Torturing Residents With Wind Turbine Noise!

December 6, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

UK Plan to Ban Noisy Wind Farms

December 6, 2014 by stopthesethings

Noisy wind farms face ban as ministers launch review into ‘annoying’sound levels
The Telegraph
Emily Godsen
30 November 2014

Exclusive: Energy department commissions review into disturbance from turbine noise in order to decide when annoyance becomes unacceptable

Noisy wind farms that disturb local communities could be banned, after ministers launched an unprecedented review into the annoyance they cause.

In the first official admission that wind turbine noise can adversely affect local residents, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has commissioned an independent investigation to assess the levels of sound wind farms produce and the extent of disturbance caused as a result.

Experts from the Institute of Acoustics will conduct the research next year, the Telegraph has learnt, and ministers across Government will then use the data to decide at which point the annoyance officially becomes “unacceptable”.

The review is likely to lead to tighter planning guidance for new wind farms and could force existing wind farm operators to restrict their turbines’ operation to stay within the limits.

It is also likely to open the door to claims for compensation by residents subjected to noise above the official nuisance threshold.

Many residents living near wind farms have complained of noise disturbance, while studies have linked wind turbine noise to poor sleep and mental health.

As well as the routine “swishing” noise of the blades spinning, turbines can sometimes produce “thumping” noises when sudden variations in the wind speed cause the blades to stall.

Current planning guidance limits the swishing noise to 43 decibels at night-time for the nearest property but does not deal with the thumping noises, which are a deeper pitch and can be heard at 40 decibels a kilometre away from the turbine.

Residents near some wind farms have likened the noise to a cement-mixer or a shoe stuck in a tumble-dryer.

A source said the new review would consider all types of turbine noise. “Everything is on the table,” they said.

Developers could be forced to use software to adjust the angle of the blades to prevent the thumping being caused at an unacceptably annoying level.

A spokesman for the DECC said: “This review should empower local people to stop disruptive wind farms and make sure local authorities have all the information they need before giving a planning application the green light.”

The review is expected to be completed by June. While the Institute of Acoustics will independently draw up the index of noise annoyance, the decision over what will be deemed an acceptable threshold will be a political decision for the next Government.

The Conservatives have already pledged an effective ban on new onshore wind farms if they win the election, by ending subsidies for those projects that do not already have planning permission. They have also pledged that all future onshore wind farm planning decisions would be determined by local authorities, instead of large projects being deemed nationally significant.

Matthew Hancock, the Conservative energy minister, said: “It’s important that we maximize the potential of domestic energy resources but we must do this in a responsible way. We cannot jeopardize our green and pleasant land.”

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary, has heavily criticized the Conservative plan to ban onshore wind, arguing it would push up consumer bills by forcing the UK to build more expensive types of renewable technologies such as offshore turbines to hit green targets.

Wind industry body Renewable UK said it had already conducted extensive research into the extent of the thumping problem – known as Other Amplitude Modulation – and had devised the ways of tackling it.

Independent research published by the lobby group late last year had helped “to pinpoint when, where and how this sound varies”, Gemma Grimes, the group’s Director of Onshore Renewables said.

“We found that this can be addressed by using computer software to adjust the way turbines operate, changing the angle of the blades to minimize the sound levels.

“We’re hoping that this will now be incorporated within the Institute of Acoustics’ existing Good Practice Guidance document,” she said.

But she said she did not believe the existing guidance on swishing noises would or should be changed. “In this [Institute of Acoustics] guidance, which they published last summer, there was no question of changing the current noise limits, which are rightly very stringent, so we wouldn’t expect any alteration in that when they update the current document,” she said.
The Telegraph

Ever noticed how it’s only the wind industry, its parasites and spin-masters that use the terms “swoosh” and “swishing” to describe the noise produced by their giant fans?

Language abuse like that goes hand-in-glove with the same kind of corporate subterfuge that has given us lines about the noise from turbines being quieter than a refrigerator 500m away and as soothing as waves lapping on a moonlit beach (see our post here).

Funny, though, that those forced to live anywhere near these things never talk about “swishing” and, instead, use a raft of terms pulled from the darker reaches of our lexicon: “roaring”; “thumping”; “grinding”; “whining” – and phrases like “a truck rumbling down the road but never arriving”; “a jet plane overhead that never lands”; and – as appears in the piece above: “a cement-mixer” or “a shoe stuck in a tumble-dryer”.

It’s like the wind industry’s spruikers have never spent a night trying desperately to sleep anywhere near their masters’ monsters. Funny about that, too.

To give them a clue – and to help you decide on whether it’s the impacted neighbours’ choice of language that better describes the racket – here’s a couple of videos of these things in action. Take a listen and see what you think:

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STT particularly loves the second video – where a wind power outfit’s lawyer is telling a planning panel that “noise isn’t going to be an issue of concern” and compares the noise that would be produced by his client’s turbines with “a quiet library” and “an average home”. Hmmm …

STT also loves the claims by wind industry spin kings, Renewable UK that – when it comes to the thumping noise complained of by neighbours – like the Bob the Builder – it can fix most everything. Which begs the question, why is the “thumping” noise a problem at all?

But the argument about “fixing” the “thumping” noise is a typical red-herring response to the real and underlying problem: the incessant (and, therefore, grindingly annoying) nature of the low-frequency noise and infrasound emitted – where the former is audible and the latter isn’t, but operates on the auditory and other sensory systems to disturb sleep; with both combining to cause long-term sleep deprivation and other adverse health effects, as crack Professor Alec Salt explains in simple terms in this video – and as covered in our post here.

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Windweasels Will Resort to Bribery, When All Else Fails….

December 5, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

UK Wind Industry Turns to Bribery as it Fails to “Win Brit’s Hearts & Minds”

December 5, 2014 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

Ministers accused of trying to ‘buy off’ local discontent on wind farms
Western Morning News
Phil Goodwin
12 October 2014

Landscape campaigners have described the latest Government moves tohelp communities obtain financial benefits from wind farms as a guide to bribery.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has set out new standards for wind energy schemes to work with local communities.

The guidance, written by the industry body Regen South West, focuses on how communities can best obtain and use cash funds of up to £5,000 per megawatt (MW).

Opponents of turbines say windfalls under the new rules – worth £1.1 million over the life cycle of a large project up for decision in Cornwall later this month – are simply designed to “buy off” local discontent.

Campaign group Cornwall Protect said the only way the Government can achieve its renewable energy targets is to “extend the gravy train beyond developers and landowners to communities”.

Spokesman Danny Mageean said there was a danger that so-called community leaders may be keen to win “brownie points” even if they live “at the other end of the village”.

“I live five hundred metres from a 77-metre turbine so I know the problems, and I don’t think giving our parish council a few thousand would compensate for the devaluing of our property and the noise,” he added.

Ministers unveiled a raft of measures last year in response to growing anger in the rural Conservative heartlands at turbines and solar farms.

The new guidance was billed as giving more protection to the landscape and a stronger voice to locals who opposed unpopular renewable energy schemes.

In addition, the recommended community benefit package in England was increased fivefold from £1,000 per MW of installed capacity to £5,000 per MW.

DECC has published the guidance on how wind schemes should work with communities, calling for partnerships between the two.

It gives examples of different ways in which funds and other investments by developers have been used by local groups, from the provision of care services to mountain bike trails.

The guidance is expected to be followed shortly be a community “right to invest” in new renewable energy projects that will also apply to solar schemes.

Jodie Giles, communities project manager at Regen South West, authors of the document, said “We are delighted that more communities are getting involved with sustainable energy, and in particular onshore wind projects – one of the most efficient and cost effective renewables technologies available.”

Examples of how benefits have been used will soon be recorded on DECC’s new community benefits register for England.

This month, a decision will be made on plans for one of the biggest wind farms in the region – 11 turbines producing 25MW at Week St Mary in Cornwall.

Developers Good Energy are proposing a fund of £2,000 per MW, totalling more than £44,000 a year for the life of the project, available to people living within three miles of the plant.

A local electricity tariff scheme is also proposed, offering discount for locals living within the three-mile radius who sign up to receive electricity from the scheme.

The firm is also exploring the possibility of the community owning one of the turbines.

Bob Barfoot, a member of the CPRE in Devon and a planning expert who has helped prepare a report from the group Communities Against Rural Exploitation (CARE) for the planning meeting on October 23, said community benefits cannot be taken into account by councillors.

He says this point has been made by a number of planning inspectors in recent appeals, including a decision this June to uphold the refusal of a 77-metre turbine at Ladock.

In dismissing the appeal, planning inspector Paul Jackson said plans to generate about a third of the parish’s annual electricity demand were “a laudable aim”

“However, as planning permission for the scheme was refused on landscape and visual amenity grounds, which remain the main concerns, it is unclear how the intended community benefits could make it acceptable,” he added.

Environment campaigner Jeremy Varcoe, of North Cornwall, said it was wrong to lavish cash on the girl guides rather than affected locals.

“What’s so unfair is the money goes to people not affected – rather than those whose lives are blighted by the turbines – it is little more than a bribe to the local parish or town council,” he added.

“It is a dishonest device to buy off the increasing resentment among people who are against these developments. Strictly speaking community benefits are not a material planning consideration but there is no doubt that the promise of large amounts of money has affected the decision of committees and council case officers.”
Western Morning News

As community and political opposition to the great wind power fraud rolls and builds across the world, the charge that opponents are red-necked climate change deniers, infected with a dose of Not In My Backyard syndrome, starts to ring hollow.

Sprinkling a little cash – like confetti at a wedding – isn’t going to overcome the fact that anyone with an interest in the roll-out of giant fans – which obviously includes those in impacted and threatened communities – is alive to the scale and scope of the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time (see our post here).

The level of anger is palpable and has already erupted with community defenders toppling MET masts in Scotland (see our post here); and sabotaging turbines and construction equipment in Ontario (see our post here).

True it is that everyone has a “price”. But not everyone is ready to sell their souls.

Aussies Determined to Expose the Great Wind Power Fraud! Go Senator Leyonhjelm!

December 4, 2014December 4, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Alan Jones interviews David Leyonhjelm on the Senate’s Inquiry Into the Great Wind Power Fraud & Cross-Bench LRET Plan

December 4, 2014 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

The wind industry in Australia is in full-scale panic because the Senate’s cross-benchers (who hold the balance of power in the Upper House) have won Coalition support for their Inquiry into the great wind power fraud: which will turn a (long-overdue) blowtorch on the biggest rort in Australian history (see our post here).

Adding to the wind industry’s mounting woes is the fact that the cross-benchers have also put together a plan that will put the wind industry out of its misery, by elevating the place of “old” hydro power and small-scale solar – especially “stand alone solar” in remote locations – under the Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET): both “old” hydro and small-scale solar are perversely excluded from the LRET (the plan is available here).

The vast bulk of hydro capacity was built pre-1998 and is, therefore, ineligible to participate – a matter that has Tasmanian Senator, Jacqui Lambie seeing red (see our posts here and here). For a run down on the Inquiry and the cross-benchers’ plan see our post here.

STT hears that the cross-bench plan is with Tony Abbott’s office and has already won the PM’s tick of approval.

The Inquiry and the plan has been pushed along by cross-bench Senator, David Leyonhelm, who appears in this recent interview with Alan Jones on 2GB.

Alan has a little radio show that more than just a few Australians tune into each morning. Syndicated through over 77 Stations and with close to 2 million listeners Countrywide – AJ as he’s known – is one of those people that leads the political charge on many issues that really affect ordinary Australians and which the rest of the press ignore.

Alan Jones AO: A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Dr Jay Tibbetts – you might recall is an American. A medicical adviser to the Brown County Health Department in Wisconsin. He attacked the Australian Medical Association, who quite disgracefully, but not surprisingly given that the leadership of that mob now is hopelessly of the left. And the AMA virtually arguing that there was no problem with these sub-audibleinfra-sound emitted by wind turbines. And Doctor Tibbetts cited endless international evidence in relation to the health risks posed by the low-frequency noise that wind turbines generate.

Well that interview lead to an email that I received this week from eastern Europe. Amazingly they had heard my interview, on the Internet with Doctor Tibbetts in relation to what I call the lunacy of wind farms and the sleep deprivation that they cause and my email correspondent said “I just wanted to tell you how much we appreciated your excellent interview and your courage to do it. I know how risky this is. My emailer said he posted the interview on his website and it went ballistic. And I’m told, he says it’s spreading from Austria to Germany, and Finland and Ireland and Poland and many other countries. My emailer said ‘I can guarantee you that all people in Europe, especially in Germany were like crazy and spread your interview like crazy when they got it on my Facebook page.

Well people are waking up to the lies and deceit peddled by governments and renewable energy companies all over the world. There is a report this week by AGL energy of all outfits who found that non-solar households are paying hidden subsidies and more than $200 million a year, here in Australia to households who have solar roofing panels. Now we know that this wind power-solar power are driving up the cost of what you pay for electricity and what business pays. And the AGL Chief economist Paul Simshauser, said the problem of wealth transfers to renewable energy sources was increasing. In other words to prop up renewable energy, you the taxpayer have money taken out of your pocket and that, in billions of dollars, goes to renewable energy companies. Most of them foreign companies.

Now people increasingly can’t hack this. We’re told 650 electricity customers are complaining to their retailer every day about electricity prices. The Australian Energy Regulator’s annual report found disconnections have surged and more than 237,000 New South Wales households, one in seven customers, has complained to their provider about pricing in the financial year ended 30 June this year.

Now we are spending billions of dollars on wind energy. It accounts for less than 2% of power generation in China, 3% in America. And this whole renewable energy thing is completely out of control. Wind power costs up to $214 per megawatt hour, coal $78 to $91. If the renewable energy mob want a set of rules that would be simple – then go ahead with your wind farm but don’t ask for taxpayers’ money. How can wind turbine companies buy off a farmer for $10,000 a turbine and then that same company be subsidised by the taxpayers? Who are you.

I have spoken to so many people, but one of them is Andrew Gardiner in Napthine’s electorate. He’s running for election this Saturday, the Premier of Victoria. Next to 140 turbines, 150 metres high, 56m blades – the biggest monsters in the southern hemisphere, some are 90 m from his property. Eight of them, 1.7 km from his home. And he’s been bullied and intimidated by AGL. I repeat – coal-fired power $78-91 a megawatt hour wind power, up to $214 per megawatt hour and solar power, over $400 a megawatt hour.

And here you’ve got this Gullen Range wind farm near Goulburn, which breaks nearly every rule that governed its application to operate. But don’t worry, it’s foreign owned. Would you believe Canberra, were meant to be spending 17,000 million dollars (17 billion), erecting between 7000 and 10,000 of these wind turbines. Yet Germany are pushing ahead with new coal-fired electricity plants because political and public concern there is increasing over the cost of energy. China is building a new coal fired power station every 10 days every year. And remember when I spoke to Angus Taylor, the new member for Hume, turbines in his electorate enjoys subsidies to $500,000,000 to a $billion a year.

Well David Leyonhjelm is a New South Wales Senator, representing the Liberal Democrats and along with Senators Madigan, Day, Xenophon and Back, David Leyonhjelm succeeded in establishing, has succeeded in establishing – and this will put a few noses out of joint – a Senate inquiry into wind turbines. This will blow the whole show open. It was a narrow vote. Because you see people like Mcfarlane, the Energy Minister, they’re in bed with wind companies. 33 to 32. The inquiry will be known as The Select Committee on Wind Turbines. It will investigate regulatory governance, or lack of it, over wind turbines, their economic impact, which can only be negative. It will examine on household power prices of wind power, we know that. The implementation of planning processes which as you can see with Gullen Range, are ignored. The integrity of national wind farm guidelines – they have none. The impact of wind turbines on firefighting – that’s another story altogether – and crop management. And the committee will have the power to send for and examine people and documents. And it will report its proceedings from time to time and make interim recommendations and it will report by June 24 next year. This is a very pioneering and important initiative and not before time.

Senator David Leyonhjelm is on the line. Senator, good morning.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Good morning Alan.

Alan Jones AO: Just before we go down to the guts of this, I note the notice paper and it tells us that the inquiry will look into ‘the role and capacity of the National Health & Medical Research Council in providing guidance to state and territory authorities’ and ‘the effect that wind towers have on fauna and aerial operations around wind turbines’. I couldn’t find any where in the terms of reference of the inquiry an investigation into the health impact of these wind turbines. Is that on your agenda?

Senator David Leyonhjelm: It’s on our agenda and there is another item there that says ‘Any related matter’. So it certainly we’ll be taking that into account. The only thing is we – the emphasis of this inquiry is towards the other matters, more than health, because there have been two inquiries into health already. The problem with it is they’ve been ignored pretty much.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: We didn’t think – we will be going over that ground, we will be looking at that again – but there are a lot of additional complaints about wind farms. They are, I don’t know where they all are, all but certainly some of them are extremely noxious neighbours. And we are receiving just so many complaints about them.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely, I am to. I have a file that I couldn’t jump over here too. Incidentally, as you would be aware there is an election here on Saturday, this opposition leader, fellow, Andrews, the Labor leader, is promising to reduce the mandatory buffer zone between properties and wind farms if he wins the election. I mean it is currently 2 km the exclusion zone, which is not enough, he’s promised to reduce it to 1 km.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: It’s amazing. And, you know that reflects the way we did this committee. We knew that there’s significant support for wind farms on both sides of the house. And what we did was a little bit sneaky to be quite frank. We’ve called it a ‘select committee’, so it’s not a reference to an existing standing committee, which are dominated by Labor and the government, so this is basically a cross-bench inquiry. There are seven official members of the committee, plus we can co-opt more, other participating members. It’s only two from the government one from Labor, one from the Greens, and three from the cross-bench. And plus, we can bring in other participating cross-bench members if if we wish to.

Alan Jones AO: But see you’re raising a very valid point here because the public feel that they’ve got nowhere to turn because both Labor and the Coalition are in bed with this mob.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Yes, well that’s the point. That’s why we said this that it’s not going to be appropriate for it to go to an existing committee, because the cross-bench doesn’t have much say on those.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely. You see I have said many times – I am talking to Senator David Leyonhjelm from New South Wales – I’ve said many times David, that you can’t release a drug onto the market unless all the likely consequences from the drug are subjected to rigourous scrutiny. So how could you build wind farmers, or approve coal seam gas extraction, without providing the answers to the very legitimate questions about health and the impact on individuals that these things have.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Yes. You can never answer every single question and science is an endless pursuit, but there are some just glaring questions why, for example, does the Gullen Range wind farm, where they have put these things almost 200m away from where they’re supposed to be, and then said ‘well, we’re a renewable energy company we can do whatever we like’. And then the Clean Energy Regulator hands over money to them with no accounting.

Alan Jones AO: Thank God for you. Thank God for you. They should be stopped in their tracks now. They are in breach of the consent application, they should be stopped, shouldn’t they?

Senator David Leyonhjelm: We hear lots of stories, where because they are renewable energy, they think they’re above the law. They don’t think they have to comply with planning guidelines and directions and so forth.

Alan Jones AO: This bloke’s a breath of fresh air.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: We are not even satisfied those guidelines are particularly comprehensive and thorough anyway.

Alan Jones AO: Or stringent, no. You have said, just for the benefit of my listeners, and I’ll just get you to comment on some of the quotes that you’re on the record as having uttered. “The dramatic surge in power bills has been major factor in the decline of our manufacturing sector and the loss of thousands of jobs. In little more than 10 years, the Renewable Energy Target has rocketed Australia from almost the cheapest to the most expensive electricity in the world”. They are your words.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Yes. Well in fact that brings me to another subject where also the cross-bench is also are trying to do something constructive with the government on this Renewable Energy Target. As you probably know, Labor and the government stopped negotiating a week or so back and now, it’s in our court. We are working on a plan – there’s been some media reports on it in the last couple of days. We are working on a plan in whcih we will address this issue of high prices of electricity, unachievable energy target, the penalty rates kicking in, all that sort of nonsense.

Alan Jones AO: Well you said in August, ‘The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show in the five years to June 2012, Australian retail electricity prices rose by 72%, with even higher increases in Melbourne and Sydney’. You said, ‘Senators and MPs, however, don’t need to worry about whether staying warm in chilly Canberra may send them broke. Perhaps if they had to pay for their own heating and air-conditioning in Parliament House it would concentrate their minds on the important discussion we need to have about the future of the Renewable Energy Target’. Good on you.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Well, it’s tragic. You know there are people who are suffering, genuinely suffering from energy poverty. They cannot turn on their heaters during the winter. They suffer in the cold just because they cannot afford their electricity bills. So they’re frightened of receiving a bill that they can’t afford to pay.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely. You … yes it is tragic. You quote a report from the accounting firm Deloittes, showing the Renewable Energy Target will “stifle the economy, cost jobs, and drive up prices and is a very inefficient means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions”. Now Terry McCrann years ago told me David, on this program, if you want to decarbonise the Australian economy, you’re writing a national suicide note. And I mean that you’re the only people focusing on this issue.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Yes, well somebody has to. I’m really encouraged, that the government acknowledges the problem, I just don’t like the solution, or the politics of the solution. The renewable energy industry has an awful lot of supporters. And it’s a nice warm thing motherhood type stuff to support renewable energy.

Alan Jones AO: And have you ever noticed, when any of the MPs retires from Parliament they go and get jobs with them. Hey hey? Oh, Mr Mcfarlane will be lining one up right now. He won’t be standing at the next election don’t worry. I mean you said, and this is true, ‘the net effect of this subsidy, renewable energy subsidies, is to hand an additional 17 billion dollars of our money to these companies over 15 years for no measurable environmental benefit.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Yes that’s right. And it’s worse than that, I mean it’s having negative effects. In fact one of the aspects of the inquiry is to actually determine what is the energy and emission output – input and output from a whole of life. So, from the point when these turbines are made and they run, through to the other end when they are dismantled and thrown on the scrap heap – what’s the net energy and emission output.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely

Senator David Leyonhjelm: I have a sneaky suspicion that a bit like the Prius car it’s not the right direction.

Alan Jones AO: Absolutely. Finally – and we could go on forever on the things that you’ve said. And it’s very encouraging that someone at least is taking this cause up. But you’ve said, “It is undisputed that the wind generation industry is not viable anywhere in the world without government or customer subsidies”, you said “It’s just government-mandated corporate welfare”.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: That’s exactly right – they’re just not viable without subsidies.

Alan Jones AO: Keep at it – keep at it my friend. Keep at it. You’re the hope of the side.

Senator David Leyonhjelm: Alright – thanks Alan.

Alan Jones AO: Well done, there he is. Senator David Leyonhjelm. A major senate inquiry into this whole rubbish of renewable energy and wind power.
2GB

There is No Reason for Them To Lie! Google Engineers Expose the Renewables Scam!

December 1, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Google’s Top Engineers say: “Renewable Energy Simply Won’t Work”

December 1, 2014 by stopthesethings

Renewable energy ‘simply WON’T WORK’: Top Google engineers
The Register
Lewis Page
21 November 2014

Windmills, solar, tidal – all a ‘false hope’, say Stanford PhDs

Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that renewables will never permit the human race to cut CO₂emissions to the levels demanded by climate activists. Whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.

Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company. The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.

RE<C was a failure, and Google closed it down after four years. Now, Koningstein and Fork have explained the conclusions they came to after a lengthy period of applying their considerable technological expertise to renewables, in an article posted at IEEE Spectrum.

The two men write:

At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope …

Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

One should note that RE<C didn’t restrict itself to conventional renewable ideas like solar PV, windfarms, tidal, hydro etc. It also looked extensively into more radical notions such as solar-thermal, geothermal, “self-assembling” wind towers and so on and so forth. There’s no get-out clause for renewables believers here.

Koningstein and Fork aren’t alone. Whenever somebody with a decent grasp of maths and physics looks into the idea of a fully renewables-powered civilised future for the human race with a reasonably open mind, they normally come to the conclusion that it simply isn’t feasible. Merely generating the relatively small proportion of our energy that we consume today in the form of electricity is already an insuperably difficult task for renewables: generating huge amounts more on top to carry out the tasks we do today using fossil-fuelled heat isn’t even vaguely plausible.

Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.

In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably). This in turn means that everyone would become miserably poor and economic growth would cease (the more honest hardline greens admit this openly). That, however, means that such expensive luxuries as welfare states and pensioners, proper healthcare (watch out for that pandemic), reasonable public services, affordable manufactured goods and transport, decent personal hygiene, space programmes (watch out for the meteor!) etc etc would all have to go – none of those things are sustainable without economic growth.

So nobody’s up for that. And yet, stalwart environmentalists like Koningstein and Fork – and many others – remain convinced that the dangers of carbon-driven warming are real and massive. Indeed the pair reference the famous NASA boffin Dr James Hansen, who is more or less the daddy of modern global warming fears, and say like him that we must move rapidly not just to lessened but to zero carbon emissions (and on top of that, suck a whole lot of CO₂ out of the air by such means as planting forests).

So, how is this to be done?

Koningstein and Fork say that humanity’s only hope is a new method of energy generation which can provide power – ideally “dispatchable” (can be turned on and off) and/or “distributed” (produced near where it’s wanted) – at costs well below those of coal or gas. They write:

What’s needed are zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over within the next 40 years …

Incremental improvements to existing technologies aren’t enough; we need something truly disruptive.

Unfortunately the two men don’t know what that is, or if they do they aren’t saying. James Hansen does, though: it’s nuclear power.

As applied at the moment, of course, nuclear power isn’t cheap enough to provide a strong economic rationale. That’s because its costs have been forced enormously higher than they would otherwise be by the imposition of cripplingly high health and safety standards (in its three “disasters” so far – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima – the scientifically verified death tolls from all causes have been and will be zero, 56 and zero: a record which other power industries including renewables can only envy*).

Nuclear costs have also been artificially driven up by the non-issue of “waste”. In the UK for instance, all “higher activity nuclear waste” must be kept expensively stored in a secure specialist facility and can only ever – perhaps – be finally disposed of in a wildly expensive geological vault. No less than 99.7 per cent of this “waste” is actually intermediate-level, meaning that it basically isn’t radioactive at all: you could theoretically make half a tonne of ordinary dirt into such “intermediate level nuclear waste” by burying a completely legal luminous wristwatch in it. (If you did that inside the boundaries of a licensed nuclear facility, the dirt really would then become ridiculously costly “waste”.)

The remaining 0.003 of “nuclear waste” actually is dangerous, but it can almost all be reprocessed into fuel and used again. So waste really doesn’t need to be an issue at all.

There can’t be any doubt that if nuclear power had been allowed to be as dangerous per unit of energy generated as, say, the gas industry* – let alone the terribly dangerous coal business – it truly would be too cheap to meter and Messrs Koningstein and Fork’s problem would have been solved for them decades ago: by now, nobody with access to uranium would be bothering with fossil fuels except for specialist purposes – and there’s no reason why nations “of concern” couldn’t be kept safely supplied. Would we run out of uranium? Not until the year 5000AD.

Cheap power solves a lot more problems than just carbon emissions, too. If power is cheap, so is fresh water (the fact is we’re really at that point already, though a lot of people refuse to admit it and prefer to treat fresh water as some sort of scarce and finite resource). If fresh water is cheap, an awful lot more of the planet is habitable and/or arable than is the case if it’s expensive: and that is truly game-changing stuff for the human race.

And as a side benefit we’d by now have actual useful spacecraft which could actually go to places in reasonable amounts of time carrying reasonable amounts of stuff at reasonable costs. We’d be able to establish viable bases on other planets – for instance to mine uranium there, should we ever find ourselves running low.

Even if you aren’t terribly convinced about the looming menace of carbon-driven warming, the fact that we have decided of our own free will not to have cheap, abundant energy and all the miracles it would bring with it … that’s a terrible human tragedy. Nobody knows how much misery might result from climate change in the future, but one can say with certainty that a lot of misery has been caused by the absence of cheap energy, water, food and decent places to live over the last sixty-plus years.

Anyway the truth is that the disruptive new technology which Koningstein and Fork are dreaming of already exists: but it’s been stolen from us by our foolish fears, inflated in many cases by dishonest activists. Even if someone could come up with some other way of making terrifically cheap energy, there’s no guarantee that the ignorant fearmongers of the world wouldn’t manage to suppress that too. There would almost certainly be a powerful application in weapons, just as there is in nuclear; this is, after all, energy we’re talking about.

Koningstein and Fork believe that the answer to the carbon menace is a reallocation of R&D spending, to seek out high-risk disruptive technologies. But the fact is it would probably make more sense to spend money on making sure that people don’t reach voting age without understanding basic mathematics and facts about risk and energy.

You wouldn’t need to take that money from R&D. You could instead repurpose some of the huge and growing amounts of money that are currently being diverted into the purchase of tiny amounts of ridiculously expensive renewable energy.

After all, no matter the wider issues, we now have it on the best and unimpeachably environmentalist of authorities that renewable energy can’t achieve its stated purpose. So – no matter what – there can’t be any point in continuing with it.

None of this is new, of course. These realities have been wilfully ignored by the British governing class and others for many years. But the British/American governing classes, so fatally committed to renewables, often seem willing to listen to Google even if they won’t listen to anyone else.

So, just maybe, this time the message will have some impact.

Bootnote

*The Piper Alpha gas rig explosion of 1988 on its own caused three times as many deaths as the nuclear power industry has in its entire history. Bizarrely though, no nations ceased using gas.
The Register

James Delingpole followed up on The Register’s brilliant piece of analysis with his usual dash and flair.

Renewable Energy: So Useless That Even Greenie Google Gave up on it
Breitbart.com
James Delingpole
22 November 2014

Some people call it “renewable energy” but I prefer to call it “alternative energy” because that’s what it really is: an alternative to energy that actually works (eg nuclear and anything made from wonderful, energy-rich fossil fuel.)

Now a pair of top boffins from uber-green Google’s research department have reached the same conclusion.

Ross Konigstein and David Fork, both Stanford PhDs (aerospace engineering; applied physics) were employed on a Google research project which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal. But after four years, the project was closed down. In this post at IEEE Spectrum they tell us why.

We came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

Why is renewable energy such a total fail? Because, as Lewis Page explains here, it’s so ludicrously inefficient and impossibly expensive that if ever we were so foolish as to try rolling it out on a scale beyond its current boutique levels, it would necessitate bankrupting the global economy.

In a nutshell, renewable energy is rubbish because so much equipment is needed to make it work – steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage – that it very likely uses up more energy than it actually produces.

Yet our political class remains committed to the fantasy that the emperor’s green clothes are perfectly magnificent. Earlier this week, for example, the British government chucked £720 million of taxpayers’ money into a cesspit labelled the Green Climate Fund.

In theory this UN-driven initiative is supposed to help Third World countries cope with the effects of climate change. In reality, all it will do is force on their struggling economies more of the costly, intermittent renewable technologies (wind turbines; solar; etc) which have proved such a disaster for the advanced Western economies.

If we really want to throw money at the developing world so it can combat climate change, then what we should really be doing is insist that it is spent on adaptation projects – not, heaven forfend, ones to do with “decarbonisation.”

As Benny Peiser and Daniel Mahoney write here, adaptation projects make a real difference and save lives.

Bangladesh’s investment in cyclone shelters, better weather forecasts, and smarter construction practices is a prime example of how effective adaptation can be. The country has learnt how to prepare for the threat of cyclones, succeeding in significantly reducing related deaths. The two deadliest cyclones in Bangladesh’s history occurred in 1970 and 1991, killing up to 500,000 and almost 140,000 respectively. Through adaptation investment, in the last two decades the country has been able to reduce deaths and injuries from such disasters 100-fold.

Instead, though, our leaders are still ideologically committed to wasting much of our foreign aid on renewables.

Take the UK’s recent contributions. Just over a quarter of UK climate aid from 2011 to the beginning of 2014 went to adaptation measures, whereas well over 50 per cent was allocated to renewables, according to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. The World Resources Institute estimates that, between 2010 and 2012, of a total of $35bn in global climate aid, a mere $5bn was allocated to adaptation.

You know that scene right at the end of Spartacus? Well I think I’d like to recreate it, using wind turbines instead of crucifixes, and, instead of rebellious gladiators, all those lovely people – green activists, wind and solar industry parasites, idiot politicians – who’ve been telling us that renewable energy is the way forward.
Breitbart.com

GE Scientists, and Mic, Have Been Studying the Effects of Sleep Deprivation!

December 1, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

What Sleep Deprivation Does to Your Brain, in One Stunning Infographic

By Theresa Fisher November 18, 2014

This partner story is part of BrainMic, a collaboration with GE to share the latest advances in brain research and technology.

If you yawn during the day, conk out as soon as your head hits the pillow or re-read this sentence a few times to absorb its meaning, here’s some bad news: You need more sleep.

Scientists still don’t know exactly why we sleep, but according to a near-constant stream of research, most of us need between six and eight hours of shut-eye each night. Unfortunately, only about 30% of us are getting it. That means 70 million Americans suffer from sleep deprivation, a certified public health epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sleep deprivation takes an enormous toll on our bodies, including bloodshot eyes, increased blood pressure and a fuller waistline. But what’s equally alarming is the negative impact of sleep deprivation on the brain.

This infographic explains what happens to your brain, and what it means for you, when you don’t get enough sleep:

Links to infographic resources: The Journal of Neuroscience, International Scholarly Research Notes,Experimental Brain Research, Psychological Bulletin, UC Berkeley Walker Sleep Lab, PNAS, International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, CDC, The Journal of Neuroscience, SLEEP,PLOS one, Psychological Science, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Daytime Sleepiness Affects Prefrontal Regulation of Food Intake

All images by: Liran Okanon and Tri Vo

GE Scientists and Mic are partnering to share the latest advances in brain research and technology through BrainMic, a Spotlight Series that explores the universe in our heads, now through December 2014. Click here to read more from this series on BrainMic >>

Ontario’s Liberal Government Ignores, and Denies, Health Effects of Wind Turbines…

November 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Ontario’s Wind Powered Health Calamity

November 30, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ontario is the scene of a perfectly avoidable and entirely unnecessarypublic health disaster.

The rights of people to live peaceful, healthy lives in rural Ontario have been trampled under the jackboots of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals – a solid team of hard-‘green’-left eco-fascist nutjobs, responsible for the most bizarre, pointless and costly energy policy on Earth (see our posts hereand here and here)

The scale and scope of the disaster was laid bare in the brilliant documentary, Down Wind (see our post here) and has been pursued with proper journalistic zeal by Sun News’ investigative reporter, Rebecca Thompson (see our posts here and here).

A couple of weeks back, Wynne’s puppets at her Health Department (laughably called “Health Canada”) threw together yet another half-baked, wind industry approved pile of tosh parading as “research” on the known and obvious impacts of turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

Ever since, properly qualified people have been slamming it for the sloppiness of the work and the wild assumptions upon which its undercooked “conclusions” rest.

Two of them – Carmen Krogh and Bob McMurtry penned the piece below.

Carmen Krogh, BScPharm (retired), is a peer reviewed IWT health researcher and former Director of Publications and Editor-in-Chief of the CPS.

RY “Bob” McMurtry is Professor Emeritus (Surgery) of Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario). Dr. McMurtry was also an ADM at Health Canada 2000-02.

Health Canada and Wind Turbines: Too little too late?
CMAJ
28 November 2014

Industrial wind turbines (IWTs) are being erected at rapid pace around the world. Coinciding with the introduction of IWTs, some individuals living in proximity to IWTs report adverse health effects including annoyance, sleep disturbance, stress-related health impacts and reduced quality of life. [i],[ii],[iii],[iv],[v],[vi],[vii],[viii],[ix],[x],[xi],[xii] In some cases Canadian families reporting adverse health effects have abandoned their homes, been billeted away from their homes or hired legal counsel to successfully reach a financial agreement with the wind energy developer.[xiii]

To help address public concern over these health effects Health Canada (HC) announced the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study(HC Study) 2 years ago and brought forth preliminary results November 6, 2014.

Here we briefly comment on the HC Study results and provide some historical context.

Acknowledgement of IWT adverse health effects is not new. The term “annoyance” frequently appears when discussing IWT health effects.

In a 2009 letter the Honourable Rona Ambrose, disclosed:

“Health Canada provides advice on the health effect of noise and low-frequency electric and magnetic fields from proposed wind turbine projects…To date, their examination of the scientific literature on wind turbine noise is that the only health effect conclusively demonstrated from exposure to wind turbine noise is an increase of self-reported general annoyance and complaints (i.e., headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo).” [xiv]

In 2009, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) sponsored a literature review which acknowledges the reported symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo and state they “… are not new and have been published previously in the context of “annoyance”…” and are the “… well-known stress effects of exposure to noise …”[xv]

In 2011, a health survey of people exposed to IWTs in Ontario reported altered quality of life, sleep disturbance, excessive tiredness, headaches, stress and distress. [xvi]

In the same year, CanWEA posted a media release which advised those impacted by wind turbine annoyance stating “The association has always acknowledged that a small percentage of people can be annoyed by wind turbines in their vicinity. … When annoyance has a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life, it is important that they consult their doctor.”[xvii]

It turns out it’s not a small percentage of people annoyed by wind turbines. An Ontario Government report concluded a non-trivial percentage of persons are expected to be highly annoyed.

The December 2011 report prepared by a member of CanWEA for the Ontario Ministry of Environment states in the conclusions:

“The audible sound from wind turbines, at the levels experienced at typical receptor distances in Ontario, is nonetheless expected to result in a non-trivial percentage of persons being highly annoyed. As with sounds from many sources, research has shown that annoyance associated with sound from wind turbines can be expected to contribute to stress related health impacts in some persons.”[xviii]

The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be a health effect [xix] and the results of WHO research “…confirmed, on an epidemiological level, an increased health risk from chronic noise annoyance…”[xx]

HC also acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be an adverse health effect. [xxi],[xxii] The Principal Investigator of the recent HC Study also states “noise-induced annoyance is an adverse health effect”. [xxiii]

Canadian Government sponsored research has found statistically significant relationships from IWT noise exposure.

A 2014 review article in the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine reports:

“In 2013, research funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment indicated a statistically significant relation between residents’ distance from the turbine and the symptoms of disturbed sleep, vertigo and tinnitus, and recommended that future research focus on the effects of wind turbine noise on sleep disturbance and symptoms of inner ear problems.” [xxiv]

Recently on November 6, 2014, HC posted on its website preliminary results of its HC Study[xxv]. Wind turbine noise “…. annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reporting health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, scores on the PSQI, and perceived stress” as well as related to “measured hair cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.”

These troubling results come as no surprise. Since at least 2007 HC employees including the Principal Investigator of the HC Study recommended wind turbine noise criteria which they predict will result in adverse health effects. (i.e. result in an increase percentage highly annoyed).[xxvi],[xxvii],[xxviii]

Then turbines were built and HC spent 2.1 million dollars to find out it appears to have under predicted the impact of IWT noise. HC’s IWT noise criteria does not use a dose response based on IWT noise but rather road noise. But of course IWTs are not cars and peer-reviewed studies consistently document that IWTs produce sound that is perceived to be more annoying than transportation or industrial noise at comparable sound pressure levels. [xxix],[xxx]

IWT noise annoyance starts at dBA sound pressure levels in the low 30s and rises sharply at 35 dBA as compared to road noise which starts at 55 dBA. These findings are further supported by the HC Study’s preliminary results. [xxxi]

IWT noise characteristics that are identified as plausible causes for reported health effects include amplitude modulation, audible low- frequency noise (LFN), infrasound, tonal noise, impulse noise and night-time noise. [xxxii]

The logical solution would be to develop IWT noise criteria which will protect human health but that would present a barrier to wind energy development. Noise limits impacts IWT siting, cost of energy produced[xxxiii] and by extension corporate profits. The wind energy industry has actively lobbied governments to be granted IWT noise exposure limits which benefit their industry.

Canadians trying to understand this should be mindful the Government of Canada has invested and distributed significant amounts of public money to attract and support the wind energy industry. [xxxiv],[xxxv],[xxxvi],[xxxvii],[xxxviii],[xxxix],[xl],[xli] In addition to providing funding, the Government of Canada in collaboration with wind industry stakeholders has developed the Wind Technology Road Map (Wind TRM) [xlii] which Natural Resources Canada defined to be an “…industry-led, government supported initiative that has developed a long-term vision for the Canadian wind energy industry …”.[xliii]

Canada’s Wind TRM states “Members of the Steering Committee, government and our industry will be using this roadmap to direct the actions that are necessary for Canada to develop its vast wind resources.”[xliv] HC is a member of the Interdepartmental Wind Technology Road Map Committee [xlv] which was created to assist in the implementation of Canada’s Wind TRM. [xlvi] One of the “key action items” detailed in the Wind TRM calls for Government and Industry collaboration to develop and maintain government documents that address concerns raised about wind energy projects including that of noise, infrasound and other. [xlvii]

Some jurisdictions are trying to take action to protect their residents. For example, several municipalities in Ontario are trying to establish bylaws that protect from IWT noise. In Wisconsin, on October 14, 2014 the Brown County Board of Health unanimously approved a motion to declare the IWTs at a local project a Human Health Hazard. [xlviii]

It would appear HC’s research effort is too little too late. A non-trivial percentage of Canadians continue to experience adverse health effects. HC now has additional scientific evidence of the “conclusively demonstrated” effects from exposure to IWT noise. It is time for HC to take action to help Canadians maintain and improve their health. (for the references, see below)
CMAJ

Bob and Carmen aren’t the only qualified experts dumping on the woeful “methods” and flawed assumptions of the Health Canada “research”.

John Harrison, a Queen’s University professor emeritus in physics, slammed the “research”, saying that: “the Health Canada study is more politics than science“.

John Harrison is joined by Denise Wolfe – a highly experienced clinical trial research auditor – who has taken a well-honed axe to the “study” – hammering it for:

hiding and fudging the raw data;
failing to meet the study design’s own sample size criteria;
only taking its noise samples during summer, when there is little or no wind;
inherent inconsistencies between the data relied on and the arguments presented in the report;
incomplete and inconsistent noise modelling;
excluding children – the most vulnerable group – from the study altogether;
failing to point out that annoyance of the kind identified by the study (which includes sleep deprivation) is defined by the WHO as an adverse health effect (refer to its Night-time Noise Guidelines for Europe – the Executive Summary at XI to XII covers the point);
failing to even bother analysing the infrasound data gathered;
and, having failed to even analyse the infrasound data, making wholly unsupported conclusions about its impact on sleep and health;
in relation to its flawed noise data modelling, relying on wind speed data up to 50km away from the residences involved;
making the bogus claim that the study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (it hasn’t);
misleading verbiage (ie waffle and gobbledygook);
prematurely publishing what is a piece of political propaganda, based on incomplete and deliberately misleading and inconsistent information; and
failing to disclose links between those that worked on the study and their wind industry backers.

References (to the CMAJ article)

[i] Pedersen E, Persson KW. Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise–a dose response relationship. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2004; 116: 3460-70.

[ii] Harry A. Wind turbines, noise and health. 2007, February. Availablehere

[iii] Pedersen E, Persson Waye K. Wind turbine noise, annoyance and self-reported health and well being in different living environments. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2007;64:480-86.

[iv] Phipps R, Amati M, McCoard S, Fisher R. Visual and noise effects reported by residents living close to Manawatu wind farms: Preliminary survey results. 2007. Available here

[v] Pedersen E, Bakker R, Bouma J, van den Berg F. Response to noise from modern wind farms in the Netherlands. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009; 126: 634-43.

[vi] Pierpont N. Wind turbine syndrome: A report on a natural experiment. Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books. 2009. Available here

[vii] Krogh C, Gillis L, Kouwen N, Aramini J. WindVOiCe, a self-reporting survey: Adverse health effects, industrial wind turbines, and the need for vigilance monitoring. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2011; 31: 334-45.

[viii] Shepherd D, McBride D, Welch D, Dirks KN, Hill EM. Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health-related quality of life. Noise Health. 2011;13:333-9.

[ix] Thorne B. The problems with noise numbers for wind farm noise assessment. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 2011;31:262-90.

[x] Rand R., Ambrose S, Krogh C. Wind turbine acoustic investigation: infrasound and low-frequency noise–a case study, Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2012;32:128–41

[xi] Falmouth Health Department. Letter to Massachusetts Department of Public Health. June 11, 2012. Available on request.

[xii] Nissenbaum M, Aramini J, Hanning C. Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health. Noise Health. 2012;14:60:237-43.

[xiii] Roy D. Jeffery, Carmen Krogh, and Brett Horner Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects

[xiv] Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1):21-26

[xiv] Krogh – Correspondence from the Honourable Rona Ambrose, June 30, 2009. Available on request.

[xv] Colby, W. D., Dobie, R., Leventhall, G., Lipscomb, D. M., McCunney, R. J., Seilo, M. T., & Søndergaard, B., Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects: An Expert Panel Review, Washington, DC: American Wind Energy Association and Canadian Wind Energy Association. (2009). Available here

[xvi] Krogh C, Gillis L, Kouwen N, Aramini J. WindVOiCe, a self-reporting survey: Adverse health effects, industrial wind turbines, and the need for vigilance monitoring. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2011; 31: 334-45.

[xvii] The Canadian Wind Energy Association, The Canadian Wind Energy Association Responds To October 14, 2011 Statement By Wind Concerns Ontario, Media Release (2011, October 14) PDF Available on request.

[xviii] Howe Gastmeier Chapnik Limited. (2010, December 10). Low frequency noise and infrasound associated with wind turbine generator systems: A literature review (Rfp No. Oss-078696). Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: Ministry of the Environment.

[xix] World Health Organization, Guidelines for Community Noise,1999 Available here

[xx] Niemann H, Bonnefoy X, Braubach M, Hecht K, Maschke C, Rodrigues C, Robbel N. Noise-induced annoyance and morbidity results from the pan-European LARES study. Noise Health 2006;8:63-79

[xxi] Health Canada, Community Noise Annoyance, It’s Your Health, (2005, September). [cited 2014 Nov 25]. Available here

[xxii] Health Canada, Useful Information for Environmental Assessments, (2010), Published by authority of the Minister of Health. [cited 2014 Nov 25]]. Available here

[xxiii] Michaud, D. S., Keith, S. E., & McMurchy, D., “Noise Annoyance in Canada”, Noise Health, 7, 39-47, (2005)

[xxiv] Roy D. Jeffery, Carmen Krogh, and Brett Horner Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects

[xiv] Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1) Available here

[xxv] Health Canada, Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study: Summary of Results, November 6 2014. Available here

[xxvi] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A justification for using a 45 dBA sound level criterion for wind turbine projects. N.D.

[xxvii] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A proposal for evaluating the potential health effects of wind turbine noise for projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Second International Meeting on Wind Turbine Noise, Lyon France September 20 -21 2007

[xxviii] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A proposal for evaluating the potential health effects of wind turbine noise for projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. J Low Freq Noise. 2008:27:253-65.

[xxix] Pedersen E, Persson KW. Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise–a dose response relationship. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2004; 116: 3460-70.

[xxx] Pedersen E, Bakker R, Bouma J, van den Berg F. Response to noise from modern wind farms in the Netherlands. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009; 126: 634-43.

[xxxi] Health Canada, Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study: Summary of Results, November 6 2014. Available here

[xxxii] Jeffery RD, Krogh CME, and Horner B, [Review] Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1), 21-26. Available here

[xxxiii] Canadian Wind Energy Association [website]. Letter to Neil Parish re: sound level limits for wind farms. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Wind Energy Association; 2004. Available on request.

[xxxiv] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, EcoEnergy for Renewable Power, web update June 1 2009 Improving Energy Performance in Canada an ecoACTION initiative. Available here

[xxxv] Government of Canada Natural Resources Canada: Government of Canada Announces $9.2 Million for Alberta Wind Energy Project. July 07, Available here

[xxxvi] Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt (Thursday, 10 Sept 2009) MEDIA RELEASE -Renewable Energy Expands in Ontario. Available here

[xxxvii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program Power Program Date Modified: 2011-02-25 Available here

[xxxviii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. About Renewable Energy

[xxxix] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program, Available here

[xl] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program Power Program. Available here

[xli] The Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, Letter of correspondence August 10, 2012. Available on request.

[xlii] Access to Information and Privacy Request (ATIP) Briefing Note to the Ministers Office, Update on the Development of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Guidelines on Wind Turbine Noise

[xliii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xliv] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xlv] Health Canada, (2012) Health Canada Policy and Research Approach for Wind Turbine Noise – A presentation to the Science Advisory Board, February 2, 2012 Available here

[xlvi] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. Wind Technology Road Map. Next Steps. Available here

[xlvii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xlviii] Proceedings of the Brown County Board of Health, Meeting, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Available here (see page 13)
CMAJ

Please help the citizens of Brown County! We Are All In This Together!

November 28, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Shirley Wind Human Health Hazard Declaration — Request for Words of Support

At the October 14, 2014, Brown County (Wisconsin, USA) Board of Health meeting a motion was made to declare the Shirley Wind turbines a Human Health Hazard. The motion was unanimously approved by the Board:

“To declare the Industrial Wind Turbines at Shirley Wind Project in the Town of Glenmore, Brown County, Wisconsin, 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.”

Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy (BCCRWE) has issued a press release regarding this Human Health Hazard declaration, which can be seen at:http://bccrwe.com/index.php/8-news/16-duke-energy-s-shirley-wind-declared-human-health-hazard. BCCRWE is requesting your words of support for this action.

Research indicates that industrial wind turbines can negatively affect the physical, mental and social well-being of individuals if placed too close to homes. BCCRWE has been working intensively for the past 5 years with professional researchers, physicians, acousticians, and legislators to protect citizens of Brown County, the state of Wisconsin, the United States, and those in other countries from the negative health impacts resulting from industrial wind turbines being built too close to people.

BCCRWE welcomes and encourages individuals, organizations, and governmental agencies from around the world to send their words of support regarding the Board of Health’s action. BCCRWE will pass your emails on to the Brown County Board of Health as support for their courage, integrity, responsibility, intellectual honesty, and care in declaring the industrial wind turbines at Shirley Wind to be human health hazards.

If you or others you know have experienced negative health impacts from living in close proximity to industrial wind turbines and would like to share that experience along with your words of support with the Brown County Board of Health, please do so.

Send your words of support, and if applicable your experiences, to: BOHsupport/bccrwe. Thank you!

The Wind Industry Denies, What Wind Turbine Victims Experience is Their Fault….They’re Wrong!

November 26, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Lawrence Solomon: Ill winds blow from wind turbines

Lawrence Solomon | November 25, 2014
More from Lawrence Solomon | @LSolomonTweets

Wind turbines produce audible sound waves known to cause what medical science calls “annoyance,” a state of health that can lead to a constellation of illnesses called wind turbine syndrome (WTS).

THE CANADIAN PRESS / Colin Perkel Wind turbines produce audible sound waves known to cause what medical science calls “annoyance,” a state of health that can lead to a constellation of illnesses called wind turbine syndrome (WTS)

The wind industry is dangerous to human health, posing risks to everything from dizziness and nausea to chronic stress and heart conditions

A Canadian court will soon decide if wind turbines violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by posing a risk to human health. Charter case decisions can be convoluted but the fundamental question of health at issue here is straightforward. Wind turbines, from all that is today known and by any rational measure, represent a risk to those living in their vicinity.

Although the wind industry and its government backers tend to dismiss concerns, the evidence of harm in communities that host wind turbines is overwhelming. Literally thousands of people around the world report similar adverse health effects, some so serious that owners abandon their homes. Studies of noise from turbines — though few in number, short in duration, tentative in their findings and conducted by interested parties — point to dangers. As if that wasn’t enough, basic science sounds the alarm on wind turbines.

Wind turbines produce audible sound waves known to cause what medical science calls “annoyance,” a state of health that can lead to a constellation of illnesses called wind turbine syndrome (WTS). As Health Canada reported earlier this month, following a Statistics Canada survey it commissioned of people living in the vicinity of wind turbines, “[wind turbine noise] annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reported health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus [ringing in the ears], dizziness” and sleep disorders. The annoyance was also found to be statistically associated with objective measurements of chronic stress and blood pressure. Health Canada’s bottom line: “the findings support a potential link between long-term high annoyance and health.”

The audible sound waves — these have a frequency above 20 Hz — may be the least of the worries faced by those living near wind turbines. The turbines also produce copious amounts of sound waves below 20 Hz, making them inaudible to the human ear and thus, say wind proponents, harmless. Yet sound at this low frequency, known as infrasound, should not be thought of as faint or weak. The U.S. military has studied the use of infrasound in non-lethal weapons. Many mammals — giraffes, elephants, whales — communicate with each other at infrasound frequencies, even when many kilometres apart. Powerful infrasound waves, in fact, explain how animals sense the coming of earthquakes well before humans do — and why animals fled to safety during the calamitous Sumatran and Japanese tsunamis of recent years.

Like other mammals, humans are sensitive to infrasound, even though the human ear doesn’t “hear” it. Our inner ear has four rows of hair cells, only one of which — the fourth row — “hears.” It does this by converting sound-wave energy above 20 Hz to electricity that then travels to the brain, which makes the sounds intelligible to us. The first three rows of hair cells also convert sound, this time for sound-wave energy below 20 Hz. The electric signals from this infrasound also enter the brain but the current state of science doesn’t know much of what happens next. It especially doesn’t know what happens when the brain receives infrasound stimulation for prolonged periods, let alone 24/7 as happens with people living near wind turbines, because no long-term study has ever been conducted to find out, either on animals or on humans.

Numerous short-term studies in both animals and humans do exist — a 2001 review by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Infrasound Toxicological Summary, located more than 100 infrasound studies around the world, many of the subjects in the human studies reporting the same adverse health effects — fatigue, sleeplessness, nausea, heart disorders — that afflict those living near wind turbines. In an unusual 2003 U.K. experiment involving the National Physical Laboratory, the country’s largest applied physics organization, back-to-back music concerts were staged in London’s Purcell Hall, similar in all respects except that two different musical pieces in each concert were laced with infrasound. The result: while hearing the infrasound-laced pieces, audience members reported significantly elevated sensations of nausea, dizziness, increased heart rates, and tingling in the neck and shoulders, among other sensations.

It’s clear from the documents that come out of the wind industry that they’re trying very hard to suppress the notion of wind turbine syndrome.

Despite the well-document effects of infrasound on animals and humans, the vast majority of studies of sound from wind turbines ignore the effects of infrasound; they instead compare wind turbine sounds to audible sounds coming from benign appliances such as refrigerators, say Alec Salt and Jeffery Lichtenhan of Washington University’s school of Medicine, authorities in the field of acoustics. The failure to take infrasound seriously, they state, is “quite astounding … Given the knowledge that the ear responds to low frequency sounds and infrasound, we knew that comparisons with benign sources were invalid and the logic [of relying on audible] sound measurements was deeply flawed scientifically.”

Salt and Lichtenhan have documented the many ways that wind turbine noise can affect the ear, concluding that it is “highly unlikely” that wind turbines don’t present a danger. “Given the present evidence, it seems risky at best to continue the current gamble that infrasound stimulation of the ear stays confined to the ear and has no other effects on the body.”

Their view, and that of other experts in the acoustics field such as Harvard Medical School’s Steven D. Rauch, is that, in the absence of other explanations, it is preposterous to dismiss wind turbines as a cause of wind turbine syndrome (WTS).

“The patients deserve the benefit of the doubt,” says Rauch, who believes that wind turbine syndrome is real. “It’s clear from the documents that come out of the industry that they’re trying very hard to suppress the notion of WTS and they’ve done it in a way that [involves] a lot of blaming the victim.”

Salt, Lichtenhan and Rauch may one day be proven wrong, and wind turbines may be found to be benign. Or wind turbine technology may change, to mitigate or altogether avoid any harmful production of sounds. Until that day comes, the risks from wind turbines are palpable, even if not always audible.

Lawrence Solomon is executive Director of Energy Probe.LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

Windweasels Torture Residents Living Near Industrial Wind Projects!

November 24, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Farm Victims – Ocotillo, California: Wind Turbine Noise is a “Horror Beyond Words”

November 24, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ocotillo RESIDENTS say Wind Turbine Noise Creates “LIVING HELL”
eastcountymagazine.org
14 November 2014

“It’s a HORROR beyond words; something you have to live to understand. Something must be done to stop the noise.” – Ocotillo RESIDENT PARKE Ewing

November 14, 2014 (Ocotillo) – Residents in Ocotillo say that during windy conditions in early November, noise from wind turbines is making their LIVES unbearable.

Jim Pelley captured the loud noise on videotape (see below), juxtaposed with footage of Pattern Energy’s Glenn Hodges SELLING the project to supervisors in Imperial Valley by claiming that noise would not be an issue due to setbacks. “The project was sold on the understanding to be five miles from the community of Ocotillo,” Pelley wrote on a Youtube post. “We have turbines as close as 1/2 mile, we are now forced to live with the horrible noise of 112 turbines when the wind blows.”

****

His neighbor, Parke Ewing, says his COMPLAINTS to Imperial County and Bureau of Land Management officials, as well as Pattern Energy, have fallen on deaf ears, with no meaningful responses.

“The turbines have created a living hell to us as we try to CONTINUE on with our lives after the Ocotillo Wind Facility was constructed over our objections,” he wrote in a November 1st letter sent to officials at those entities.” Turbines 176 and 169 and others are so loud when the wind blows that they disrupt everything. We can’t enjoy our property. The turbines are even more disruptive to our lives than even we could have IMAGINED. It’s a horror beyond words; something you have to live to understand.

Something must be done to stop the noise. We are one of several families that have homes obviously too close to the turbines. The turbines located near my home need to be removed or relocated. We can’t go on trying to live our lives around the turbine noise. No body, including people that have OBJECTED to Ocotillo Wind, should have to live with the noise when the wind blows. We just can’t do it any longer…”

Ewing asked the County, BLM and Pattern to mitigate the problem, noting that the sound is much louder than Pattern’s description of a DISHWASHER in the next room. “Whoever’s idea of using that term as an adequate description of the noise we would experience has obviously never lived near a turbine in their life.. Let alone 112 “dishwashers” all running at the same time in the next room,” Ewing observed, adding that no officials have taken steps to measure the decibels, let alone measurements such as low-frequency infrasound.

“The turbine noise is creating a high degree anxiety in our lives. We don’t believe it is lawful for this to continue,” the beleaguered Ocotillo resident concluded. “I invite any of you to visit our property when the wind blows and stay awhile. Live the experience as we do- try to talk across your yard over the crashing sound of 336 blades turning and listening to the turbines as they generate their very irritating noise, nobody should be forced to endure this torture.”

Update November 15, 2014: After our story ran, we received this UPDATE from Parke Ewing the next morning, which reads in part:

“Believe it or not, of all days, after I contacted the site manager for Ocotillo Wind today, two representatives visited my HOME today for the first TIME. They listened for awhile, as today was one of those very loud turbine days, their only comment after I asked was, TBD (To Be Determined). Still no return calls or letters from the County of Imperial or BLM. A general manager for Pattern Energy, a Samuel Tasker, quit returning generic answers to me and Jim’s questions and concerns. Carrie Simmons at BLM turned us over to him after we questioned one of her comments regarding the oil leaks and a few other issues. (not noise)

Interestingly, I stood a hundred feet or so in front of a wind turbine yesterday and the noise was very much greater than standing underneath a turbine or even behind the turbine. I assumed that the noise would blow away from me, not into me against the wind, just the opposite of what we would expect. So since our home is in front of turbines 176 and 169 when the wind is coming from the WEST south west, we hear the turbines much more loudly than Jim Pelley, which is down wind. Then when wind is coming from the east we hear turbine 174 more, because we are in front of that one, weird how that works.”
eastcountymagazine.org

More Negative Critiques on Health Canada Study! It was a farce!

November 23, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Report avoids wind turbine health woes

Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise “Statistics” Avoid Real Health Problems

Tim Matheson (Nov. 11, 2014) tells us he has had enough of wind turbine health effects. I am sure that the many people living near Ontario’s wind turbines who are still suffering from pounding in the chest and head, dizziness, headaches, ringing in the ears and sleep deprivation have had enough too. However, the serious inaccuracies in Mr. Matheson’s letter must not go without comment. It is entirely untrue, as he claims, that “every peer-reviewed study world-wide has consistently shown the same” as the Health Canada key findings.

Our Grey-Bruce Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Hazel Lynn found 18 peer-reviewed studies that “provide reasonable evidence . . . that an association exists between wind turbines and distress in humans”. Instead of disparaging Dr. Lynn we should admire and respect her for taking the trouble to listen to her constituents and speaking the truth. The Brown County (Wisconsin) Board of Health has taken the growing peer-reviewed evidence seriously enough to declare its industrial wind turbines a “public health nuisance” and a “human health hazard for all people (residents, workers, visitors, and sensitive passers-by) who are exposed to Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise and other emissions potentially harmful to human health”.

There are now dozens of peer-reviewed acoustical and medical research reports that contradict the key findings of the Health Canada study (which has not been peer-reviewed) warning that wind turbines, have a significant potential to cause adverse impacts on the people living nearby. Krough et al (2011), Shepherd (2011), Phillips, (2011), Hanning &. Evans (2012), Nissenbaum (2012), Walker (2012), Ambrose (2012), James (2013), Cooper, (2013), Schomer (2013), Enbom (2013); Kugler 2014, are just a few of the more recent ones.

So how did Health Canada manage to come up with findings so out of line with much of the most recent peer-reviewed research? Could this industry-led, government-supported study have been intended to pacify growing public concern and promote federal government policy– its “Wind Technology Roadmap”?

Already, epidemiologists, physicians and scientists have pointed out grave shortcomings and inconsistencies with the study’s conclusions as well as gaps and errors in methodology.

Contradictions and biases affect its credibility. Unmentioned in the key findings: “The study did find wind turbine noise to be “statistically related to severalself-reported health effects including blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, and disturbed sleep”. — Epidemiologist Joan Morris, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario.
The noise “measurements” were in fact only “calculations”, “estimates” and “assumptions”, based on “predictive modeling” obtained from the turbine manufacturers. “It is known that calculated turbine noise is a poor predictor of measured turbine noise. There are other variables that influence the actual turbine noise such as wind-speed gradient, turbulence, upwind or downwind of the wind turbine, [and] temperature gradient. An average has no meaning”. —Dr. John Harrison, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Queen’s University.
The low responder rate of only 1234 out of the 2004 dwellings selected “could easily compromise the validity of any conclusions drawn by the researchers as a result of selection bias”. — Denise Wolfe, professional auditor for drug trial analysis.
Only 20% of the homes studied were “near” turbines; 434 dwellings were excluded as “not valid” (without follow up) because people were not at home, had abandoned their houses, or been bought out—possibly the ones most likely to report serious health effects.
Homes up to 10 kilometres away were included, diluting the results from those nearby. “The choice of the circle size plays a major role in the result obtained and speaks volumes about the motivation of the author”. — Dr. Alex Salt, Professor of Otolaryngology at Washington University School of Medicine.

No, Mr. Matheson, the wind turbines did not shut down coal-fired generation. Nuclear units back on line, decreased consumption, and new natural gas plants (another fossil fuel) made it possible. When fossil-fuelled back-up is factored in, there are no appreciable CO₂ savings from wind energy. Meanwhile, consumer subsidies for renewables in Ontario are pushing up hydro costs at an alarming rate, forcing more manufacturers (and jobs) to leave the province.

Canadian taxpayers will not be pleased to learn that Health Canada has spent over $2 million of our money without first making professional clinical observations based on the histories of actual sufferers.

Keith Stelling, Southampton

References:

Ambrose S.E, Rand, R.W (December 2011), Adverse Health Effects Produced By Large Industrial

Wind Turbines Confirmed, The Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study.

Arra I, Lynn H, Barker K, et al. (2014-05-23 11:51:41 UTC) Systematic Review 2013: Association

Between Wind Turbines and Human Distress. Cureus 6(5): e183. doi:10.7759/cureus.183.

Bray W and James R. (2011). “Dynamic measurements of wind turbine acoustic signals, employing sound quality engineering methods considering the time and frequency sensitivities of human perception”. Proceedings of Noise-Con 2011, Portland, Oregon, 25-27 July 2011. Curran Associates, 2011.

Cooper, S. The Measurement of Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise for Wind Farms (amended version). 5th International Conference On Wind Turbine Noise Denver 28-30 August 2013. Steven Cooper The Acoustic Group Pty Ltd, Sydney, NSW, 2040.

Enbom H & Enbom I (2013) “Infrasound from wind turbines: An overlooked health hazard,”

Läkartidningen, vol. 110 pp. 1388-89.

Hanning C & Evans A (2012) “Wind turbine noise”, British Medical Journal 344, e1527.

James R. Opening Statement Nov 18, 2013 hearing. BluEarth Project, Bull Creek, Alberta.

Krogh C, Gillis L, N. Kouwen N, and Aramini J. (2011) “WindVOiCe, a self-reporting survey: adverse health effects, industrial wind turbines and the need for vigilance monitoring.” Bull. Sci. Tech. Soc. 31 334-339.

Kugler K, Wiegrebe L, Grothe B, Kössl M, Gürkov R, Krause E, Drexl M. 2014 Low-frequency sound

affects active micromechanics in the human inner ear. R. Soc. open sci. 1: 140166.

Nissenbaum M, Armani J & Hanning D. (2012) “Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health”, Noise and Health 14, 237-243.

Phillips C. (2011) “Properly interpreting the epidemiologic evidence about the health effects of industrial wind turbines on nearby residents”, Bull. Sci. Tech. Soc. 31 303-315.

Salt, Alec N. and Lichtenhan, Jeffery T. “How Does Wind Turbine Noise Affect People? The many ways by which unheard infrasound and low-frequency sound from wind turbines could distress people living nearby are described”. Acoustics Today, A publication of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 10, Issue 1, Winter, 2014.

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