Construction & siting issues  
One environmental concern about wind power is land use. While a single wind turbine does not use much space, large-scale applications such as utility wind farms require significant acreage. However, one advantage of wind farms is that the wind turbines occupy only about 5% of the land, and since the turbines are high in the air, the bulk of the land is available for agriculture, grazing, or other uses.

The siting of wind turbines is critical. Key concerns include wind conditions and velocity as well as surrounding land uses by humans, wildlife, and other natural resources. During construction, maintaining a single road of entry can minimize environmental impacts. Installation of wind turbines is relatively quick and causes little damage to the land. Many wind farms have multiple uses combining the energy production with agriculture or grazing.

Still, many critics of wind power consider wind farms an aesthetic eyesore on the landscape. In a 1991 article in the Town and Country Planning Journal from the UK, the issue of "educating the visual consumer" is discussed. This article suggests that members of the public may be less critical of the visual impacts of windmills if they truly understood the capabilities of wind mills as an energy source. The article also provides some suggested separation distance from various land use categories to mitigate the environmental impacts of a wind turbine.

 
   

Figure 3. Nordtank 55kW wind turbines on a harbour pier at the town of Ebeltoft, Denmark. Photograph copyright 1981 NEG Micon A/S

 Evidence from the US, Denmark, and the Netherlands, where wind energy is used more frequently than in the UK, suggests that public reaction is often likely to be opposed to wind energy developments on visual grounds. Dutch experience suggests that many observers find wind turbines to be unwanted technological elements in the landscape. Despite Wind energy development's many beneficial characteristics, one must not ignore the visual impact of wind turbines on the landscape.
 
   

Figure 4. Wind farm of more than 1000 Danish manufactured turbines in Palm Springs, California. Photograph copyright NEG Micon A/S

 Some wind energy developments have been carefully designed to mitigate their impacts on the landscape by either following the naturally occurring edges of the land (Figure 3) or remaining on a tight grid to suggest orderliness and control (Figure 4).