Lobbying from the wind industry could be likened to lobbying from the tobacco industry in the 1950s. We are now fully aware of the hazards of smoking tobacco but how long before our government stop accepting lobbying from the industry and wake up to the hazards of living near wind turbines?
“When a mistake is repeated, it is not a mistake anymore…it is a decision”- Paolo Coelho.
In the 1950’s, the tobacco lobby used medical professionals to insist that there was no medical evidence of harm from tobacco products. Indeed one advertisement, supported by research conducted by physicians, declared that “Phillip Morris” brand tobacco eased irritated throats and “every case of irritation cleared completely or definitely improved.” Phillip Morris soon became a major brand.
The tobacco lobby in the 1950’s could be compared to the powerful wind industry lobby today. Despite the growing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrating that wind turbines can cause serious adverse health effects in susceptible nearby residents, the wind lobby and Governments continue to dismiss this evidence.
However, in a recent groundbreaking study at Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm in the state of Victoria, Australia’s leading acoustical engineer Steven Cooper found that a unique infrasound pattern, which he had labelled “Wind Turbine Signature” in previous studies, correlates (through a “trend line”) with the occurrence and severity of symptoms of residents who had complained of often-unbearable “sensations”. These include sleep disturbance, headaches, heart racing, pressure in the head, ears or chest, etc. as described by the residents (symptoms generally known as Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS), or the euphemism “noise annoyance”).
The acoustician also identified “discrete low frequency amplitude modulated signals” emitted by wind turbines and found the wind farm victims were also reacting to those. The Wind Turbine Signature cannot be detected using traditional measuring indexes such as dB(A) or dB(C) and 1/3 Octave bands, concludes his study. Narrowband analysis must be used instead, with results expressed in dB(WTS). He suggests medical studies be conducted using infrasound measurements in dB(WTS) in order to determine the threshold of what is unacceptable in terms of sound pressure level.
The findings are consistent with the official Kelley studies published in the US more than 30 years ago, which showed that infrasound emitted by early, downwind turbines caused sleep disturbance and other WTS symptoms. These studies were shelved, upwind turbines were designed and the regulatory authorities simply trusted the wind industry’s assertion that the new models did not emit dangerous infrasound. The Cooper study now proves they were wrong.
Another conclusion of his study is that the Danish method used for measuring low-frequency “noise annoyance” near wind farms is inadequate. So are the wind turbine noise standards applied to wind farms in Victoria, Australia and New Zealand, known as “New Zealand Standard 6808”. Just as inadequate are all other standards regulating “annoyance” near wind farms around the world including Ireland. They simply don’t take infrasound into account. Scores of medical practitioners and researchers from around the world are vindicated by this benchmark study, as are the residents reporting WTS symptoms themselves, many of whom have had to regularly or permanently abandon their homes.
Nevertheless, Governments in many countries around the world continue to assert that wind energy is viewed as a viable and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, although as Sherri Lange of NA-PAW points out “wind does nothing at all to abate climate change or reduce CO2 levels. It is possibly the largest scale environmental and economic fraud ever perpetuated.”
The Brown County Town Health Board in Wisconsin recently declared Duke Energy’s Shirley Industrial Wind Turbine Development to be a Human Health Hazard. The precise wording of the declaration was: “To declare the Industrial Wind Turbines in the Town of Glenmore, Brown County. WI. a Human Health Hazard for all people (residents, workers, visitors, and sensitive passersby) who are exposed to Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise and other emissions potentially harmful to human health.” Link
Meanwhile, a Canadian lawyer said recently that Ontario’s Green Energy Act violates the constitutional right of turbine neighbours to live in a place free from the “reasonable prospect of serious harm.” In the first constitutional challenge of the turbine approval process to hit the Ontario Court of Appeal, lawyer Julian Falconer argued that the whole approvals process “doesn’t allow people to protect their own health.” That, he said, violates their rights to live free from harm.
Health, according to the World Health Organisation, is a fundamental human right:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being”. (WHO, 1948).
So, here in Ireland, where does our own Department of Health stand on all of this? In their response to a query from Deputy Helen McEntee on 30th Oct 2014, the Department stated as follows; “A range of symptoms have been described by people living close to wind turbines mainly related to environmental noise exposure. These symptoms include headaches, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety and sleep disturbance and are often described in relation to annoyance. Anyone who experiences such symptoms should seek medical advice from their family doctor who may be able to prescribe suitable medication.”
So the Irish Department of Health is aware of the effects of WTN on human health and instead of urging that the precautionary principle should apply, they are advocating medication for sufferers!
Having presided over thalidomide and symphysiotomy scandals as well as the notorious vaccine trials, one would imagine that our Department of Health would be treading with caution here. Clearly, this does not seem to be the case. It has taken decades for Governments to realise that the powerful tobacco lobby were peddling untruths in the 1950’s when they proclaimed the health benefits of smoking. Will it take Governments as long to realise that living in proximity to industrial wind turbines causes deleterious adverse health effects in susceptible neighbours? They can’t say that they weren’t warned!
Can you imagine that people are still straining to make renewables work–when they are such colossal failures.
Solar and the renewable idiocy are the focus of this essay by Marita
Link to: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world
Greetings!
You know I have written on extensively on what I call Obama’s green-energycrony-corruption. I’ve addressed news stories such as the near-certain death of Cape Wind and exposed the criminal activity of the solar panel Abengoa. In December, based on a thorough report someone else produced, I wrote a column about the German renewable energy experiment. It got me thinking, what if I pulled all of my research, and others, together and produced a report like the German one on which I’d based my Germany’s “energy transformation” — unsustainable subsidies and an unstable system column?
For the past couple of months, I have been quietly working behind the scenes to put together my first “white paper:” Solar Power in the U.S.—intended to provide a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers. It has been planned to be released today! I know when we released it, a review of the content would be the topic of this week’s column. I just didn’t know how it was going to take shape. But then, someone on my newsletter distribution list sent me a link to a U.S. News and World Report blog. As I read it, I kept finding discrepancies, omissions and flat-out untruths. While the Blog posttitle is: Keystone isn’t about jobs, the author was really writing about solar. He has obviously bought into the talking points; the propaganda—but didn’t know (or chose to ignore) the real world implementation of solar power in the U.S. As I read it, I knew I had the structure for this week’s column: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world.
I had fun writing Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world—especially since I’d just completed the report and had the content top-of-mind. I hope you enjoy reading it and will post it and/or pass it on. It introduces the new report.
Thanks to Solar Power in the U.S., there is now a handy (15 page) guide that offers the real view, rather than the fantasy version, of what solar power can and cannot do, how effective it is, and the impact its rapid implementation is having on consumers. It is my hope that both consumers and policymakers will read Solar Power in the U.S. before making decisions with long-term implications.
Because I already have the 900-word version ready, I am offer you both the full-length and the shorter version. Please use whichever is better for your readers. The full-length version is pasted-in-below.
Marita Noon
Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great, inc.
PO Box 52103, Albuquerque, NM 87181
505.239.8998
For immediate release: March 9, 2015.
Commentary by Marita Noon
Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.
When a former “senior communications official at the White House” writes a blog post for U.S. News and World Report, you should be able to trust it. But when the author states that the Keystone pipeline (should it be approved) would create only 19 weeks of temporary jobs, everything else he says must be suspect—including the claim that our “energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030.”
I contacted both a union representative and one from TransCanada—the company behind the Keystone pipeline. Each affirmed that the 19-week timeframe was total fantasy. The portion of the Keystone pipeline that remains to be built is 1179 miles long—the vast majority of that within the U.S.—with construction expected to take two years.
TransCanada’s spokesperson Mark Cooper responded to my query: “While some people belittle these jobs as temporary, we know that without temporaryconstruction jobs—and the hard work of the men and women who do them—we wouldn’t have roads, highways, schools or hospitals. We wouldn’t have the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Hoover Dam. So, I would say to these detractors: ‘It is OK if you don’t like or support Keystone XL. But let’s stop putting down the very people who have helped build America.’”
The premise of the On the Edge blog post is that we shouldn’t look at Keystone as a jobs creator. Instead, the author claims, the jobs are in “solar energy disruption.” He is frustrated that “GOP leaders almost universally ignore or disdain this emerging energy economy.”
He states: “A third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar. A new solar installation or project now occurs somewhere in the U.S.—built by a team of American workers employed in the fastest growing energy sector in the world—every three minutes.”
This may be true but, as you’ll see, it belies several important details. Plenty of cause exists for Republican lawmakers to “disdain” the growth in renewable energy.
If “a third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar,” there is reason for it—and it does not include sound economics.
First, efficient and effective base-load, coal-fueled electricity that has provided the bulk of America’s power is being prematurely shut down by regulations prompted by environmental lobbyists and promulgated by the Obama administration. It is virtually impossible to get a new coal-fueled power plant permitted in the U.S. Even natural gas-powered plants, such as the one planned to replace the Salem Harbor coal-fueled plant, meet with resistance from groups such as Grassroots Against Another Salem Plant, which “has pledged to use peaceful civil disobedience to block construction of the gas plant.” And, of course, just try to build a nuclear power plant and all the fear-mongers come out.
What’s left? Renewables, such as wind and solar, receive favorable treatment through a combination of mandates and subsidies. Even industrial wind and solar have their own opposition within the environmental lobby groups because they chop up and fry birds and bats— including protected bald and golden eagles.
The brand new report, Solar Power in the U.S. (SPUS), presents a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers.
Clearly, without the mandates and subsidies, this “solar energy disruption” would go dark.
We’ve seen companies, such as Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Evergreen Solar, gobankrupt even with millions of dollars in state and federal (taxpayer) assistance. I’ve written extensively on these stories and that of Abengoa—which received the largest federal loan guarantee ($2.8 billion) and has resorted to questionable business practices to keep the doors open (Abengoa is currently under investigation from several federal agencies).
SPUS shows that without the subsidies and mandates these renewable projects can’t survive. For example, in Australia, sales of solar systems “fell as soon as the incentives were cut back.” Since the Australian government announced that it was reconsidering its Renewable Energy Targets, “investments have started to dry up.”
Knowing the importance of the “incentives,” the solar industry has now become a major campaign donor, providing political pressure and money to candidates, who will bring on more mandates, subsidies, and tax credits. Those candidates are generally Democrats, as one of the key differences between the two parties is that Democrats tend to support government involvement. By contrast, Republicans lean toward limited government and the free market. The GOP doesn’t “disdain” solar, but they know it only survives because of government mandates that require a certain percentage of renewables, and specifically solar, in the energy mix, plus the subsidies and tax credits that make it attractive. Therefore, they can’t get excited about the jobs being created as a result of taxpayers’ involuntary investment, nor higher energy costs. There is a big difference between disdaining solar power and disdaining the government involvement that gives it an unfair advantage in the marketplace.
The blog post compares the “solar energy disruption” to what “occurred when direcTV and Dish started to compete with cable television. More choices emerged and a whole lot of new jobs were created.” However, those jobs were created through private investment and the free market—a fact that, along with solar’s dependence on incentives, he never mentions. Likewise, the jobs supported by building the Keystone pipeline would be through private funding.
The blog’s author touts this claim, from the book Clean Disruption: “Should solar continue on its exponential trajectory, the energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030”—15 years from now. Even if state and federal governments were to continue to pour money into solar energy—which, as is pointed out in SPUS, subsidies are already being dialed back on a variety of fronts, there is no currently available solution to solar’s intermittency.
SPUS draws upon the example of Germany, which has led the way globally in solar and other renewables. Over time the high renewable penetration has contributed to residential electricity prices more than doubling. Renewables received favored status, called “priority dispatch,” which means that, when renewable electricity becomes available, the utilities must dispatch it first, thereby changing the merit order for thermal plants. Now many modern natural gas-fueled plants, as well as coal, couldn’t operate profitably. As a result, many were shut down, while several plants were provided “capacity payments” by the government (a double subsidy) in order to stay online as back-up—which maintains system stability. In Germany’s push for 80 percent renewable energy by 2050, it has found that despite the high penetration of renewables, given their inherent intermittency, a large amount of redundancy of coal- and natural-gas-fueled electricity (nuclear being decommissioned) is necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid.
As the German experience makes clear, without a major technological breakthrough to store electricity generated through solar systems, “100 percent solar by 2030” is just one more fantasy.
The blog post ends with this: “the GOP congressional leadership ignores these new jobs inside an innovative, disruptive energy sector that is about to sweep across the country it leads—in favor of a vanishingly small number of mythical Keystone ‘jobs’ that may never materialize. It makes you wonder. Why?”
The answers can be found in SPUS, which addresses the policy, regulatory, and consumer protection issues that have manifested themselves through the rapid rise of solar power and deals with many more elements than covered here. It concludes: “Solar is an important part of our energy future, but there must be forethought, taking into account future costs, jobs, energy reliability and the overall energy infrastructure already in place. This technology must come online with the needs of the taxpayer, consumer and ratepayer in mind instead of giving the solar industry priority.”
The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.
In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out ‘nocebo’ effects from direct effects. reynermedia/Flickr, CC BY
The out-going head of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Warwick Anderson confirmed in Senate Estimates recently that calls for research proposals for up to a total of A$2.5 million over five years will soon be made to investigate questions about wind farms and health.
Under questioning from Greens Senator Richard Di Natale, Anderson told the committee A$2.5m was a paltry fraction of the agency’s total research budget, which in 2014 stood at A$802.42m. So A$2.5m is the equivalent of less than 0.06% of a projected five-year research budget on today’s allocations.
But researchers’ success obtaining grants has never been lower in Australia, with many strong grants falling below the cut-off score, which is ultimately budget determined. In 2014, researchers submitted 3,700 applications for project grants, with only one in 6.7 of these (14.9%) being funded. In the health services research field, 91.8% if applications were not funded.
Anderson has been emphatic that research standards will not be compromised in all this, and that only high-quality applications from suitably experienced researchers will be funded. It is not clear yet whether only one or more applications will be funded, if indeed any are.
The main debate in this area is between those who are adamant that wind turbines emit sounds and vibrations that upset and harm some of those exposed, and those who argue that the available evidence points strongly to health problems and complaints being psychogenic.
Nocebo phenomena – the idea that fear about wind turbines will cause some people to get symptoms – seem to be at the heart of both complaints and claims of illness.
I have documented an Old Testament-length list of 244 different symptoms and diseases alleged by wind farm opponents to be caused by the pestilence of wind farm exposure. The most bizarre of these include herpes, haemorrhoids, lung skin cancer and disoriented echidnas.
Study limitations
In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out nocebo effects from putative direct effects. Here’s why. Ideally, researchers could select a location where a wind farm was being planned and conduct symptom- and illness-prevalence studies well before the wind farm was constructed and operational.
They would then repeat those measures at different times after the turbines began, analysing the influence of variables such as noise levels, economic benefit, pre-existing levels of antipathy to wind farms and “negatively oriented personality”. They could also request the production of medical records to see whether reported health problems long preceded the commencement of the turbines.
But this sort of research design will always be corrupted by wind farm opponents who, at the first hint of any wind farm development, move into a local area with the express purpose of alarming and frightening as many local residents as possible about what’s down the track.
No wind farm developer could ever commence construction without a long and open period of community consultation. These trigger the alarmists to turn on their best efforts to worry residents sick. This nocebo-priming case study I published recently describes in detail how they operate.
Residents fully sworn against wind farms are highly biased and can game such studies where self-reports of symptoms are central.
Lessons from Canada
Canada has already conducted the sort of study that might be proposed in Australia. In response to agitation from anti-wind groups, starting in 2012, it undertook the largest study of wind turbines and health ever attempted.
The study involved 1,235 houses in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, where randomly selected residents of all houses within 600m of 399 turbines on 18 wind farms were compared with those living 600m to 10km away.
In October 2014, Health Canada published the top-line results from the $CAN2.2 million study of the very sort that the NHMRC might well be asked to replicate.
It found the following were not associated with wind turbine noise:
self-reported sleep (such as general disturbance, use of sleep medication, diagnosed sleep disorders)
self-reported illnesses (such as dizziness, tinnitus, prevalence of frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes)
self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.
It did find that “annoyance” was related to wind turbine noise, with 16.5% of houses in Ontario and 6.3% on Prince Edward Island being annoyed.
Ontario is the epicentre of Canadian anti-wind farm activism, while Price Edward Island has seen little of this. So this major difference in the prevalence of annoyance lends support to the idea that wind farm annoyance is a “communicated disease” spread by anti-wind farm agitators.
The Canadian study also found that:
annoyance was significantly lower among the 110 participants who received personal benefit, which could include rent, payments or other indirect benefits of having wind turbines in the area e.g., community improvements. However, there were other factors that were found to be more strongly associated with annoyance, such as the visual appearance, concern for physical safety due to the presence of wind turbines and reporting to be sensitive to noise in general.
These findings are consistent with conclusions reached in what is now 24 reviews of the evidence.
Predictably, anti-wind farm groups in Canada rejected the Canadian study’s conclusions. It seems obvious that the only reports that such groups will ever accept are those which confirm their agenda. This is not a debate which will ever be resolved by research.
Political interests
Disturbingly, the NHMRC has allowed itself to be influenced by what reported internal email described as “the macro policy environment” – bureaucratic code for sensitivity to political interests.
Instead, Warwick Anderson and the Council should have stated clearly and emphatically to the parliament and the public that any researcher wanting to investigate wind farms and health was at perfect liberty to submit such a proposal to compete with all those being submitted by researchers considering any other topic. Such proposals would stand or fall on their competitiveness as determined by peer review.
There is no dedicated research funding being set aside by the NHMRC to further investigate the known massive risks to human health from fossil fuel extraction and burning. And it would be unimaginable for the NHMRC to quarantine money for any other non-disease like wifi sensitivity, smart electricity meter dangers or “fan death”. But this is what it has done here.
The money allocated is not much. But the real damage will be that in having this issue thus elevated to privileged research status, its political apostles will be greatly encouraged.
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council has long since disqualified itself as a body fit, willing, or even able to investigate and report on the known and obvious consequences to human health and well-being caused by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.
From the get go, it’s been infiltrated by wind industry consultants, such as Norm Broner and wind industry advocates like Liz Hanna, who continue to direct traffic at, what is supposed to be, an independent medical research body, designed to protect public health at enormous taxpayer expense (see our post here).
A few weeks back, the NHMRC pumped out another politically inspired piece of propaganda, asserting that there was “no consistent evidence” of wind farms causing adverse health effects.
The inclusion of the weasel word “consistent” in the NHMRC’s puffy press piece is telling; and it’s a theme we’ll return to a moment, when we revisit the concept of basic science, in the general, and hypothesis testing, in the particular.
But first to a recent performance by the NHMRC’s chair, Warwick Anderson before the Senate Estimates Committee.
Community Affairs Legislation Committee – 25/02/2015 – Estimates – HEALTH PORTFOLIO – National Health and Medical Research Council
****
****
Senator MADIGAN: Thank you, gentlemen. I note that the NHMRC was aware of Steven Cooper’s research at Cape Bridgewater commissioned by Pacific Hydro. Given the endorsement of Mr Cooper’s acoustic investigation by senior acousticians internationally, such as Dr Paul Schomer and Dr George Hessler, both of whom worked for the wind industry, I would like to know what your acoustic expert Dr Norm Broner thought of Mr Cooper’s report.
Prof. Anderson: Thank you to the chair and Senator McLucas for those very kind words. It is actually a great privilege to be able to serve the people of Australia in this job and, I hope, use the taxpayers’ money as effectively as possible, so thank you.
Senator Madigan, thank you for your question. Specifically on Dr Broner’s membership of the reference group, the reference group has finished its work now, so I am not sure whether I can specifically answer your question. I could ask Dr Broner, I suppose. We are of course aware of that particular study. We are not aware that it has been published in peer review papers at this moment.
I suppose the general point is that, when we do rigorous scientific analysis of the literature, we try and take all the literature into account. Of course, any individual piece of research will have its own place and its own finding, but I am sure you will understand that one piece does not wipe out previous pieces of research. Of course, we are pleased to see that more research is being done in this topic as time goes by, but, with us and our expert reference committee and so on, we always have to have a line at some stage and make the conclusions at that time.
Senator MADIGAN: I am aware that the NHMRC insist on strict confidentiality clauses in their contracts with some parties involved in this process, such as Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen, who refused to sign such an agreement. How does this requirement help ensure transparency and accountability to the Australian people and robust and open scientific debate in such a difficult area?
Prof. Anderson: We have many committees on many topics from ethics through to science, health advice and public health advice. We always ask people to sign confidentiality so that other members of the committee can engage in robust conversation with confidence that their views will not be represented or perhaps misrepresented externally. So there would be nothing unique about that particular matter, and certainly we are aware of Professor Hansen’s work.
Senator MADIGAN: I have been advised that the NHMRC is refusing to make the independent expert peer reviewers’ reports public, despite indicating to some of the peer reviewers that it would do so. Could the NHMRC make all expert peer review reports public immediately? If you will not do so, could you please explain to the committee why you are refusing to do so and how that is open and transparent?
Prof. Anderson: To make a person’s opinion available, we have to ask them whether they consent to that. We are in the process of doing that. I believe – although I am subject to correction – that the reports are already in the public domain, and there have been some questions around the individual ownership of those. That is a matter of privacy for those people, but we are, right at the moment – in fact, I gather, quite close to – getting permission, with those who do consent, to make it available. I think things are moving along there.
Senator MADIGAN: Why were the public comments made by key spokespeople for the NHMRC – you and Professor Armstrong – prioritising research for residents in homes within 1.5 kilometres of wind turbines, when Mr Cooper’s acoustic survey included one home which is unliveable at 1.6 kilometres because of the infrasound from Pacific Hydro’s wind turbines, and also when Professor Colin Hansen has measured excessive levels of low-frequency noise out to 8.7 kilometres, in the case of Waterloo, which would cause sleep disturbance at that distance?
Prof. Anderson: Quite a lot of research was accessed that has been done on noise and distance as part of the report. You have mentioned a couple of studies, but there are quite a lot of others documented in our report as so-called parallel evidence. The overwhelming bulk of the evidence shows that, up to 500 metres, there are indeed effects on health of noise at the level that wind turbines do. From 500 to 1,500, the evidence is that there probably are, although they are probably modest. And the bulk of evidence shows that, after 1,500 metres, although some people may indeed individually attribute their sleep to the wind turbine noise, the likelihood is low. I want to assure you that the research we are going to call for is not going to restrict people from any of those conclusions. We will be looking for the very best research we can.
Senator MADIGAN: Miss Mary Morris’s research at Waterloo demonstrated that rural residents were reporting impacts on their sleep out to 10 kilometres at Waterloo, which is consistent with Professor Hansen’s acoustic data. Miss Morris’s research was one of the very few studies included by the NHMRC in its very selective literature review. Why is this acoustic and population survey information out to 10 kilometres being ignored by the NHMRC, which has a responsibility to adopt a precautionary approach in order to protect the health of the public?
Prof. Anderson: With respect, Senator, we did not ignore it. If you look at our documentation, it has been taken into account. What it did not do was fulfil the criteria we set up at the beginning. This is the way you properly do systematic reviews. You set the criteria at the beginning, and then you look at the evidence. What the group found was really only seven studies, 13 publications, that fell within the criteria of adequate scientific validity and relevance to health, because not all the studies were relevant to health. But, having said that, nothing else was ignored. The committee went over thousands of submissions from all sorts of bodies. There were two calls in the public for submissions, and the committee looked at all of that. So I would not accept your suggestion that those studies were ignored.
****
****
Senator DI NATALE: Let me also go to the statements made earlier by colleagues. I want to thank you for your many years of great service. It is with a bit of a heavy heart that I have to finish on this note, and I think we both know where this is going to go.
Prof. Anderson: You flagged it in the press.
Senator DI NATALE: I wanted you to be prepared! I am going to ask about the statement made by the NHMRC which says:
After careful consideration and deliberation of the body of evidence, NHMRC concludes that there is currently no consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects …
However, the statement then also says:
Given the poor quality of current direct evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, high quality research into possible health effects of wind farms, particularly within 1500 metres, is warranted.
Let me go firstly to some concerns expressed by some of the people who were involved in helping to formulate those findings. Did the NHMRC receive correspondence from any of the New South Wales Director of Health Protection, Jeremy McAnulty; Wayne Smith, the director of the Environmental Health Branch at New South Wales Health; or Rosemary Lester, the Chief Health Officer of Victoria? If so, can you tell me what the content of those emails was?
Prof. Anderson: I am not aware of the first names, so I would have to take that on notice. Wayne Smith of course was a member of the reference group, not a member of council. The reference group delivered a signed off version to the NHMRC – our information paper – which was released at the time. I am assuming that Professor Smith had agreed to that document. I am aware that, since then, he has had some disagreement with the wording, but it is not the reference group that agrees to the wording; it is the CEO of the NHMRC on the advice of the council. I have been around academics a long time. Hardly any of them ever agree about anything. I respect different views that people might have had, but we did get formal advice, agreed in the information paper, from a committee that included Professor Smith. That is that issue.
As you would be aware, the chief medical officers of all the states and territories and of the Commonwealth are members of council. In the usual way, when members of council are sent something to discuss, they often discuss it inside their department. I do not know if those conversations went in, but of course the Department of Health have a different view to us, because they might be involved in state regulations. We are not involved in that at all. We just try to make comments on the basis of the evidence and the conversation that occurs at council. There certainly were some comments back from a couple of the chief medical officers when we were finalising this, including from Dr Lester. But, at the end of the day, Dr Lester and the other CHOs and CMOs signed off and agreed with the statement.
Senator DI NATALE: What was the basis of their concerns?
Prof. Anderson: You had better ask them. My understanding of it was that, for some reason, they disagreed with us mentioning that there was community concern. I do not understand that. You are about to have a third Senate committee on windfarms. I would have thought that the Senate would not go to three committees unless it – the Senate—recognised this community concern around it. I have been terribly aware, because we have been involved in all three of these Senate committees, of the many comments that have been made about this area. So I do not resile at all from the position that, when you are a body that advises in public health, you base it on two things – the science primarily and then the second thing is the community concern. On the science, the expert committee said, ‘The science is not good; there is not much of it and it is all poor quality’. If you get that from a scientific body, what are you going to do, dismiss it? Then, as I said, the second thing is the community concern, particularly as exemplified by the Senate itself.
Senator DI NATALE: There are so many things that I would like to go to there, but we will go to a couple of them. The basis of their concern, as far as I understand it, was that any recommendation from you to suggest that there may be a link has the potential to cause harm.
Prof. Anderson: Yes, and –
Senator DI NATALE: Do you accept that?
Prof. Anderson: I think there is harm both ways.
Senator DI NATALE: No, specifically about a recommendation to suggest there may be a link when there is no evidence to suggest there is one – that such a recommendation has the potential to cause harm.
Prof. Anderson: I am sorry; I do not agree with your comment that there is no evidence there is a link. That is what I am saying. The evidence is not strong enough to say that, especially on the annoyance side, the social-cultural side and the implications of that. So I do not accept the premise on which you are asking me the question, with respect.
Senator DI NATALE: Okay, so annoyance. On the basis of annoyance, are we going to recommend having studies done into people who live next to busy motorways because they are annoying, or tall buildings?
Prof. Anderson: Many such studies have been done.
Senator DI NATALE: Are you suggesting that we do that on the basis of annoyance?
Prof. Anderson: We are going to call for research. If the research community, which I guess is where you are coming from, feel that this is not worth studying then we will not get applications that are worth doing.
Senator DI NATALE: You are offering money to do research, in a pretty fiscally constrained environment.
Prof. Anderson: We are also going to peer-review it at our usual high quality, and we are not going to spend that money, let me tell you, unless there is high-quality research. But can I come back. Put yourself – sorry, I should not say that. If you were in my place –
Senator DI NATALE: I know exactly what I would do if I were in your place, and it would not have been to make those recommendations. It would have been consistent with the advice from Rosemary Lester and the other chief health officers.
Prof. Anderson: It was not the other chief health officers, with respect again.
Senator DI NATALE: With one of the chief health officers
Prof. Anderson: There are two that expressed some concern and then eventually agreed with the statement.
Senator DI NATALE: I have the email, and the email was very clear about their concerns.
Prof. Anderson: If you like, we can share with you the final comments by both those chief medical officers.
Senator DI NATALE: How much are we talking about in terms of the amount that is going to come from the NHMRC budget? Is it half a million?
Prof. Anderson: We will, hopefully, release it soon; we are just going through the last bureaucratic processes. May I interpolate that you are talking about the statement. The council signed off 100 per cent on the targeted call for research, and that happened before.
Senator DI NATALE: Surprise, surprise!
Prof. Anderson: The council members are not going to get any benefit out of that. So the call will be up to $2.5 million over five years.
Senator DI NATALE: Is that additional money? Is that new money?
Prof. Anderson: No, that is part of our –
Senator DI NATALE: From the existing money?
Prof. Anderson: That is part of the Medical Research Endowment Account.
Senator DI NATALE: So that is money that would have gone to cancer research or diabetes research or ischemic heart disease research or research for eye disease or research for –
Prof. Anderson: Or a fellowship or a partnership project. But that will be $5 million over five years when our total expenditure –
Senator DI NATALE: Sorry, $2½ million?
Prof. Anderson: Sorry, $2.5 million – $500,000 a year – while, according to our forward estimates, we will spend about $4¼ billion on cancer and diabetes in those –
Senator DI NATALE: Yes, but it is still $2½ million not going into any of those areas and being diverted into an area that is highly questionable.
Prof. Anderson: Yes. It is out of a small group that we keep for targeted calls for research which are driven by the council and the principal committees of the NHMRC.
Senator DI NATALE: I suppose getting to this –
CHAIR: This will have to be the last question.
Senator DI NATALE: I actually have a few questions here, and I made it really clear. You said we would have half an hour for this. We convened at quarter past –
CHAIR: Sorry, Senator Di Natale. I did not say. I said we would have about 20 minutes and we would have about 25 minutes left. Senator McLucas says she will come if there is time. So, if she is going to yield her time, we have till 25 to, if we are still cooperating. If you want to keep going, we will not get to –
Senator DI NATALE: Till when, sorry?
CHAIR: Till 25 to. We were initially going to go till half past, but we are going to –
Senator DI NATALE: I have been waiting all day for these.
CHAIR: Senator Di Natale, you have had no shortage of opportunities to ask questions. I said I would split the time roughly evenly. You have had more time than Senator Madigan had, so I am not sure what part of that is not fair.
Mr Bowles: I have my sports people, who have been waiting all night.
Senator DI NATALE: There is $2½ million going towards questionable research.
CHAIR: There is a lot of money in sport as well.
Senator DI NATALE: What is the macro policy environment that dictated this decision? What is the macro policy environment? Samantha Robertson, who is the executive director of evidence, advice and governance, said that, when making this decision, they took into consideration ‘the macro policy environment’.
Prof. Anderson: I do not think I should be held responsible for what some of my staff said. It is what I said previously: we have spent a lot of time at the NHMRC working with Senate select committees over that period of time. I may be wrong, but I thought it was disrespectful to the Senate to think that that amount of focus on this issue – and I know there are different views around the Senate – but the fact that there have been three or will be three Senate select committees meant that as a responsible –
Senator DI NATALE: But aren’t you a scientific body? Don’t you make your decision on the basis of science, and not on the basis of some whim of parliamentarians, who might have an axe to grind. I thought that was the whole point of the NHMRC: you are at arm’s length from government.
CHAIR: So a decision of the Senate is now a whim when the Greens don’t agree with it?
Senator DI NATALE: This is the whole point of the NHMRC.
Prof. Anderson: It was available –
Senator DI NATALE: That is right. It is a Senate committee. You are a scientific body –
CHAIR: It was a majority of the Senate; it was not a whim of some. It was not a couple of Greens getting together –
Mr Bowles: We have heard different views tonight. I think that is a little unfair on Professor Anderson.
Senator DI NATALE: You either think science is a thing that exists or it does not. You are a scientific organisation and you are saying you are making a decision on the basis of what the Senate has decided. That is a disconnect.
Prof. Anderson: With respect, I do not think I said that. What I said was that as a scientific body an expert group gave us a report that said, ‘We are going to make conclusions on this but there is not much research and it is poor.’ The scientific committee also said, ‘Here is what needs to be done in research.’ It is in the reports in the public domain and I could read it out. Think about the situation where an expert group you have set up gives you a report and says, ‘There is not the evidence here and it needs a lot more work, and here is the research that needs to be done.’ That is the main thing –
Senator DI NATALE: Based on the macro policy environment.
Prof. Anderson: Please, I have not said that. I made the decision –
Senator DI NATALE: Your staff members said it. The executive director for evidence, advice and government has said that we are making this decision on the basis of the macro policy environment. The report says that ‘we are going to make the decision on the basis of community concern’. You are a scientific body. I do not understand how –
Prof. Anderson: You seem to be implying that we have made all the decisions on community concerns. I am saying that we made almost the majority of the decisions on the scientific feedback we got – that evidence is not very good. I think there is another issue here that I will put to the committee. With a lot of new technology – and I assume this is the sort of new technology that is supported by some people here – health issues often arise, and health issues can sometimes be used to try to stop a new technology. So, surely if you are a supporter of the new technology you want the best evidence there is so that if such ideas come up they can be brushed aside. We commission the best research in Australia. That is an issue. It is not the issue that we decided, but it is an issue others have put to us.
Senator DI NATALE: It is an argument to persist indefinitely with this sort of research, because you can continue to maintain this argument that we do not have strong evidence in this area, so we are going to continue researching the area.
Hansard 25/02/2015
Before we get to Warwick Anderson’s efforts to deflect, downplay and otherwise diminish the seriousness of the harm caused to wind farm victims in Australia and, indeed, around the world, we can’t help but notice the shrill and rampant hypocrisy dished up by so-called “Green”, Richard “Die Nasty”.
When he sneers about neighbours’ health complaints being the result of “annoyance”, he’s engaged in a deliberately misleading use of that term.
In acoustics, and in the context of industrial noise sources, the term “annoyance” does not involve emotional responses – ie “antipathy” to the “look” of wind turbines – a fallacious argument on which the nonsense “nocebo” theory is based. And it’s most certainly got nothing to do with whether people like the look of “tall buildings”, as he squeals.
In the NASA research done during the 1980s into health effects caused by wind turbine noise, the “annoyance” being reported by neighbours was defined to include numerous physiological responses, which were described as “sensations”. These “sensations”, which they felt rather than heard, were sensations of “pressure”, “a sense of uneasiness”, “booming or thumping pulsations”. These sensations were at their worst in the bedrooms where they were trying to sleep (see our post here).
Sleep deprivation – defined by the WHO as in itself an adverse health effect – is the most common of the adverse health effects caused by turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound (see our post here): it too is included in the term “annoyance”.
But, quite apart from misusing, abusing and otherwise giving our mother tongue a desperate flogging, there is Die Nasty’s hysterical hypocrisy, as he attempts to assert that the Greens are (suddenly) paragons of fiscal rectitude.
As part of their political pact with Labor, the Greens demanded that the previous government set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to dole out $10 billion to “renewable” scams; including hundreds of $millions in high-risk loans to wind power outfits. Loans – using money borrowed at taxpayers’ expense, and taxpayers’ risk – to outfits like Pacific Hydro, that runs non-compliant wind farms, and which is losing money hand over fist – a situation that arose because commercial lenders rightly consider wind power outfits to be toxic lending bets (seeour post here).
The unrecoverable costs (ie losses) that the CEFC has and will incur, at taxpayers’ expense, will run into hundreds of $millions, which makes the piddling $2½ million earmarked by the NHMRC for wind turbine health research look like chump change.
Throwing other people’s money around has never really troubled the Greens – indeed, when it comes to chipping into the Commonwealth’s pot, a few of them have trouble stumping up with their share of the tax burden at all, and are happy to leave the revenue side of the government’s coffers to everybody else.
South Australian Green, Tammy Franks couldn’t be bothered with paying her tax for over a decade, and eventually got whacked with $14,000 in fines and court costs for failing to play the game the Greens expect of everyone else (see this article).
No, Die Nasty’s sneering little rant is just an extension of his wind industry paymasters’ instructions (see our post here): to prevent any further study being carried out by the NHMRC, or anybody else for that matter, into the harm known to be caused by giant fans to human health and well-being.
The shills that front the Greens, and the wind industry that pays them, work in lockstep when it comes to preventing multidisciplinary, independent health studies.
When faced with the prospect of further studies along the lines of Steven Cooper’s ground breaking Cape Bridgewater study being carried out in Australia, wind industry spruikers, the Clean Energy Council ranted that it “would not support further research” into Cooper’s findings; findings which linked the “sensations” felt by residents to low-frequency noise below the threshold of hearing (ie infrasound); and at levels well below those considered to be a problem for humans (see our posts here andhere).
Die Nasty’s disingenuous wailing is simply “set-piece” stuff drawn from the same hypocrite’s handbook.
You see, his “argument” – and that of his wind industry paymasters – is fairly easily tested: if wind turbine noise and vibration doesn’t cause health effects (like sleep deprivation, say) then the industry should welcome a full-blown study, along the lines of what Steven Cooper did at Cape Bridgewater (with medicos involved to look at the physiological effects in detail; and matched controls to support the findings).
That way it could clear its name as the cause of untold human misery; and, having been found innocent of that charge, could then simply focus on defrauding power consumers and taxpayers of $billions in subsidies; leaving tens of thousands of households no longer able to afford power at all, as the inevitable result (see our posts here and here).
But, actions belie words, most every time.
Big tobacco did it, the asbestos industry did it and the wind industry has taken to it like a duck to water: lie, cover up the facts and when the facts get out – run and hide (see our post here).
Now, to the NHMRC, and its pitched battle with the fundamentals of science.
STT has already covered the manner in which the NHMRC rejected high quality, peer-reviewed and published work done by Prof Colin Hansen and his team from the University of Adelaide at Waterloo because it was “too late”. While Prof Anderson says the NHMRC “is aware” of that work, and the work done by Steven Cooper, it has steadfastly chosen to ignore it. Precisely as it continues to ignore a decade’s worth of top level research performed by NASA in the 1980s, the substance of which has been confirmed by the work done by Prof Hansen and Steven Cooper, as well as America’s top acoustic experts at Shirley, Wisconsin (see our post here).
But it’s this little statement, in response to Senator Madigan’s reference to Steven Cooper’s study, that’s attracted STT’s attention:
Prof Anderson: I simply suppose the general point is that, when we do rigorous scientific analysis of the literature, we try and take all the literature into account. Of course, any individual piece of research will have its own place and its own finding, but I am sure you will understand that one piece does not wipe out previous pieces of research. Of course, we are pleased to see that more research is being done in this topic as time goes by, but, with us and our expert reference committee and so on, we always have to have a line at some stage and make the conclusions at that time.
Any true scientist worth his salt will recognise the highlighted statement for what it is: utter scientific bunkum.
In science, ONE piece of research, ONE piece of evidence, indeed, ONE sliver of data, will most certainly, absolutely and forever wipe out EVERY piece of research that ever existed up to that point in time.
That’s precisely how (real) science has worked since we began the organised and disciplined investigation into human and natural affairs, that we call “science”, around 300 years ago.
Which brings us to “falsifiability” and hypothesis testing; the central tool in dealing with scientific theory.
In our earlier post on the results from Cape Bridgewater we set out the basics as follows.
In science, some hypothesis directed at a particular relationship is put forward; evidence is gathered in relation to that hypothesis; and then that evidence is thrown firmly against the hypothesis, in an effort to disprove it. What Karl Popper called “falsifiability”, which he defined as the essential feature of science; summed up by Wikipedia as:
Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not “to commit fraud” but “show to be false”. Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable.
For example, by the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as “all swans are white”, yet it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term falsifiability is sometimes synonymous to testability.
The black swan example is routinely used to help explain “hypothesis testing”; as to which, the stats boys tell us that:
A statistical hypothesis is an assumption about a population parameter. This assumption may or may not be true. Hypothesis testing refers to the formal procedures used by statisticians to accept or reject statistical hypotheses.
Statistical Hypotheses
The best way to determine whether a statistical hypothesis is true would be to examine the entire population. Since that is often impractical, researchers typically examine a random sample from the population. If sample data are not consistent with the statistical hypothesis, the hypothesis is rejected.
There are two types of statistical hypotheses.
Null hypothesis. The null hypothesis, denoted by H0, is usually the hypothesis that sample observations result purely from chance.
Alternative hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis, denoted by H1 or Ha, is the hypothesis that sample observations are influenced by some non-random cause.
Can We Accept the Null Hypothesis?
Some researchers say that a hypothesis test can have one of two outcomes: you accept the null hypothesis or you reject the null hypothesis. Many statisticians, however, take issue with the notion of “accepting the null hypothesis.” Instead, they say: you reject the null hypothesis or you fail to reject the null hypothesis.
Why the distinction between “acceptance” and “failure to reject?” Acceptance implies that the null hypothesis is true. Failure to reject implies that the data are not sufficiently persuasive for us to prefer the alternative hypothesis over the null hypothesis.
The process of hypothesis testing, starts with stating the hypotheses:
This involves stating the null and alternative hypotheses. The hypotheses are stated in such a way that they are mutually exclusive. That is, if one is true, the other must be false. (for more detail and examples, see the link here)
The white swan example is picked up in this analysis of the same point:
Although the null hypothesis cannot be proven true, it can be proven false. This is because science and hypothesis testing are based on the logic of falsification. If someone claims that all swans are white, confirmatory evidence (in the form of lots of white swans) cannot prove the assertion to be true. However, contradictory evidence (in the form of a single black swan) makes it clear that the claim is invalid.
The observation of one black swan is sufficient to falsify the claim that all swans are white. That single black swan proves that the claim is wrong. (for more detail and examples, see the link here)
From its press releases, public statements and the guff pitched up before the Senate, the NHMRC’s null hypothesis reduces to this:
All humans are safe from wind turbine generated noise and vibration.
The alternative hypothesis, is the mutually exclusive statement that:
Not all humans are safe from wind turbine generated noise and vibration.
That set of statements is, in scientific terms, precisely the same as the white swan/black swan example, used to describe and illustrate hypothesis testing above.
And it’s precisely what occurred at Cape Bridgewater, with Steven Cooper’s study, and the very point that America’s top acoustic experts, Dr Paul Schomer and George Hessler were making with their observation, in relation to the data gathered by Cooper, that:
This study proves that there are other pathways that affect some people,at least 6. The windfarm operator simply cannot say there are no known effects and no known people affected. One person affected is a lot more than none; the existence of just one cause-and-effect pathway is a lot more than none. It only takes one example to prove that a broad assertion is not true, and that is the case here.
In science, all it takes is a single observation and the null hypothesis (here, the NHMRC’s continued public assertion that “all humans are safe from wind turbine generated noise and vibration”) must simply be rejected: it is no longer valid.
Moreover, the alternative hypothesis – being the mutually exclusive statement that: “not all humans are safe from wind turbine generated noise and vibration” cannot be rejected: the null hypothesis, having been rightly rejected, leaves the alternative hypothesis standing.
With half-a-dozen “black swans” popping up in Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater study, the NHMRC, and its mates in the wind industry, as Schomer and Hessler put it: “cannot say there are no known effects and no known people affected”.
So, with a few basic scientific principles in mind, quite to the contrary of Prof Anderson’s line “that one piece [of research] does not wipe out previous pieces of research“, that’s precisely what scientific endeavour does; indeed, anything less is not science at all. It’s simply advocacy for a cause.
And that is exactly what the NHMRC’s well-rehearsed mantra on the adverse health effects caused by wind farms is all about, a position that jumps out of this rather curious statement:
Prof Anderson: … With a lot of new technology – and I assume this is the sort of new technology that is supported by some people here – health issues often arise, and health issues can sometimes be used to try to stop a new technology. So, surely if you are a supporter of the new technology you want the best evidence there is so that if such ideas come up they can be brushed aside.
Hmmm.
STT’s not sure that a “scientific” research organisation – paid for by taxpayers, and charged with looking after the health and well-being of Australian citizens – is meant to be looking at the evidence of “health issues” caused by wind turbines, simply because that evidence might be used to “stop a new technology”.
But we’re pretty confident that the NHMRC isn’t paid for by us to generate the “best evidence” it can muster, in order that adverse health effects related to that “new technology” can simply be “brushed aside”.
The NHMRC has shown itself, time and time again, to be nothing more than a group of wind industry apologists and advocates – that defers to the “expertise” of a tobacco advertising guru, who calls wind farm victims “wind farm wing nuts” (see our post here). It’s been infiltrated, co-opted and corrupted by an industry which exhibits a callous disregard for human health and well-being (see our post here); and which does everything in its power to prevent any proper investigation into the harm known to be caused by its uncontrolled operations (see our post here).
Those unfortunates forced to live with turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound can only look on in disgust and dismay.
Those of our political betters in Canberra who fail to take on the cronyism and institutional corruption within the NHMRC, should hang their heads in shame.
The great wind farm farce
The Telegraph
James Delingpole
22 February 2015
Ed Davey’s plan for 400 turbines to be erected off the Yorkshire coast will be a heinous burden on the taxpayer
If ever there’s a competition for the most spectacularly pointless and wasteful project in engineering history, you’d be hard pressed to find amore promising candidate than the one announced this week, with great fanfare, by Energy Secretary Ed Davey.
Dogger Bank Creyke Beck is its name – and though it may seem a bit of an unfamiliar mouthful now, in future years it will trip off the tongue very nicely as the answer to any number of trivia questions.
As well as being the world’s largest offshore wind farm (covering 430 square miles), it will be the most expensive to build (£6-£8 billion), the most heavily subsidised (by as much as £900 million a year) and the one that does the most lasting damage to the UK economy.
But before we examine the downsides in more detail, let’s first see how Davey’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is trying to spin this misbegotten venture.
It will, according to DECC, generate enough electricity to power almost two million homes; it is expected to support “up to 900 green jobs in Yorkshire and Humberside and millions of pounds’ worth of investment to the UK’s economy”; and it will, of course, make a key contribution to Britain’s EU-mandated carbon emissions reduction target, whereby 32 per cent of all the electricity we need must come from renewable sources by 2020.
All this sounds superficially impressive. You can understand why a spokesman for industry lobbyist RenewableUK describes it as an “awesome” project. Each of its 400 turbines, when completed will be 600ft tall – one and a half times the height of Salisbury Cathedral spire.
The area they cover, 80 miles off the Yorkshire coast, will be bigger than Dartmoor National Park. And as a profit-maximising exercise it is almost without peer: the consortium building it, Forewind, will probably have covered its costs within the first 10 years. After that it can expect to generate well over £1 billion a year in profit.
These financial details, according to John Constable, director of wind industry analysts the Renewable Energy Foundation, are the project’s most troubling aspect.
“Not since British Leyland has the government awarded this much public subsidy to a single industry – and look how badly that ended,” he says. “It represents an experiment on such a scale that it could seriously disrupt the UK economy.”
To appreciate his concerns, you first need to understand the fundamental flaw of wind energy: being intermittent and unreliable (obviously, because it’s only available when the wind is blowing), it is a poor substitute for those other forms of energy (derived from fossil fuel or nuclear), which can be generated on demand according to consumer need.
This is why wind energy has to be so heavily subsidised. In a free market, no business would want to invest in a wind farm because no customer would want to buy its unreliable produce. So to make wind (and other renewables, like solar) more attractive to big business, the Government has rigged the market with a number of incentives.
Not only are renewables companies paid significantly above the going rate for what little energy they manage to produce when the wind is blowing, but also customers are forced to buy their product whether they like it or not.
Hence the involvement of Forewind (an international consortium ofenergy companies SSE, RWE, Statkraft and Statoil) in this massive capital project. Like sharks to blood, they have been lured by the eye-wateringly generous sweetener being offered by the Government.
For every megawatt (MW) of electricity their turbines produce, they will be paid the special offshore wind rate of £155 – more than three times what generators of fossil fuel electricity receive. In other words, a third of that money represents the market rate; the other two thirds is guaranteed, index-linked subsidy, created by government fiat and slapped on the bills of the hapless consumer.
If you asked DECC to justify this extraordinary £105 per MW surcharge it would give two main reasons. First, like all EU member states, Britain is obliged to fulfil its carbon emissions reduction targets. Second, it is a vital measure in the war to “combat climate change”.
Neither argument, unfortunately, holds much water. So many wind projects have either been built or approved by DECC that Britain has already overshot its carbon emissions reduction target. And, increasingly, most of the evidence suggests that the “climate change” threat is both woefully misunderstood and dangerously overstated.
And even if we take at face value official claims that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to dangerous and unprecedented “global warming” there is little evidence that giant wind farms like the one proposed at Dogger Bank Creyke Beck could prevent it.
This is because, owing to its unreliable nature, wind power doesn’t actually displace any of the fossil fuel stations that need to remain on standby, continuing to supply the vast bulk of Britain’s energy needs. And also because, since wind turbines are so painfully inefficient it’s quite likely that in their brief lifetime what little “carbon” they save is more than offset by the greater quantities of “carbon” that have been exhausted manufacturing the turbines in the first place.
There are other problems, too. For a supposedly green, clean source of energy, turbines are remarkably eco-unfriendly. They are known to destroy wildlife on an industrial scale: according to the Spanish conservation charity SEO/Birdlife, a typical wind turbine kills between 110 and 330 birds per year. (Taking the lower estimate, that would see Creyke Beck slicing and dicing over 40,000 migratory and sea birds a year.)
On land, especially, they are also notorious for blighting cherished views, and for causing noise pollution, which research suggests can cause not just sleep disturbance but also a range of serious health issues in vulnerable people.
It’s because onshore wind farms are so unpopular with voters that Cameron’s “greenest government ever” now prefers to champion offshore wind. But in many ways, this is even more disastrous. It simply transfers all the environmental damage to equally sensitive marine environments (with wind projects being proposed off Dorset’s beautiful Jurassic Coast and the nature reserve off Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel). And it means ramping up costs to even more prohibitive levels because the sea, by nature, is such a hostile environment in which to erect 600ft-tall towers with bases big enough to anchor them to the seabed.
Research for the Renewable Energy Foundation by Prof Gordon Hughes, a former senior energy adviser for the World Bank, has shown that these structures have a working life considerably shorter than the optimistic official estimates.
Over 15 years, he calculated, the effects of weather and salt corrosion reduce their output from 45 per cent of capacity to barely 12 per cent. So inevitably, they will have to be expensively refitted much sooner than anticipated – or, more likely, left to rot.
Nor can supporters of Dogger Bank Creyke Beck draw much comfort from the experience of Germany where a similar but smaller offshore wind farm has been delayed for well over year with massive, unresolved technical difficulties which have cost it millions in lost revenue.
Given that these issues are in the public domain you might wonder why Davey gave the go-ahead to such a risky, costly and entirely unnecessary experiment. The answer is that for Davey – and the environmental zealots who dominate DECC – the interests of energy users (ie all of us) must always take second place to green ideology.
No doubt when David Cameron first handed the Liberal Democrats the keys to DECC as part of his Coalition sweetener deal, he imagined it was a harmless gesture that would burnish his eco credentials. But in reality, by granting green ideologues such as Davey (and his predecessor Chris Huhne) the power to authorise projects like Creyke Beck, he has caused untold damage to the UK economy.
If and when it is completed, Creyke Beck will cost energy users around £900 million a year in subsidies that will serve no purpose other to enrich shareholders in the Forewind consortium – among them the company’s chairman Charles Hendry who, as a former energy minister, appears to have done very well out of DECC’s ongoing close relationship with the renewables industry.
But this is a drop in the ocean, when you consider how much, in total, we are all being forced to pay to indulge DECC’s renewable energy fantasy. Between 2002 and 2040, the total cost to the UK economy of renewables (subsidies and system costs) will amount to £250 billion.
This expenditure – roughly a third of the Government’s total annual spending – will not have made one iota of difference to “climate change” or the health of the environment generally, let alone made any meaningful contribution to the UK economy. It will simply have enabled a few misguided green ideologues to feel smug; and an even smaller number of cynical, crony capitalists disgustingly rich. The Telegraph
The Australian Senate is about to rip into the greatest fraud of all time, with a Select Committee Inquiry into wind farms. Chaired by Victorian Senator, John Madigan, and set to kick off in March, it will operate under wide-ranging terms of reference, as its brief says:
(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee onWind Turbines be established to inquire into and report on the application of regulatory governance and economic impact of wind turbines by 24 June 2015, with particular reference to:
(a) the effect on household power prices, particularly households which receive no benefit from rooftop solar panels, and the merits of consumer subsidies for operators;
(b) how effective the Clean Energy Regulator is in performing its legislative responsibilities and whether there is a need to broaden those responsibilities;
(c) the role and capacity of the National Health and MedicalResearch Council in providing guidance to state and territory authorities;
(d) the implementation of planning processes in relation to wind farms, including the level of information available to prospective wind farm hosts;
(e) the adequacy of monitoring and compliance governance of wind farms;
(f) the application and integrity of national wind farm guidelines;
(g) the effect that wind towers have on fauna and aerial operations around turbines, including firefighting and crop management;
(h) the energy and emission input and output equations from whole-of-life operation of wind turbines; and
(i) any related matter.
Last week, the deadline for submissions to the Inquiry was extended to 23 March 2015 (for more information see Parliament’s website here).
So, if you’re still working on your submissions, take your time to polish them up; if you have already submitted, but have something to add, drop in a supplementary submission; and, if you haven’t started, then there’s no time like the present to get cracking.
Their fast-filling ranks include those with turbines which have been operating (in some cases, for many years), as well as those desperately hoping to avoid that prospect altogether.
STT hears that these people – many from New South Wales, South Australia, as well as Victoria – have had, as Australians say “a gutful” of the deception, thuggery and bullying dished out by the goons employed by wind power outfits, such as Infigen (see our post here) and RATCH (see our posts here and here and here). No surprises there.
After years of being shunned by former friends and neighbours for introducing turbines into their communities (or signing up for that to happen in future), many turbine hosts are keen to wind the clock back and make amends. Community division, angry former friends and hostile neighbours are just one aspect of what’s encouraging actual and potential turbine hosts to speak to the Senators involved in the Inquiry. For a taste of what real farmers, from real communities, think about wind farms, check out this cracking little video:
****
****
One of the constant threats made by wind power outfits, is that if their actual or potential turbine hosts were to utter so much as a “peep” about the company’s malfeasance and misconduct, they will be breaching the Draconian confidentiality provisions of their contracts.
These threats have, until now, fuelled fears by turbine hosts that have usually prevented them from speaking to anyone; let alone in a public forum, such as a Senate Inquiry.
Fortunately, there can be no right of action for a breach of confidentiality agreements against anybody giving evidence (whether in the form of documents or oral evidence) to their Parliament. Indeed, it’s been that way since 1688. In relation to a previous Senate Inquiry into wind farms and confidentiality agreements, the Clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing gave this advice:
I understand that there have been inquiries from potential witnesses who have signed confidentiality agreements with the wind farm operators and who are concerned to establish whether their evidence to the committee would be protected by parliamentary privilege.
The short answer to this question is yes. Section 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 reasserts the application of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 to parliamentary proceedings and then goes on to explain what those proceedings include. Article 9 provides that the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside Parliament. The effect of this protection is that no action can be taken against any person on the basis of proceedings in Parliament and their participation in such proceedings is immune from suit in any court or tribunal. Examples are protected proceedings under section 16(2) of the Privileges Act include:
the giving of evidence to a committee, and the evidence so given;
the presentation or submission of a document to a committee; and
the preparation of a document for the purposes of or incidental to the transacting of any such business.
If a person who is covered by a confidentiality provision in an agreement gave evidence to a parliamentary committee about the contents of that agreement, they could not be sued for breaching the confidentiality agreement. Furthermore, if they were subject to any penalty, threat or intimidation as a consequence of their having given evidence to a committee, Privilege Resolution 1(18) provides that a committee must enquire into the circumstances, ascertain the facts and, if those facts disclosed that a person may have been improperly influenced or subject to or threatened with penalty or injury in respect of the evidence, the committee shall report the matter to the Senate. The Senate may then deal with the matter as a potential contempt which may attract penalties including fines and imprisonment. The action may also be prosecuted as an offence under section 12 of the Privileges Act.
So, for those farmers keen to help put things right in this fine Country of ours, you can feel assured that your Senators will protect you. Not only are you completely free to tell your Parliament about how you have been mistreated, lied to etc; if you face any further thuggery, threats or bullying (whether from lawyers or otherwise), those dishing it out will be squarely in the gun for prosecution for contempt of Parliament.
If you have any questions then STT suggests that you speak direct to the offices of Senators John Madigan, Chris Back, or David Leyonhjelm, whose friendly staff will happily guide you through the process. To contact their offices direct call: (03) 5331 2321 (for Senator Madigan); (089) 414 7288 (for Senator Back); and (02) 9719 1078 (for Senator Leyonhjelm).
No-one has to put up with the wind industry’s lies, treachery and deceit. Last time we looked, Australia was a place where people could speak openly and freely to anyone they liked; our elected representatives included.
For turbine hosts (actual and potential), this Inquiry may be the first and last time you will be able to speak openly in public; and with complete immunity.
As a disgruntled host, you will, however, not only be keen to tip a bucket on just how rotten this industry is, you will also be looking to extricate yourself from contracts that will well and truly outlive you; and continue to vex your children and grandchildren, for a generation or more.
Contracts will be set aside in precisely the circumstances in which you were misled by the developer into entering your contract in the first place.
A representation of a material fact made by a party offering a contract to another party in order to induce them to enter into that contract, which has that effect, and is a false statement, is a misrepresentation. To be actionable, the misrepresentation need only to have induced the contract and does not have to be a central or even important inducement.
Under section 52 of the Trade Practices Act (now see Chapter 2, Part 2-1 of the Australian Consumer Law) contracts will be set aside for misleading and deceptive conduct. This includes the situation where a person offering a contract makes representations (which are untrue at the time they are made) to the other party, which are relied on, and induce that party to enter a contract.
Under both the common law and the TPA and ACL the failure to disclose important facts will amount to a misrepresentation and/or misleading conduct; especially where the facts, if disclosed, would have resulted in a reasonable person in your position refusing to enter the contract being offered. And even more so, where you have asked specific questions about important facts and the developer has said nothing: eg, “are wind turbines noisy?”; or simply lied, by answering “no”. (click here for a discussion of what amounts to misleading and decepetive conduct by silence).
Pursuing your lawful right to have your contract set aside for misrepresentation and/or misleading and deceptive conduct will require some competent legal advice from hard-hitting commercial lawyers, with litigation experience; and, perhaps, a trip to a court of competent jurisdiction.
As to actions against developers pursued by turbine hosts, see our post here.
For friends and neighbours of turbine hosts, this is an opportunity to help people who were duped by a pack of lying hounds into entering contracts which will last for 75 years; destroy everybody’s ability to live in, use and enjoy their homes for miles around – including the hosts and their families; and, under which, the turbine hosts receive a piddling $10,000-$15,000 a year, for a turbine that will receive upwards of $800,000 a year in REC subsidies, alone (see our post here).
As the nervous preacher (always in fear of an actual response) says at weddings, “speak now, or forever hold your peace”.
In response to the Media Watch report about The Australian’s coverage of wind farms
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
23 February 2015
THE Media Watch report of February 16 (“Turbine torture: do wind farms make you sick?”) is littered with mistakes, omissions and misrepresentations from the opening scenes.
The program represents blatant advocacy for commercial interests over the widespread concerns of a genuine minority group who deserve thorough investigation of their complaints.
The Australian provided balanced, factual reporting of a national issue of public interest where Media Watch indulged in what amounts to littlemore than ad hominem, ideological propaganda.
The Media Watch program misrepresented the National Health and Medical Research Council position that the quality of existing research into the possible health impacts of wind turbines is poor and that it will fund more high quality research.
NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “it is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.”
Media Watch selectively quoted Cape Bridgewater report author Steven Cooper to give the impression that he rejected certain things when in fact he was simply not professionally qualified to make comment on them.
Media Watch failed to acknowledge that Mr Cooper had said publicly that at all times The Australian’s reporting had been accurate and faithful to the contents of his Cape Bridgewater report. This fact has been confirmed to Media Watch by other suitably qualified acousticians.
Media Watch failed to report information it had received from US acoustics expert Dr Rob Rand that ran counter to its predetermined view.
The Australian published concerns raised by Pacific Hydro and wind industry groups about the Cooper report.
It also published praise for the robust nature of Cooper’s work and the significance of his findings from some of the most qualified and eminent acoustics experts in the world.
At no time did The Australian offer an opinion on the issue.
In contrast, Media Watch relied on wind industry advocates in academia including social scientists, political studies academics and a medical expert witness employed by wind developers to ascribe the symptoms to the now discredited “nocebo effect”.
Media Watch sought to mischievously discredit The Australian’s reporting with a series of factual inaccuracies and through sins of omission.
The Media Watch report failed to detail or report the existence of formal studies and inquiries which run counter to its pre-determined view and glossed over the peer review support the Cooper report received from some of the world’s most qualified acoustic experts..
It ignored the findings of the 2011 Federal Senate Inquiry chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, which found proper research into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents should be undertaken as a matter of urgency.
Media Watch quoted studies that supported its case but failed to acknowledge the fact that the impact of low frequency noise generated by early model turbines had been linked to the exact same symptoms as those being reported today more than 30 years ago in research conducted for the renewable energy industry by NASA.
Media Watch failed to acknowledge any of the balancing quotes and arguments contained within The Australian’s reporting of the issue.
Media Watch did not bother to contact Channel 7.
Here is a line by line dissection of the Media Watch report.
*****************
MW transcript:
Presenter: Tonight, for the first time, hard evidence wind farms aren’t safe.
Today Tonight voiceover: They were told they were blowing in the wind, that it was all in their heads.
Interviewee: I’m not telling furphies, it’s real, we can feel it.
His name is David Mortimer, and he is a wind turbine host at InfigenEnergy’s Lake Bonney Wind Farm in South Australia who says he become unwell with characteristic symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” soon after getting the turbines but didn’t know until very recently what was causing the symptoms.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Yes, as TT told us recently, those wind turbines are so bad that even the chickens get flustered.
■ The Australian’s response
No, animals become physiologically stressed when exposed to wind turbine noise (eg the Taiwanese goats who died, reported by the BBC, confirmed by the goat farmer and the Taiwanese Agricultural authorities. STRESSED chickens lay yolkless eggs — an observation also made in Britain by residents living near an airfield where bombers took off from — the excessive noise had the same impact on those chickens many years ago.
———————–
MW transcript:
Today Tonight voiceover: Even the chooks appeared spooked by something.
Interviewee: “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s not normal.”
Paul Barry: That TT footage on a wind farm in South Australia first got a run some two and a half years ago.
So why has it just popped up again?
Well, for much the same reason that radio hosts also went into a spin late last month:
ALAN JONES: “Now, it’s a headline today and it’s been called a world first study.”
— 2GB, The Alan Jones Breakfast Show, 21st January, 2015
TIM BENNETT: “Probably the biggest story today … is this front page on The Australian.”
— ABC 639 North and West SA, Mornings with Tim Bennett (fill in presenter), 21st January, 2015
ROSS STEVENSON: “Front page of The Australian has an exclusive story that people living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints …”
— 3AW, Breakfast with Ross and John, 21st January, 2015
Paul Barry: Back in January The Australian headed its front page with an exclusive from Environment Editor Graham Lloyd, who told us excitedly in his opening paragraph:
“PEOPLE living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found.”
— The Australian, 21st January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
A statement issued by residents living near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm said; “Steven Cooper’s acoustic survey connects infrasound from wind turbines inside our homes with unacceptable health impacts.”
The Acoustic Group’s Principal, Mr Steven Cooper, was commissioned by wind developer Pacific Hydro to undertake an investigation into “noise” emitted from the wind farm as a result of our long unresolved complaints about the impact of Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind turbines on our health, on the habitability of our homes and on the quality of our lives. Symptoms we have experienced include severe nausea, headaches, ear pressure, inability to concentrate, and severe and debilitating sleep problems, which we have endured over the six years of operation of the Cape Bridgewater wind power facility.
The inclusion of complete shut-downs in the study clearly showed the wind farm generates specific infrasound frequencies that are directly related to the operation of the turbines.
Our diaries and the concurrent full spectrum acoustic measurements inside and outside our homes clearly demonstrate that it is the operation of the wind facility correlating with our symptoms.
The assertions made by others that our symptoms result from scaremongering (the nocebo effect) are untrue, and always have been. The inclusion of complete shut-down periods of the wind facility during the investigation reminded us of the general peace, serenity and wellbeing of our lives before the wind facility started operating.
The Cooper study was reviewed by well qualified acoustics experts.
Dr Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician who is also qualified to assess health impacts from noise and is considered an expert witness in court. Dr Thorne said in a written statement that the Cooper report was “ground breaking” and had made a “unique contribution to science”.
“At 235 pages for the report and six technical annexures (491 pages) the study cannot be matched by any previous wind farm study in Australia,” Dr Thorne said.
US acoustics expert Robert Rand said in a peer review of the Cooper Study;
“The correlation of sensation level to WTS tone level in the infrasonic and audible bands brings wind turbine acoustics right to the door of medical science. Medical tests in the homes, long overdue, can now be correlated directly to WTS.”
The study found that sensations including sleep disturbance were occurring with specific acoustic conditions. Those sensations included other symptoms such as nausea, headaches, and sensations of pressure. Sleep deprivation alone is an adverse health effect. Mr Cooper is not a medical practitioner and so cannot say it was a health study, but no medical practitioner would say that sleep deprivation or disturbance does not have adverse health effects if it is happening repeatedly …. so with the sleep deprivation alone there is going to be a greater risk of suffering health problems.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Mr Lloyd has been worried about wind farms for some time — and those yolkless eggs — so was he right to claim he’d at last found evidence that they damage your health?
■ The Australian’s response
This is a significant issue of widespread public interest involving the duty of care towards a minority group of citizens. Some residents claim they have been forced to abandon their homes. In this case, The Australian was faithfully reporting the findings of a report released publicly by Pacific Hydro and Steven Cooper and accompanying statements by residents both verbally and in writing. Steven Cooper has confirmed The Australian’s report to be accurate in all respects with regard to his report. International acoustic experts have confirmed the study demonstrates a cause and effect exists between sensations experienced by residents and the operation of the wind turbines. The Australian report included comments from Pacific Hydro that it did not accept a cause and effect relationship had been established.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Well, not according to several eminent scientists we talked to. And, remarkably, not according to Steven Cooper, the study’s author, who told Media Watch:
Steven Cooper: “No, it’s not correct … You can’t say that noise affects health from this study.”
— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
Cooper can’t say that, but the residents had already said it as had their treating doctors — all of the residents have been told by treating health practitioners to leave their homes in order to regain their health. Mr Cooper has said he had been quoted faithfully and his report treated fairly by The Australian in all regards.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: So what did Mr Cooper think about Today Tonight’s claims that he had provided the first hard evidence that wind farms are unsafe?
Well, no again.
Steven Cooper: “Absolutely not, that’s incorrect.”
— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
In fact, the first hard evidence was provided by Dr Neil Kelley and his team at NASA thirty years ago, who found that sleep disturbance and other symptoms and sensations were directly caused by wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise. His finding led to a change in wind turbine design. More recently, British Acoustician and National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Reviewer for the 2011 NHMRC Rapid Review Professor Geoffrey Leventhall told the NHMRC workshop in 2011 that “annoyance symptoms’’ or “noise annoyance” symptoms were identical to “wind turbine syndrome” symptoms described by US Paediatric Specialist and researcher Dr Nina Pierpont. Media Watch’s academic commentator Simon Chapman was in the room when he said it.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: The company that commissioned the study, Pacific Hydro says it was not a scientific study, and not a health study, and does not show that wind farms are causing health complaints.
And asked on ABC Radio about this, Mr Cooper agreed.
Steven Cooper: “Pacific Hydro are correct that we don’t have a correlation in terms of medical and I agree with that 100 per cent.”
— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015
Paul Barry: So how come The Australian and Today Tonight got it so wrong.
The head of medicine at Adelaide University, Professor Gary Wittert, told Media Watch:
Professor Gary Wittert: “The way The Australian reported this study was really the antithesis of good science reporting. I think a newspaper like The Australian should know better.”
— Professor Gary Wittert, Head of Medicine, The University of Adelaide, 6th February, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
Mr Cooper has said that Lloyd’s reporting was accurate. The residents were reporting sensations including sleep deprivation, nausea and headaches. Does Professor Wittert consider that these sensations are not adverse health effects? And that chronic sleep deprivation does not itself cause long term health problems? Has he actually read the acoustic investigation and does he understand what was found?
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And he’s by no means the only one to express that view.
■ The Australian’s response
Professor Wittert has repeatedly given expert evidence to court cases stating that the nocebo effect rather than infrasound and low frequency noise are directly causing the reported symptoms. Mr Cooper’s data from his acoustic investigation suggests Professor Wittert’s expert opinion is wrong.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Writing in The Conversation, the Australian National University’s Jacqui Hoepner and Will Grant also condemned The Australian’s front page story and the study it was based on, branding it:
“… an exemplary case of what we consider to be bad science and bad science reporting.”
— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
And these two have no relevant qualifications. Grant has a PhD in politics, and Hoepner is a journalist. Neither has either medical or acoustical training or experience.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And Sydney University’s professor of public health Simon Chapman was even more damning*, telling Media Watch:
Simon Chapman: “Scientifically, it’s an absolutely atrocious piece of research and is entirely unpublishable other than on the front page of The Australian.”**
— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
*Simon Chapman is not a medical practitioner. He has previously told people his PhD is in sociology. It was on the topic of “Cigarette Advertising As Myth: A Re-Evaluation Of The Relationship Of Advertising To Smoking”. He has worked closely with the wind industry, and has declined to ever directly investigate or visit adversely impacted people. He has vilified them, he has called them “wind farm wingnuts” however he did admit in the senate inquiry in 2012 that sleep deprivation could be a problem if it was occurring.
In a statement to the federal Senate on June 17, 2014, John Madigan said of Professor Chapman:
“It is fair and reasonable to encourage people to look behind the blatant campaigning done by people like Professor Chapman of the University of Sydney. Professor Chapman has been an outspoken critic of those who have dared to question the wind farm orthodoxy. But is Professor Chapman a medical doctor? Is he legally entitled to examine and treat patients? Is he qualified in acoustics or any other aspect of audiology? Is he a sleep specialist? Does he hold any qualifications in bioacoustics or physiology or neuroscience? How many wind farm victims has he interviewed directly? How many wind farm impacted homes has he visited? Professor Chapman claims to receive no payment from the wind industry. How many wind industry conferences, seminars and events has he spoken at? How many wind industry events has he attended? Writing on the Crikey website in November 2011, Professor Chapman lamented how many conferences do not pay speaker’s fees, and, when one conference organiser refused to pay his hotel bill, he withdrew. This is the same Professor Chapman who was photographed at a campaign launch in Melbourne by the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas.
As a public health academic, Professor Chapman displays a lack of compassion for people who claim to be suffering debilitating effects from pervasive wind turbine noise. Professor Chapman’s undergraduate qualifications were in sociology. His PhD looked into the relationship between cigarette smoke and advertising. I question his expertise, I question his qualifications and I question his unbridled motivation to promote and support the wind industry at the cost of people’s lives, homes and communities. I question Professor Chapman’s lack of interest in speaking with wind industry victims. Professor Chapman has a record of public denigration of victims.’’
**This is in marked contrast to Mr Cooper’s REAL peers who have entirely the opposite opinions. Properly qualified acoustics experts in Australia and the United States have called it “groundbreaking” and a “unique contribution”.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: So what exactly is wrong with the study and why should it not have been headline news? Well, first, it was not published in an academic journal* or peer reviewed by independent experts**.
■ The Australian’s response
*Oh, if something is not published in a journal it is not good science? Well what about PhD’s??? They are not published in journals? Are they not “science”?
**The Cooper report has been extensively reviewed by independent experts. The reviewers have included the top environmental acoustics researcher in the world, Dr Paul Schomer, who has written acoustics standards in the US and internationally. It also included Mr George Hessler, who has worked as a consultant acoustician for the wind industry for years in the USA. It is highly significant that a wind industry preferred acoustician is coming out and endorsing Mr Cooper’s acoustic investigation so strongly.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Second, it had a tiny sample.
■ The Australian’s response
Tiny samples are fine. Patients are a sample of one. Just one patient (or one black swan) is enough to prove a scientific point. In his peer review of the Cooper Research, Dr Paul Schomer said “One person affected is a lot more than none; the existence of just one cause-and-effect pathway is a lot more than none,” he said. “It only takes one example to prove that a broad assertion (that there are no impacts) is not true, and that is the case here.”
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Just three households and six respondents.
■ The Australian’s response
SIX BLACK SWANS. All of them experienced the symptoms when the turbines were turning …. But not when they were not exposed to operating turbines and there were no wind gusts.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry:Third … there was what scientists call selection bias, because all those people already had health problems which they blamed on Pacific Hydro’s wind farm at Victoria’s Cape Bridgewater, 1.6 kilometres or less from their homes.
■ The Australian’s response
Selection bias is irrelevant when the study design is identical to a prospective case series with a cross over component, where people are their own controls, and what varies is their exposure to operating wind turbines. The Australian received written advice from a professor of epidemiology that this is precisely the design of the acoustic survey investigation proposed by Pacific Hydro and used by Steven Cooper. This study design is also used in pharmaceutical trials, to determine safety thresholds for medications, and to help establish whether or not a direct causal relationship exists. It is therefore a perfect study design for this sort of investigation.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And fourth, all knew if the wind farm was operating because they could see the blades.
■ The Australian’s response
WRONG. They could NOT see the blades — especially when they were inside their homes, in their beds, and woken up from a sleep. That is just ridiculous. Besides the Cooper study says one resident had 100 per cent correlation with being able to tell then the turbines were operating without seeing them when he was there doing attended measurements. She could NOT SEE them — this is just FALSE reporting. Or perhaps Media Watch didn’t read the report very carefully…
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Now you can’t blame these on Steven Cooper because the parameters were set by Pacific Hydro who commissioned the research.
But scientifically, say the experts, it means the results can’t be trusted.
■ The Australian’s response
ABC experts are conflicted, Wittert and Chapman have a history of working closely with the wind industry to protect its commercial interests, either as expert witness in court cases or to push the now disproved nocebo effect as the cause for the resident’s “sensations” which in Cooper’s study correlated with specific acoustic emissions — powering up and powering down.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Indeed, in Professor Chapman’s view:
Simon Chapman: “The media should have treated this with absolute contempt.”
— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015
Paul Barry: Now there’s no doubt that some people living close to wind farms have health problems.
And they believe that the wind farms are the cause.
But as The Conversation reminded us … a recent study in the British Medical Journal found they are not alone in having these health complaints.
“… almost 90% of the general population experienced many of the common symptoms associated with wind turbine syndrome within a given week.”
— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
The BMJ article and Grant and Hoepner and Chapman and others ignore the cross over effect — when residents are exposed, they have symptoms and when they are not exposed, they do not have those symptoms and sensations. The Australian has written advice from a professor of epidemiology that the study could be classified as a small cross over trial.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Much of the debate turns on whether there’s something special about the noise from wind farms that makes them harmful to health … even if the noise is below health limits.
■ The Australian’s response
Just what do Media Watch mean by “below health limits”? The Australian has been advised that Kelley established those health limits thirty years ago in the NASA trials and Cooper’s results were almost identical. Above 50 dB at 4 Hz people who are sensitised to the sound energy experience and report unpleasant sensations.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: The study’s author Steven Cooper has long believed there is … and that it’s called infrasound.
■ The Australian’s response
Cooper is not the only one. Broner, the only acoustic expert on the NHMRC committee also believed it on the basis of empirical evidence in a paper delivered to the 2007 International Acoustics Congress in Madrid, “The missing 16 Hz, Can We Live With It?”
Abstract:
“As the need for power increases, power utilities are resorting to the use of peaking plants incorporating Open Cycle Gas Turbines. OCGT manufacturers generally supply noise data for these down to the 31.5 Hz octave band. However, most of these units also generate significant energy in the 16 Hz octave band. Both of these bands need to be considered when assessing potential noise impact on neighbouring residential communities.”
———————–
MW transcript:
Steven Cooper: “Infrasound is energy that appears in the spectrum below what the human ear can normally hear.”
— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 4th June, 2012
Paul Barry: Infrasound, says Cooper, interferes with our sleep and our brain patterns.
And he says his latest study suggests … sensations people feel near wind farms … may be caused by the infrasound the turbines produce.
But so far mainstream experts have not been convinced.
■ The Australian’s response
NO, it is the ABC’s “experts” who are not acousticians who are connected with the wind industry who are not convinced.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Cooper’s theories were dismissed by a senate inquiry into wind farm noise back in 2011.
■ The Australian’s response
Cooper didn’t give evidence in the 2011 inquiry. He gave evidence to the 2012 inquiry chaired by Senator Doug Cameron. That senate inquiry had two dissenting reports.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And dismissed again in 2013 by South Australia’s Environmental Protection Agency.
■ The Australian’s response
Cooper’s work at Cape Bridgewater has shown that the SA EPA survey was wrong — indeed chapter 9 of his report is devoted to explaining why.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And dismissed again by South Australia’s Land & Environment Court last year.
■ The Australian’s response
That court also found that a nocebo effect explained symptoms when the medical expert for the wind developer had admitted that there was no evidence of a nocebo effect in the witnesses who gave statements …. and at the time, Cooper’s research findings were only preliminary. His research and report is AFTER all of these events and is NEW knowledge, but consistent with the Kelley findings thirty years ago which the wind industry knew ALL about.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Yet The Australian and Today Tonight omitted to tell us these important facts.
They also omitted to tell us that, as Professor Chapman puts it:
Simon Chapman: “There are 24 high-quality reviews about wind farms and health, and overwhelmingly they have been found to be safe.”
— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
THIS IS NOT TRUE. Many of the reviews Chapman cites state that there is not a lot of scientific evidence. NONE of them say they are SAFE. The National Health and Medical Research Council recently reviewed 4000 pieces of literature and found only 13 were suitable for evaluation and none could be considered high quality. As a result it said the impact of wind turbines on health remained an open scientific question and that it would call for targeted, high quality research. A priority area is low frequency and infrasound.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Indeed, last week, the government’s National Health and Medical Research Council published the results of its review of seven studies of wind farms and health.
And the NHMRC came to the conclusion that:
“There is no consistent* evidence that noise from wind turbines … is associated with self-reported human health effects.”**
— National Health and Medical Research Council, Systematic review of the human health effects of wind farms, 11 February, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
*The NHMRC cannot and did not say there is NO evidence of adverse health effects, because they know that is untrue. In other words, Professor Chapman’s assertions that wind turbines are safe is not supported by the NHMRC’s statement, or by the existing scientific evidence.
“Given the poor quality of current direct evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, high quality research into possible health effects of wind farm, particularly within 1500 metres is warranted,” the NHMRC statement said.
NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “It is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.’’
“From a scientific perspective I see the question as still open,” he said.
Professor Bruce Armstrong, chair of the NHMRC’s wind farm committee said “to not investigate would be negligent from a public health point of view.” Dr Armstrong said research into low frequency and infrasound was an important priority “because it is what people who are concerned about health impacts focus on and it is not something that has been done particularly well to date.”
**Self-reported adverse health effects are accepted as evidence by doctors for the purposes of accurate diagnosis on the basis of clinical history, and are accepted in courts as evidence. They are a crucial part of assessing human response to sound frequencies, just as Mr Cooper’s report demonstrated. The next step is to include physiological testing as well as the self-reported symptoms.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: But unlike the Cooper study that news did not make The Australian’s front page.
■ The Australian’s response
But, unlike Media Watch, it was reported accurately in the paper.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And just three days after the NHMRC said there is no evidence that wind farms are harmful to health, Graham Lloyd came back to suggest there is.
■ The Australian’s response
Yes, because a peer review by one of the world’s leading acoustic experts said just that and was reported. The Cooper research was not included in the NHMRC review.
———————–
MW transcript:
Unseen, unheard wind farms a blow to health
“GROUNDBREAKING Australian research has established a “cause and effect” existed between wind farms and health impacts on some nearby residents, a peer review by one of the world’s leading acoustic experts says.”
— The Weekend Australian, 14-15 February, 2015
Paul Barry: That so-called groundbreaking research was the Cooper study … again.
The one that Professor Chapman* describes as an atrocious piece of research and other experts** assure us is bad science.
■ The Australian’s response
*Chapman, the Tobacco Advertising Propaganda Expert, sociologist, and wind industry advocate.
**No, not EXPERTS. Hand selected advocates for the wind industry carefully chosen by the ABC, for the wind industry who do not have any research qualifications or experience in directly investigating the circumstances of the sick people. ANU PhD candidate and journalist, Jacqui Hoepner, and her supervisor, Will Grant, who describes himself as “a talker, writer, thinker and reader, based primarily at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU. His talking / writing / thinking / reading has focused mostly on the intersection of science, politics and society, and how this is changing in response to new technologies.”
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: And the expert quoted in this ‘peer’ review was an American scientist who has long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories.
■ The Australian’s response
No, “the scientist” was two very eminent acousticians, one of whom has spent most of his life consulting to and for the WIND INDUSTRY (Hessler) and the other is the leading environmental acoustics researcher in the world — and DIRECTOR of ACOUSTICS Standards and chair of the American delegation to the International Standards Committee. Dr Schomer has not “long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories” — he and four other acousticians including three who work almost exclusively for the wind industry (Bruce Walker, George and David Hessler) conducted the research at the Shirley Wind Farm reported in December 2012 which measured the full spectrum of sound inside and outside homes and came to the conclusion that infrasound and low frequency noise were an issue and that they could affect the future of the wind industry.
Peer reviewers Schomer and Hessler both completely understood the value of what Cooper had done and came out strongly because it is indeed Cause and Effect. People did NOT get the symptoms when the turbines were not turning but did get symptoms when they were turning. There was an exception for one resident who is extremely sensitised AND there were wind gusts which shook the towers, induced vibrations which she could feel, even though she could not see the towers.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: But let’s go back to what Cooper himself told the ABC about how groundbreaking this research is.
Asked about whether he has found a correlation between infrasound and headaches or other sensations of which people were complaining he said:
Steven Cooper: “I don’t have enough data to say a correlation. The study is limited, it’s a pilot study and there’s a trend line that’s very clear. Correlation needs a lot more scientific rigour with a larger population to come up with the answer.”
— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015
■ The Australian’s response
Cooper was being deliberately very conservative. In a written response to The Australian, prior to the Media Watch episode Mr Cooper said “The study does show a link between the operation of the wind farm and the disturbances reported by the residents. There is a trend not a correlation (because there is not enough data and that wasn’t the brief) However, one can take the reports of the residents who form the view there is a link to their health impacts.”
Lloyd has met and interviewed residents who have explained the “disturbances” they have experienced and are in no doubt that they consider them to be health impacts, some have even been advised by their medical practitioners to leave their homes as a result. Their concerns about health impacts and understanding of what Cooper had found were expressed in a media statement of which Media Watch was or should have been fully aware.
———————–
MW transcript:
Paul Barry: Now … The Australian has sent us a long statement defending its original coverage which we’d encourage you to read on our website. But its key point is:
“… The Australian believes this is clearly an issue of significant public interest, worthy of presentation on page one and of extensive investigation and further reporting.”
— Clive Mathieson, Editor, The Australian, 8th February, 2015
Paul Barry: Well, we’d certainly agree that more work needs to be done.
But we believe The Australian needs to get its facts right, and to approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion.
■ The Australian’s response
No, the ABC needs to follow its own advice and “get its facts right, and approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion”. It Is also about time the ABC started accurately identifying conflicts of interest in its “experts” and stopped putting pre-recorded programs to air which refer to vulnerable and sick rural residents as “DICK BRAINS” — Annabel Crabb on the science show, aired by Robin Williams in January 2015. The Australian
There is something about an industry that believes it can deprive people of the use and benefit of their homes with complete impunity. The idea that wind power outfits can run their operations around the clock, depriving people of their right to sleep so as to drive them mad if they are forced (by reason of their financial situation) to remain there suffering; or to retreat and become refugees from their own homes has always struck a nerve with STT.
Call us old fashioned, but we tend to follow the old line about a man’shome being his (and, indeed, her) castle. In that respect, STT is happy to rely on the maxim carved out, nearly 400 years ago, by lawyer and politician Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), in The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:
“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man’s home is his safest refuge].”
And so it is that a few decent, fair-minded Scots politicians are looking to bring wind power outfits to book for their contumelious disregard for those very rights.
Rural action plan calls for windfarm compensation for homeowners scottishconservatives.com
John Lamont MSP
15 Feb 2015
Homeowners who think the price of their house would be hit by a nearby windfarm development should be able to claim compensation, the Scottish Conservatives have said.
The party will launch a comprehensive rural action plan on Monday at a major rural showcase in Stirling.
The strategy will cover a range of issues confronting rural Scotland, and was devised after the Scottish Government made clear its only focus was on land reform.
As part of the proposals, the Scottish Conservatives have called for a valuation system to be set up allowing people to recover the lost market value on homes affected by new windfarms.
Many communities across the country have complained that large turbines looming over their towns and villages have made the area less appealing to live, therefore reducing the price of their properties.
The party is asking the Scottish Government to look at a similar model in Denmark, where a valuation authority can decide if a person’s home has been impacted, and how much the windfarm developers should pay in compensation.
The SNP’s extreme pro-windfarm approach has sparked a rise in windfarms being built across rural Scotland, despite concerns among residents and local councils.
Scotland, despite having less than 10 per cent of the UK’s population, now hosts more than half of the UK’s windfarms.
Thousands of objections are submitted by the public every year, while local authorities receive scores of applications for developments each month.
Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said:
“When communities are saddled with a major windfarm development on their doorstep, that has a series of immediate impacts.
“Often treasured views are spoiled, the local tourism industry threatened, and the very appearance of their towns and villages altered significantly.
“All of these aspects can affect house prices, so it is essential we take steps to ensure no-one is left out-of-pocket in future as a result of a windfarm project they probably didn’t want.
“That’s why a valuation authority system, which people who think they’ve lost value on their home could appeal to, would go some way to balancing this.
“There’s currently no vehicle for doing this, and that is blatantly unfair.
“The SNP has made it perfectly clear the only rural issue it cares about is land reform.
“While that is important – and our rural action plan will include policy and recommendations on this – there are several other matters which are causing widespread concerns in communities the length and breadth of Scotland.” scottishconservatives.com
I was mildly shocked yesterday because one of my nuclear friends started “supporting” renewables.*
His intention was to “appease” renewable backers so they may eventually agree not to oppose nuclear.
Well, in my opinion that is the wrong approach. Scientists pinpoint the problems but it is us engineers that need to solve those problems.
Renewables, in general, make no sense.
Why?
Because they are intermittent, unreliable, diffuse (in other words, they require loads of material and area to produce significant amounts of power), expensive (particularly when the “system” is considered), short lived (compared to other options) and do not particularly reduce carbon emissions (again, once the system is considered).
Yes, they have and will continue to have a niche in the global energy market, but it makes no sense to subsidize them to push them above and beyond their “natural” market penetration.
Solar, for example, makes a lot of sense in off-grid remote localities but eventually inhabitants in those locations will demand “real” electricity.**
Governments are creating a monster that will damage the economy (see what has happened in Germany with the Energiewende) if they don’t curtail, and fast, all overt / covert subsidies for renewables.
Yes, if somebody wants to spend money from their own pocket in renewables, that is OK. What is not OK is for society to pay for their hobby.
Yes, yes, yes, fossil fuels also have subsidies, but when you measure them per unit of energy actually produced they are lower than the renewable ones. Sure, we have nobusiness subsidizing fossil fuels either, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Renewables, for the most part, are already mature technologies. That is one of the reasons why China is the #1 producer of solar panels and wind turbines.
As mentioned, renewables (since they capture diffuse power) require loads of “material” to produce meaningful amounts of energy. Some of the elements being consumed in the renewable trade are quite scarce and are badly needed in other sectors. Should we even be sinking them into renewables? This is a question we should definitely ask. ***
Finally, we have to understand that our financial / material resources are not infinite and thus we must use them wisely. Are we going to waste them in renewables, or invest them in better options such as nuclear, natural gas (replacing coal with it), and efficiency?
Appeasement won’t work. We have to stand firm and defend our convictions on what works better for a) reducing our carbon emissions and b) begin to gradually reduce the market share of fossil fuels in the global energy diet.
Thank you.
Feel free to add to the conversation on Twitter.
* By renewables I mean mainly solar PV and wind turbines. There is nothing wrong with supporting hydro which is, was, and will continue to be the premier renewable source.
The impact of low-frequency noise and infrasound from wind turbines on neighbours has been known by the wind industry since NASA turned a massive, multidisciplinary microscope on the problem back in the 1980s (see our posts here and here and here).
Mind you, that highly relevant research has been steadfastly ignored by Australia’s peak public health body, the NHMRC for very political reasons (see our posts here and here).
Trying to explain turbine generated infrasound (large changes in air pressure that, by definition, can’t be heard, but are sensed via the inner ear; or other parts of the nervous system) to those who have never experienced its effects is like trying to explain a migraine to someone who has never had a headache.
Top Neuro-Physiologist, Professor Alec Salt gives a pretty clear wrap-up for the uninitiated in this video:
****
****
One of the impacts is nausea (ie motion sickness), which other research has put down to infrasound too (see our post here).
When the brain receives mixed messages from its sensory receptors, including the inner ear, for example, it can trigger an ancient evolutionary response – motion sickness – but can also manifest as symptoms of ear pressure, vertigo, heart palpitations and other symptoms.
Of course, in its efforts to lie, cover up and otherwise avoid the facts, the wind industry and its pet acoustic consultants continue to maintain that “modern” wind turbines don’t produce infrasound at all; this statement appears in the South Australian EPA “Wind farms environmental noise guidelines”:
Infrasound was a characteristic of some wind turbine models that has been attributed to early designs in which turbine blades were downwind of the main tower. The effect was generated as the blades cut through the turbulence generated around the downwind side of the tower.
Modern designs generally have the blades upwind of the tower. Wind conditions around the blades and improved blade design minimise the generation of the effect. The EPA has consulted the working group and completed an extensive literature search but is not aware of infrasound being present at any modern wind farm site.
The “working group” that “helped” the EPA reach its “conclusions” on infrasound from “modern wind farms” was made up of the wind industry’s pet acoustic consultants – Marshall Day, Vipac, AECOM and Sonus – and Sonus – which used to brag on its website that it wrote the guidelines – was formed by blokes who worked for the EPA. Now how cosy is that!
Trouble is that infrasound is produced at levels which can be sensed and can be measured, but it requires the proper kit and to use it inside peoples’ homes, which the wind industry refuses to do and its guidelines deliberately avoid.
Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking study at Cape Bridgewater has removed all doubt that wind turbine generated infrasound is the agent responsible for the adverse sensations experienced by wind farm victims (including sleep deprivation) (see our post here).
Another top-notch researcher, Kevin Dooley has turned his attention to the impact of wind turbine infrasound on wind farm victims, and like Steven Cooper has actually gone inside homes with his kit to do so. Here’s a screen grab from a video produced by Kevin (see below) showing infrasound detected inside wind farm victim, Norma Schmidt’s home in Ontario:
The oscilloscope image shows how the infrasonic pressure waves from wind turbines penetrate the walls of the home, free to to their worst on people like Norma (see our post here).
Kevin goes on to give a very detailed explanation of turbine infrasound impacts in this video, including the manner in which infrasound causes nausea:
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 