BDiONU
Almost true
In some moorland the construction destroys the ancient bogs which absorb CO2 and this could never be restored at the end, even if they haven't liquidated and left it to the government to tidy up. So we lose an amount of the natural reduction in the emission gases
The making of the machines and their installation has a very high carbon foot print. Added to that they cannot be part of the base load of the electricity supply because of unreliability. When the wind is to light they don't turn; when the wind is too strong they have to be stopped.
When they do commit to supplying power they have to do so, in advance, in half hour commitments. To guarantee the supply they have to have a power station on stand-by, say 70% of full power, idling over like a plane waiting at the end of the runway. Should the wind drop or become to strong they have to switch to conventional, so the plane belts down the runway.
They are not as clean as they look, because they need they back up of conventional power stations.
In the UK they have the Renwables Obligatons Certificate system which forces conventional power suppliers into buying certificates from 'clean' suppliers to cover a proportion of their production at auction. These costs are added to the electicity bill invisibly so it is an unseen second climate levy. The money raised goes straight to the wind farm developers and landowners not, sadly, to fund the other cleaner forms of renewables. It has rightly been called a dash for cash.
The government knows all the weaknesses but it looks good on paper and the story sounds good. No smoke comes out a wind turbine (except when they go on fire) so it must be clean!
Back to ATC
There is a tale that a helicopter returning from a Morecombe Bay oil platform was asked to follow in behind another and at the last moment saw in the mist it was instead an offshore windmill, managed to manouver past it and nearly hit another.
The tale goes on that there are now discussions to have them painted in dayglow colours. This will turn scenic beauty spots into Carnivals, if true.