People who are concerned with the environment often refer to "sustainability" as a threshold to pass when making economic and environmental decisions.
Wind power is sustainable as an energy source. Wind power in undeveloped, wild or pristine areas is not sustainable without great loss of the land resource.
I hope we have learned from development patterns along rivers, then railways and now highways that decisions we make up front have an irreversible impact. Before we industrialize our ridgelines and shorelines we must ask, is it sustainable? If four wind towers can be justified, why not 40, why not 400?
Without making any judgements about the site in question here, I do feel we must set the bar very high of what is lost to wind industrialization and whether it can more economically and more sustainably be done in some other way. I can state from experience that we can save upwards of 30% or more of our energy use in conservation measures in buildings and transportation. We also have a tremendous capacity for renewable on-site electric generation.
Let's exhaust these other possibilities before we start inundating our hills and beaches with windmills. Then, let's strategically pick locations that can be surrendered to development without robbing us of what we so desire to preserve in the first place.
