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Comment by greenknight | Hacker News Reader

Having direct involvement in the wind industry... most plan -> completion developments take 5-10 years. heck even one from 2013 still hasnt had ground broken.

The main reason? NIMBYs. Loads of people go out to the countryside to retire. imagine what these retires would do if their picturesque landscape is now comprised of windfarms? and they dont have anything else to do to fill up their day?

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> Loads of people go out to the countryside to retire.

they imagine themselves wanting to go out to the country side to retire, but would find that living in remote places that doesn't have facilities to be poor quality life.

you want to travel to the countryside for leisure - may be even for extended vacation. But you will almost always want a "home base" in a big metropolitan area for when services are needed - such as medical or home helper etc.

They don't just imagine themselves doing it, they actually do it, and then rail hard against wind farms.

I'm in Australia, you can listen to them on the radio (podcasts) complaining about the noise etc.

How do we find a balance between people's right to quiet enjoyment of their homes and other factors that affect the rest of society.

Also when everyone moves to the countryside it isn't really the rural countryside anymore. It is just sprawl.

Can confirm NIMBYism is excessive in Australia, despite all the space.

Sure, I should have said _relatively_ easy. But see how much of a reaction you'd get to a fission power station (regardless of the rights and wrongs of it...).

Two words: Offshore wind.

offshore wind has even longer timescale and you still have local opposition from NIMBYs and you add local fishers and conservation activists (I remember one project off the coast of France that received opposition from the Sea Shepherd)

NIMBYs are jsut as much of a problem with nuclear because you need to run the generated electricity through power lines that may need to be constructed. Whose land are they running through?

Yup this has been a huge problem in Germany. Increasing transmission capacity between north Germany where all the wind resources are and south where the industry is has been fraught with obstacles by NIMBY's who don't like the power lines.

At least overhead lines are honest. I find the buried infrastructure harder to level in my brain.

You dislike water delivered in pipes that do not freeze? Where do you find overhead plumbing?

And, is the wiring in your house all exposed?

Yeah bad example, most wiring is visible in the house. But water pipes outside. You have a point. Weirdly cut an old buried feeder out the ground today.

The untidy assortment of cabling under the living room floor sends shivers through my spine even though that's hidden. I once was a cable guy.

I wouldn't have though that the power lines would be the biggest issue for nuclear power in regard to NIMBYs. And even then any generation method would require installing power lines...

How far though?

Here's a list of offshore windmill parks in the North Sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in.... The closest ones to my country are about 13 kilometers offshore.

Bonus numbers, the horizon 'drops off' at 5 KM distance, and modern windmills are about 300m high.

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