Tehachapi turbine house (0620)

I may have mentioned, I tend to have issues with wind turbines, mainly that I don't think they work all that well at the scale at which they're trying to build them and therefore don't justify the footprint on the landscape. I think they work much better at a smaller scale, though. If this turbine is generating just for this house, that's the perfect use for these.

My question with this proximity would be with noise of this type, they're not silent. In general I'm concerned about using even more land for energy generation, particularly since we have large segments (called cities) that have already compromised the landscape. Its frustrating that we haven't found ways to make the space above urban landscape more energy productive.

The problem with cities for wind generation is that even in windy places, buildings cause a tremendous amount of turbulence which drastically reduces the efficiency of these turbines. This is true even with shorter structures. There are a number of newer buildings at the western edge of downtown here in Chicago, on the windward side of the skyscraper wall, that have tried putting smaller turbines on the roof, but it's just a marketing thing. They generate almost no power, and every time I pass they're just sitting there, immobile.

There is one of the big turbines on the South Side, though, which you can see from the Dan Ryan. I've been meaning to go down and check it out up close for a while, but the South Side's hard to get to using public transit (for reasons which, as a sociologist, you could probably guess and explore at length), and I don't often drive in the city.