0 - A Landscape of Power

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of wind energy on landscape. Although it is emerging into the fastest-growing energy resource in the world, wind has also been labeled a competitor. Despite its several attributes, it has been dogged by the criticism that it interferes with aesthetic values, changes the surroundings for comfort, and transforms natural landscapes into landscapes of power. Although wind power has provided the motive force for centuries, its large-scale application to generate electricity has occurred only in the past two decades. During that period this use has spread most quickly in Europe and the United States. The World Watch Institute has identified wind power as the world's most attractive renewable energy resource, and Greenpeace has launched a glitzy campaign to address global warming by encouraging the installation of thousands of wind turbines at sea off the coast of northern Europe. Denmark's energy minister Svend Auken announced at a global warming summit in Washington, D.C., that his small Scandinavian country would provide 50% of its electricity by 2030 with renewable energy, most of it from wind.