Mark Avery, conservation director for the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. "In the meantime, though, there is an alternative to building huge wind farms in vulnerable habitats. We could all install our own personal turbines on the roofs of our houses. I do believe that micro-generation has an important part to play," Lindsay says.

One thing I've found is that the economy of scale comes into play in that the larger turbines are cheaper per watt.  I also think it is easier to maintain the efficiency of the machines in a commercial wind farm, than it would be for a vastly larger number of smaller machines situated in every ones yard.  I can't see most ordinary folks doing much to maintain renewable energy generation on their property.  The home based wind turbines would need to be too massive if they were to make up a significant percentage of most folks current consumption for most urban and suburban homes.  Also, since smaller residential turbines would be at the lower elevations and less ideal locations, the swept area would have to be larger for the same power generation. I don't think that would actually be better for birds, which seems to be Mr. Avery's main concern.  I actually think wind turbines, and wind farms will get larger in coming years because of better materials, engineering, and the better economics.  Until they can be used to replace baseline power stations, which without some type of massive energy storage won't be possible, their role in the power grid will be limited to a small percentage of electricity production.  

living causes death. fact of life, if you'll excuse the pun. statistically speaking, everything currently living has a 100% chance of dieing at least once in its/their life. (death being defined here as the cessation of detectable metabolic activity.)

what people who tend to rant in the media about environmental subjects (or anthing else, for that manner) tend to convieniently forget is paul harvey's famous 'rest of the story'

windmills kill birds, at a statisically uncertain rate for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.  Apparently, they now kill fish, too. . . and some people say they're noisy.

Yeah, so?  Hydroplants kill fish, destroy spawning grounds, and probably drown the occasional duck, too. grid powerlines buzz, kill raptors and radiate low levels of EMI (with uncertain but probably negligable effects beyond the surface of the conductor), cars kill songbirds and the occasional raptor plus all sorts of marine life with the stuff they leak into sewers, regardless of motive power. . . tide generators, besides limited potential,  have the same drawbacks as hydro, plus they slow the earth's rotation, with unknown long-term climactic effects. (they may be useful against storm-surge; an advantage not to be sneezed at after what happened to new orleans.)

Coal plants. . . Oh, boy, let's not get me started on those. . . suffice it to say, they are responsible for a majority of existing and historical radioactive contamination (handily edging out the weapons tests, TMI, and the chernobyl FUBAR combined by virtue of 2+ more centuries of pollution), sulfur dioxide poisoning (trees, birds, fish), greenhouse emissions (generally accepted as bad, full effects not yet known),  environmental mercury poisoning (birds and fish again, plus cattle and humans), steam burns and other industrial accidents, strip mining (and ITS associated environmental costs in fish, birds and human suffering), coal-dust-induced asthma and fly ash disposal problems. if you count the rail traffic to move the coal, you add noise pollution, grade-crossing accidents, diesel emissions, and the occasional wild-fire from overheated brakes. then there are the direct kills from the condensors. . . fish and shell-fish by the (litteral) wheelbarrow load.
Whew!

Oil- almost but not quite as bad as coal, but harder on oceanic life. but there are much better things to do with oil than burn it as fuel. . . like use it as a feedstock for almost every activity known to man, and as a lubricant and wear surface for whatever primary transportation power source replaces it.  (vulcanised fossil-source rubber wears much better than the latex varieties that were originally used for tires and other pnuematic devices. . . .and while castor oil has its uses, it's not up to a 15000 mile change interval.)

Gas; this could be methane, propane, butane or a combination there-of.  probably the best combustion 'primary sources' environmentally speaking, but you're still dealing with well-drilling and greenhouse emissions. . . plus the effluent from scrubbing 'sour' gas in those places where there isn't any other sort of gas to use.

Nuclear-  
Fission is not too bad at point-of-conversion (the reactor site) but has a bad record in mining, and in the US at least, the waste disposal problem is severe. (part of that is political mandates to not reprocess the fuel like most other nuclear nations do)  Add to that its association with nuclear weapons, and you have quite an image problem on top of your environmental costs. . . . though it's interesting to note that something like 7% of the USA's total electric power consumption over the past decade has been fueled by dismantled soviet warheads, with a few american ones thrown in for spice.  I can hardly stand the irony. . . . though seeing as their rockets saved the so-called 'International Space Station' while we grounded the shuttle because the 'environmentally freindly' foam insualtion wouldn't stay on the external tank, I suppose the books balance.

Fusion?  it's been 'twenty years from commercialization for the past fourty years' as one report I read ten years ago put it. The US has staked its hopes on the 'inertial confinement' technique (personally I'm not sanguine on the commercial potential of that method) while the rest of the world (with very minor US help) has chosen to pursue magnetic confinement;  the experimental reactor (ITER) that is hoped to be the last research machine before we learn enough to build a commercial fusor is under construction in europe (france?)
Once we DO commercialize fusion, we'll be dealing with tritium, which is slippery stuff, and quite bio-radiologically damaging if inhaled. . . and there will be inhalation accidents.  Plus there will be failed/damaged reactor components to dispose of (but that waste-stream is expected to be MUCH smaller than the current fission waste-streams.)  the good news is the likely atmospheric releases/discharges will either be helium or hydrogen, and will tend to stay near the top of the atmosphere, where there isn't much in the way of wild-life or civilization for it to threaten. But fusiuon is still '20 years away'. 'nuff said.

bio-source fuels. leaving aside the unresolved question of 'gain' (how much harvested energy (of whatever type) you need to plow back to get a harvested unit), biofuels will compete for arable land with other uses. . . food and recreation, as examples.

so that leaves, what. . . pedal generators and geothermal?!?. . . . repetitive injuries, heart attacks and domestic disputes, vs limited availability, hydrogen sulfide hazards, all the troubles of grid distribution, and the difficulty of disposing of acidic, sulfur-laden water.

or we could turn out the lights, forget how to make fire and tools, and try really, really hard to grow body hair. (

on balance, I'd say that a few birds/bats/fish that were going to die anyway are a pretty small price to pay.  at least it was quick. . .

and earplugs are cheap.

Northern Europe used to be covered with peat bogs.
There isn't much left of it.
Windowerplants could destroy what's left.
Very high costs not really hidden.
Even a bad co2 cipher.

I don't think that much of tower builders ask themselves:
What,if I want to get rid of that massive several cubic
meters towerfoundation.Costs will be much higher than
pouring the concrete.In reallity the block will be there..forever.
This is cost.

There is no energy without 'hidden' costs not even 'green' energy
That's why the mention 'green' is in many if not most cases misleading.