There's no excuse for building power stations, of any type, in stupid places. I doubt the moorland you mention will end up as a windfarm though, I suspect it's just a money-grabbing developer trying his luck. I agree the best place for siting them would be urban & ex-industrial sites. Unfortunately they must go where the wind is, ie, coastal & mountainous areas.

Heat pumps are not an alternative to power generation though. We need both. They fit better in Norway where you have generally modern, well-insulated housing & plenty of space (low density population). A large part of UK housing is not easily converted, being older, poorly insulated & densely packed. Not to say that they don't have a place here, particularly in new-build where there's little excuse for NOT using them.

Also there's a difference between a private company investing in generation (profit-making) & spend to save individuals' fuel costs. I know, it's a shame. But in UK the DTI offer to pay for 50% of the cost of installing ground source heat pumps, to anyone who wants them. I don't know why they don't publicise it more prominently.

The energy situation in Norway is entirely different to UK - you don't have a looming energy crisis! Nor do you produce much carbon. Most of Norway's electricity comes from hydro, your hydro resource is probably the best in europe, you have no nuclear & hardly any coal. And it has huge oil & gas reserves. Electricity demand is low & doesn't increase.

UK energy comes mainly from coal & nuclear at the moment. The nukes reach the end of their design life in about 2010, coal stations similar. Electricity demand increases every year, & always has. Climate change aside, we're heading towards an energy crisis in the near future. Now that penny has dropped with the govt they have brought nuclear back to the table. Bear in mind that the decommissioning cost for the 20 nuke stations already retired is going to be £56 billion, to be paid for by the tax payer, they must be pretty f'king desparate! Half of that sum would probably pay for a heat-pump system for every house in Britain.

That said, it's not an insoluble problem and wind farms can indeed by erected in low-lying suburbs and non-highrise districts of cities. This has already been done with some success in northeast London, and I agree we should do more of it.

Personally I favour utilising existing farmland which tends to already have the necessary access and distribution infrastructure and rarely has the high-building / turbulence problem.

Your point about draining bogland or situating them in highly sensitive ecological areas with no existing infrastructure (necessitating the construction of access roads) is completely valid though.

As I've said elsewhere though, that's a problem with the people planning the windfarms, not with the windfarms themselves.