It's visual symbolism. These two examples can be culled.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Symbolism of what, though? I just picked those two because they're particularly obvious contentless examples, the rest of them aren't a lot better. The trope itself looks like the main problem.
"They can be an expression of environmental themes, and a symbol of old technology—windmills—meeting modernity, in that they make electricity."
The first implies "wind turbines = Green Aesop", which would be a trope. The second implies "wind turbines = old meets new" which would be a trope. But "wind turbines" is not a trope, even if they have several unrelated significations.
I can maybe see the germ of a "wind turbines are futuristic" trope in there.
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Modernity and environmentalism are related, though.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
But they're "modern" in the sense that smartphones and flatscreen T Vs are modern — including them is an accurate recreation of what the modern world looks like. If they're used in an older work to evoke a futuristic setting, that's a different matter, but Technology Marches On and nowadays they're just a fact of life.
Kind of stretching "fact of life" there. That said, I guess that Trope Talk is a better venue to ask.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
So what's the trope? The laconic says "Giant fans generate power." That's not a trope, that's a description of how wind turbines work.
In examples like:
...the turbines aren't described as doing anything or meaning anything, they're just there.
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