Tilting at windmills

BBC: Germany begins to turns against wind (29-Sep-03)
…The wind sector has even come under attack from an unexpected source. Environmentalists have attacked plans for Germany's first offshore wind park, due to be constructed in the North Sea in 2005. They say the windmills are noisy, ugly and a danger to bird life.

Sounds to me as if someone wants to have their Battenberg and eat it. But good on them: at least they're starting to acknowledge that there might actually be some drawbacks with these formerly impeccable wind power-stations.

…Yes, that's right: power-stations; not wind farms; not wind parks; wind power-stations. Damn clever naming them after lovely green things like farms and parks. And have you ever noticed how these power-stations don't generate energy by slowing down the wind (thereby altering the climate)? No, they harvest the wind. How irreproachable! And don't windmills sound so much nicer than horrible, industrial-sounding wind turbines? But I suppose you'd expect the proponents of wind power to know all about spin.

Postscript: I stand corrected. Apparently, wind powerstations don't slow the wind down; they speed it up! But my basic argument still stands: wind powerstations remove energy from the wind, so they affect the climate.