Large scale wind and solar vs rural areas

A very general article review:

I have read the article and I will give a very basic review.  This review is not intended to support or oppose the author in any way, merely giving an introduction as to what one will find while reading this article.

The article is a bit long but is well written and thoroughly sourced.  Not all members of Permies, nor indeed readers at large, will agree with the author's conclusions, but he does support his position well.  The author challenges many widely held assumptions about renewables in general, but solar and particularly wind is his main focus.  Among the topics covered are land and resource utilization, health effects and subsidies.  These are controversial topics and I leave it to the individual reader to come to his/her own conclusion.  

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I live with all things energy. Oil wells, gas wells, wind turbines, solar. Wyoming even has mass amounts of coal. Yes, making and erecting a wind turbine takes A LOT of resources. Have you ever seen a well being drilled though? There is a literal convoy that passes me every single morning on the way to work with JUST THE WORKERS going to the wells. Big ass truck with one person in it, dozens of them. That's not even talking about the rig, the water, etc etc etc.

The windmills are ugly. I'm not a fan. I wouldn't want one too close to my house. However, the well pads are ugly. I'm not a fan. I didn't want one close to my house but I do have one so I just have to suck it up. I think I'd take the wind turbine if I had to pick. It sounded like they were splitting the Earth when that well was going in. Now we have to deal with the fumes from the stacks. Can't be good for my asthmatic husband. So yeah, gimme solar and wind.