and to a degree other states in the wealthy and industrial south kind of boycotted any energy transition by saying that power lines must be mostly underground and wind turbines must have 10x their height as a distance to residential buildings, thus effectively limiting both height and wind power expansion.
My impression is that the construction of wind turbines is opposed only in the sorts of place where no one would even consider strip mining - e.g. places where wealthy people live. Aesthetic sensibility is a luxury.
Edit: I’m not saying this to imply that people are wrong to develop aesthetic sensibility once they can afford to. I’m not so wealthy that I can afford to do anything about, say, a building being built that ruins my view, but as a member of the middle class I can participate in collective opposition to something like a nearby strip mine, whereas I wouldn’t if I were so poor that I would welcome working as a miner.
The picture above is likely Garzweiler or Hambach in Germany. Schleswig-Holstein and Niedersachsen, two states in Northern Germany have a lot of excess wind energy both off- and on-shore, but Bayern and to a degree other states in the wealthy and industrial south kind of boycotted any energy transition by saying that power lines must be mostly underground and wind turbines must have 10x their height as a distance to residential buildings, thus effectively limiting both height and wind power expansion.