I’m just creating this thread as the topic came up in a separate one but feel it’s worthy of its own discussion.
This seems to me to be something of a Marmite topic. There aren’t many (any?) here in the Médoc but there are plans to build a park not too far from where I currently live, which is causing some of the locals to display billboards * ahem * ‘expressing their concern’ over the idea.
The Médocains don’t appear to object to the visual impact to the countryside though, instead they claim they’re a fire risk which has confused me somewhat (I understand the risk of forest fires, I just don’t see the link with éoliennes though).
I would have thought climate change from burning fossil fuels presents a bigger risk myself, so I’m all for it.
We have a solar panel park and even a nuclear power plant on the other side of the Gironde estuary which nobody seems to mind… but having éoliennes isn’t popular among some of my neighbours.
Solar parks are not that noisy! Éoliens make a nasty noise and disturb birds.
I am happy to have them but they have to be sited very, very carefully. Should be a minimum distance to homes. And we need to leave some places unspoilt with more natural landscapes (or as much as any landscape in Western Europe is naturel!).
I have never lived anywhere near them so can’t really be helpfull in my comments, except to say that they seem to be a good thing for the obvious reasons although I think there is more ‘mileage’ in solar. If I had known I was going to live this long I would have had panels 30 years ago but, at the time, the payback was too far in the future.
From an aesthetic point of view I don’t find them objectionable but would not like it if they made an audlble noise, do they?
But I do acknowledge that they have given a lot of work to my former colleagues in the heavy haulage industry and, personally speaking, I find them much prettier than that lump of scrap iron near Gateshead. But there again, my old firm Econofreight got the gig for dragging all the long bits there for that, so not really complaining, especially as I almost never see it.
Close up, yes. Very. Ah, Jane beat ne to it while I was waxing lyrical
From a distance I think they can look quite majestic - on the way here from Rennes at the start of my stay I caught sight of four on a hilltop, illuminated by the low winter sun and with a rainbow appearing between two of the bases - I almost stopped to take a photo but would have needed a decent telephoto to get the image and only had my camera (which would have recorded the grand vista in about 100 pixels square so probably would not have been especially impactful).
See what you mean, but that is very close, do they build them that close to habitation then?
Perhaps the best ones are offshore, but I do worry about corrosion and maintenance and the risk of collision, not to mention the destruction of large areas of seabed.
One good thing as I drive about my business in my tin cocoon, you can always tell the wind direction by them.
But back to the noise, is it worse than for the millions who live near to busy main roads. Also, a lot of the time I see them motionless, deliberately or for lack of wind for instance.
I know some like them. To me, they’re a blight on the landscape in terms of appearance, but if sited carefully then they can be tolerated. TBH I’d rather see them clustered around towns, where there is already human construction and any kind of natural appearance has been lost, but of course if they’re noisy and intrusive in other ways as well as dominating the skyline then no-one will want them nearby.
I think it’s just a question of getting used to seeing them. Nobody seems to get too upset about all the electricity pylons all over the place because they’ve been there so long.
If the anti movement gets very strong, perhaps the engineers will be encouraged to seek out ways to reduce the noise given time. It is only friction after all isn’t it?
Let’s dig for some more oil to make thicker grease to shut the buggers up.
Ah, yes, we are supposed to be doing away with that, partly by building giant catherine wheels.
We have them about 1km away and can see them from our garden. I have never heard them, even when standing underneath. Houses in our village sell very quickly when they come on the market so they don’t seem to bother others. Anything that helps the planet is good in my opinion!
I think they are necessary in conjunction with solar and of course Nuclear if we are going to have a sustainable and sufficient energy production. This will of course assume that the current grid infrastructure has the capacity for all those extra demands from electric car charging, heat pumps and the general increase in electricity use, something lacking certainly in the UK, not sure about France.
Back in the 90’s we were going to have some sited on the cliff tops near to the village where I lived but our maire at the time was very anti and actually got them stopped by discovering a habitat right under where they were going to be built of a very rare plant/flower. This caused all the protection of the Littoral to jump on the bandwagon and others until the whole project was abandonned. Back then people were very worried about living less than 350m away from them and the possibility of electro magnetic problems on their TV’s and electrical appliances but I think a lot of that has now been discovered to not be so worrying. TBH they do not bother me, there are loads down here on the lower slopes of the Pyrénées but after seeing a report on the terrible winds elsewhere in France in the past couple of weeks and one turbine losing it’s blades, I would not want to be close to them for that reason.
Yes it is ironic when what you think would be the best thing since sliced bread for a machine which has as it’s only purpose to make electricity from wind, has to be shut down and locked if there is too much of it.
Planning law (in France) states that 500m is the minimum.
As windy sites are required, often in high positions that, rightly, have been eschewed for human habitation, the separation is usually a lot more.
You can build big out there but onshore wind is much, much, cheaper in comparison.
I find them uplifting & somewhat magnificent.
Because that is the least obtrusive colour against often light/white skies. No one put camouflage on the underside of daytime warplanes (remember Airfix kits requiring “duck egg blue”?).
I’ve seen many that fade from white to green at the bottom, so the base blends in with the land around.
But there again, my old firm Econofreight got the gig for dragging all the long bits there for that, so not really complaining, especially as I almost never see it. 
