THERE are more than 110 wind farms in Australia producing about 10 per cent of our power.
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Most are located in persistently windy locations along the Great Dividing Range and the southern coastline.
Plans are well-advanced for offshore wind farms in Victoria and South Australia.
Wind farms take up very little land. They don't cause air pollution like that from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. They don't need water to operate and don't pollute waterways like coal mining and coal-fired power stations do.
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No-one is forced to host wind farms! Landholders host voluntarily because the payment that they receive is insurance against droughts and other agricultural uncertainties.
Wind farms bring stable revenue into rural communities by making grants to local groups and payments to host farms as well as directly providing a small number of maintenance jobs.
The carbon emissions from producing and installing wind farms are usually offset by the emissions saved in their first nine months of operation.
But no system of power generation is perfect, so what are the environmental challenges caused by wind farms?
Constructing offshore wind farms involves some clearing of sea grasses to create the pads for the towers and to pipe power along the ocean floor.
The use of sonar to assess the suitability of sea surfaces can cause problems for the sensitive ears of whales and other sealife.
However, research in the UK, where there are around 3000 offshore turbines, has found little evidence that they contribute to the death of whales or other sealife.
Compared with shipping, marine mining and plastic pollution, scientists there see any marine damage wind turbines cause as insignificant.
Coral bleaching in the Barrier Reef and the destruction of the kelp forests in Tasmania are evidence that the greatest danger to marine life is climate change.
For us in inland Australia, the more serious concern is for birdlife (and bats).
The windmill blades, which travel at a deceptively fast speed, can cause bird deaths, particularly where windmills are located on migratory flight routes.
At worst, the bird-kill numbers are tiny compared with pesticides, bird-strike from cars, clean windows, and especially from foxes, feral and domestic cats.
Nevertheless, we need to ensure that wind farms are located carefully to minimise bird-strike and designed with sensors to deter birds.
On balance, by slowing the increase in climate change, wind farms are making a massive contribution to preserving Australian and global biodiversity.
