Wind Pushers in “Panic Mode”. Aussies Planning to Make them Liable for Damages!

March 29, 2015March 29, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Top Acoustics Professor Calls for Full Compensation for Wind Farm Victims, as Council Calls for “National Noise Cops”

March 29, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

The Australian Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud hits the road tomorrow, 30 March – starting at Portland, Victoria (in the TAFE campus on Hurd Street from 8.30am) – the town next door to Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater disaster.

The hearing gives long-suffering residents there – and from elsewhere – a chance to hear Steven Cooper give an exposition on the findings of his groundbreaking study (see our posts here and here and here); it’s also the first opportunity for wind farm victims to lay out in tragic detail their misery and suffering before the Inquiry: a public forum, where sharks like Pac Hydro can’t – despite its best efforts to date – cover up its shameful conduct any longer.

Note that the opportunity to make submissions to the Inquiry has been extended to 4 May (as we’ll detail further below).

The Inquiry also provides the first and best opportunity to address the criminal manner in which the wind industry, and those that aid and abet it have trashed the ability of people to sleep in their own homes.

The wind industry and its institutional accomplices – particularly, the Clean Energy Regulator (see our post here), state and local government authorities, EPAs, etc – continue to ride roughshod over peoples’ common law rights to live in, use and otherwise enjoy their homes and properties: homes that, in far too many cases, have become worthless and un-liveable, due to “planning rules” that are so lax as to be risible.

Faced with the very real threat of fronting up to litigation – where liability in favour of the victims is – thanks to Cooper’s work – a virtual ‘slam dunk’, the local Glenelg Shire Council has gone into damage control.

The Council now wants a “publicly-accessible register established for all complaints against wind farms and an independent authority to enforce compliance of standards” (as detailed in the story from The Standard below).

Now that little suggestion – clearly aimed at legal tail-covering, and, no doubt, the result of a prod from the Council’s insurer – leads to the very sensible idea of having a “National Industrial Noise Authority” (for the purposes of this post, let’s call them, the “National Noise Cops”).

****

The National Noise Cops should be given the power, resources and authority to do for wind farm victims precisely what Councils, State and Federal governments have manifestly failed to do: namely, monitor and control industrial noise sources – including industrial wind turbines – shutting down those sources when they interfere with peoples’ common law rights to live in and enjoy their own homes; and to penalise the offenders when they refuse to follow the Noise Cops’ orders and directions.

Here’s The Standard setting out the Glenelg Shire Council’s response to its little legal-liability-epiphany.

Glenelg Shire Council seeks complaints register for wind farms
The Standard
Peter Collins
27 March 2015

GLENELG Shire Council wants a publicly-accessible register established for all complaints against wind farms and an independent authority to enforce compliance of standards.

In its submission to next Monday’s hearing in Portland of a Senate committee, the shire says there is considerable community fatigue and frustration around regulation of the industry.

“Council perceives this and the lack of community confidence in the regulation as a major concern,” shire planning and economic development manager Stephen Kerrigan wrote.

Seventeen of the 140 submissions lodged with the select committee on wind turbines will be heard at the Portland hearing in the TAFE campus on Hurd Street from 8.30am.

Another five local business and community members have also been listed to give evidence.

The committee, chaired by Senator John Madigan of Ballarat, is due to hand down its report by June 24.

Acoustics expert Steven Cooper will be first off the blocks with a summary of his report which found trends linked to sensations reported by residents living near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm.

He will be followed by Pacific Hydro which commissioned him for the landmark study in response to ongoing complaints from residents.

The shire council said it was also concerned about lack of credible information on health impacts of wind farms and suggested the National Health and Medical Research Council undertake an “expedited authoritative study” into the issue.

Mr Kerrigan noted recent work by the Municipal Association of Victoria in brokering an agreement with the Environment Protection Authority for auditors to provide monitoring and compliance services to councils and the wind power industry.

The council highlighted “significant” economic and social benefits from construction and operation of wind farms plus the detrimental effect on jobs caused by uncertainty on the renewable energy target.

About 100 jobs were cut from the workforce at Portland’s Keppel Prince, which was a major manufacturer of wind farm components.

Concern about the state government’s handing back responsibility to councils for issuing, enforcement and compliance of wind farm planning permits will also be aired.

“In closing, Glenelg Shire Council supports policies and processes which promote deployment of renewable energy projects, the attraction of clean energy investment and creation of jobs within the shire without posing undue risk to the health and wellbeing of its residents and ratepayers,” Mr Kerrigan said.
The Standard

Before we pick up again on the theme of noise standards and the National Noise Cops, STT can’t help but notice the drivel pitched up about “clean energy investment and creation of jobs”.

Germany, the world “leader”, when it comes to throwing billions in subsidies at wind power, has shown the wind industry’s argument about creating thousands of groovy, “green” jobs to be nothing more than a complete fiction (see our post here).

In Portland, Keppel Prince moans about the “loss” of 100 jobs due to uncertainty over the LRET. These boys clearly want to have their cake and eat it too. Its continued operation critically depends upon the life and longevity of the local aluminium smelter: if the smelter goes, Keppel Prince is finished.

And despite Keppel Prince bleating about “uncertainty” over the Renewable Energy Target, the continuation of the LRET guarantees (as a legislated fact) that the cost of electricity will go through the roof in the next four years, as an absolute “certainty”.

The LRET will add $50 billion in REC Tax/Subsidy to all Australian power bills: a whopping subsidy, designed to be directed to wind power outfits (see our post here). As a consequence of that $50 billion Federal Tax on electricity, mineral processors, like aluminium smelters will go the way of the Tasmanian Tiger – and with them, something like 4,500 REAL jobs (those directly employed by smelters) – and a further 12-13,000 REAL jobs in the wider aluminium industry (see our posts here and here andhere).

And, when the LRET inevitably smashes Australia’s mineral processors across the Country, its “collateral damage” will include every metal basher that builds and engineers the machinery and equipment they use: eg, engineers and metal fabricators that serve aluminium smelters, just like Keppel Prince. What’s that they say about being destroyed by greed and stupidity?

Now, back to Glenelg Shire Council’s talk about noise “standards” and an independent body to enforce them. The first, and most obvious point, is that the current “standards” were written by the wind industry; and deliberately designed to bury the real problem – incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound – a problem the wind industry has known about for over 30 years (see our post here).

It’s a problem which Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater study has simply confirmed – according to America’s top acoustic experts, Dr Paul Schomer and George Hessler – the data gathered by Cooper itself proves the relationship between adverse health effects and turbine generated noise and vibration (see our post here).

And that work is backed up by top quality field research done last year by Professor Colin Hansen – and his team from Adelaide University at Waterloo – showing high-levels of turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound inside homes up to 8.7km from turbines (see our post here).

That work simply highlights the need for standards that actually take into account incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound; unlike the South Australian EPA’s farcical claim that “modern wind farms” don’t produce infrasound at all (see our post here).

Colin Hansen – easily the best-qualified and most respected Australian academic when it comes to noise and vibration – has pitched in with an offer to bring his immense skills to the task of elaborating on the precise cause of the sensations and symptoms suffered by victims (ie, the particular levels and frequencies generated). But it’s his utterly sensible call for full compensation for those victims – that appears in this piece from The Australian’s Graham Lloyd – that we’ll pick up on in a moment.

Call to subject others to wind farm noise
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
26 March 2015

Recordings of infrasound and low-frequency noise from wind turbines should be played into the bedrooms of random rural residents to investigate health concerns, a senior acoustics academic says.

Emeritus professor Colin Hansen from the University of Adelaide says testing should be conducted on people who do not live near wind farms.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry next week, he says if a health concern from infrasound and low-frequency noise is proven authorities should state what level of impact or “collateral damage” is acceptable and set up a compensation fund to buy out affected residents.

Professor Hansen was a peer reviewer of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s review of the health impacts of wind farms.

Some residents living near wind turbines across the world have complained of sleep disturbance and other seasickness-type symptoms.

The council said it would support research that addressed the relationship between wind-farm noise and health effects.

It would also fund research into the broader social and environmental circumstances that influence annoyance, sleep disturbance, quality of life and health effects that are reported by residents living in proximity to wind farms.

The call for research follows the recent council statement concluding the body of direct evidence on wind farms and health was small and of poor quality.

“Internationally, there is little research evidence regarding the health effects of wind farms,” the council said.

“Over 4000 papers were identified in the reviews and, of these papers, only 13 studies were found that considered possible relationships between wind-farm emissions and health outcomes.

“Only one of these studies was conducted in Australia.”

The council expert group that oversaw the review identified areas for further research.

The review did not include results from what has been called a breakthrough study by acoustics expert Steven Cooper at the Cape Bridgewater wind farm.

Mr Cooper will be the first witness to address the Senate inquiry when it meets in Portland next week.

US acoustics expert Paul Schomer told the inquiry in a submission that the Cooper study “shows that wind turbine emissions affect some people independently of them seeing turbines, hearing turbines, or feeling vibrations from turbines”.

“We, the entire world, desperately need proper, valid research to determine what effects wind turbine emissions have on people,” Dr Schomer said.

Pacific Hydro, which funded the Cooper study, has said it did not accept that a “cause and effect” relationship between wind farms and health impacts on nearby residents had been established by the Cooper research.

But Mr Cooper said his study had provided a methodology for full-scale medical trials.

Professor Hansen said recordings played to residents living a long way from wind farms could help determine what parts of the noise spectrum cause the most annoyance and adverse effects on people.

They could help determine what physical mechanisms were responsible for the undesirable noise components by theoretical analysis, laboratory experiments and on-site measurements, he said.

And they could help determine what changes to turbine design and wind farm layout could be made to minimise the generation of the undesirable noise components.
The Australian

While victims could bring those responsible to account in private litigation, STT begs the poser: why should the victims of a government sponsored subsidy scheme have to pay upfront to be compensated for their inevitable suffering and losses?

The wind industry exists (and only exists) by reason of the Large-Scale RET and the REC Tax/Subsidy directed to wind power generators under it – and paid for by ALL Australian electricity consumers, including those with homes and properties adjacent to wind farms (see our posts hereand here).

As the beneficiaries of what Liberal MP – Angus “the Enforcer” Taylor properly describes as “corporate welfare on steroids”, mandating that the wind industry fully compensate wind farm neighbours for all of their losses seems only fair.

At the Federal level, Australia is all about compensation: whether it’s Centrelink, a National Disability Insurance Scheme or a national healthcare scheme (ie Medicare), the Federal government has no trouble at all forcing taxpayers to cough up and ensure that those without, or who have suffered some of the bad luck dished up by daily life, get compensated.

In the same vein, the wind industry has already pocketed something like $9 billion worth of REC Tax/Subsidies – and is lining up for a further $50 billion of the same under the LRET: “compensation” for producing “renewable” energy that they hope to gleefully pocket at power consumers’ expense.

The wind industry’s victims have, therefore, been belted twice: once through their power bills, paying for the subsidies that resulted in the giant fans speared into their backyards; and again, through their personal loss and suffering, and the economic loss of the value of their (often unliveable and/or worthless) homes and properties.

The wind industry and its parasites were pretty quick to set the ‘rules’ in a way that means wind power outfits can operate around the clock, without any regard for the harm caused (eg, sleep deprivation) – ‘rules’ maliciously designed to discriminate against wind farm neighbours.

These are the boys who have sought to evade and avoid any kind of reasonable controls on their operations.

From the outset, they’ve made every effort to ensure that irrelevant and, therefore, woefully inadequate noise standards were adopted and are maintained – for a chronology of wind industry deception on this score, see our post: Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge.

And these boys have doggedly refused to cooperate whenever victims are trying to impose even those woeful standards; and who now – like the Clean Energy Council and the Australian Wind Alliance – are quick to pooh-pooh Steven Cooper’s study on obviously spurious grounds; and who will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent any possibility of the same thing ever happening again.

So, it seems only fair that wind power outfits – who benefit from the largest single industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth – see some of the value of the REC Tax/Subsidy (that they would otherwise keep for themselves) get siphoned off to compensate those whose lives and interests they’ve bent over backwards to destroy.

It also seems more than fair and reasonable to have the Federal Government establish, and properly fund, a body (the National Industrial Noise Authority, discussed above) that will enforce a uniform industrial noise standard – carefully designed by people like Colin Hansen and Steven Cooper – at wind farms; and ALL other industrial operations.

This body, and its rules, should not be allowed to distinguish between noise sources; so that a Coal-Seam-Gas Plant or Gas Turbine Power Generator will be subject to the same standard, rules of operation and penalties as wind farm operators, which – unlike many other noise sources, like airports and live music venues – currently operate around the clock, with complete impunity. And, worse, with the complete endorsement of State “regulators”, like the South Australian EPA that runs in lockstep with the wind industry’s pet acoustic consultants, who, rather helpfully, wrote the “standards”, which the EPA happily fails to enforce (see our post here).

This is not just about setting up another regulator; it’s about overcoming institutional corruption and systemic regulatory failure, in order to ensure that the long-standing, common law rights of Australian citizens’ to live in, use and enjoy their homes and properties are protected and preserved. The people of this Country of ours deserve nothing less; wherever they live; and whatever the noise source (see our post here).

Remember, governments set this mess up in the first place; and, therefore, it is well within their power to clean it up and put things right.

And now is the hour.

Fortunately, all these matters and more are on the radar and squarely in the sights of the Senate Select Committee, its terms of reference including the following:

(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on Wind 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:

…

(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 Medical Research 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;

(i) any related matter.

If, like those unfortunates at Cape Bridgewater, you are suffering from, or are threatened by, turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – then you’ve got chance to have your say on:

the ‘standards’ and planning ‘controls’ that are so lax as to be risible;
the callous conduct of wind power outfits, like Pac Hydro & Co;
the institutional corruption that not only permits, but which actively defends that conduct;
the losses you have suffered, or are likely to suffer, as a result of the above;
why there should be mandatory compensation payable to wind farm neighbours for all such losses (incurred or anticipated) caused by wind power generators; and
that the compensation payable should come from a fund set-up through a mandatory levy placed on the RECs received by all wind power generators;
the need for, and merits of, establishing a properly funded National Industrial Noise Authority to protect common law property rights; and
the need for a proper standard for that body to enforce – a standard that actually protects peoples’ common law rights to sleep in, and otherwise enjoy, their homes.

So why not get in there and hammer them, by dropping a detailed submission to the Senate Inquiry along those lines?

Note that the opportunity to make submissions to the Committee ends on 4 May 2015. See the link here.

Steven cooper Discusses the Results of His Wind Turbine Study!

March 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Today Tonight Report on Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Study

March 19, 2015 by stopthesethings

Cape Bridgewater Report
Rodney Lohse
Channel 7’s Today Tonight
16 March 2015

[Click on the image above and click through for the Today Tonight video. Transcript appears below.]

Transcript

Rosanna Mangiarelli: But we will start tonight with a wind farm war. Those who claim that turbines are having an impact on surrounding communities, versus those who say it’s all in the mind. Now the latest debate centres around a recent Australian study, whose author has found there is a link. While it’s being played down by the industry, those living near the wind farm tell a very different story. Rodney Lohse reports.

Lane Crocket, Pacific Hydro: … can’t identify any causal link between wind farms and health.

Steven Cooper: It depends upon what you define by causal. If you take it as patterns that relate to the hypothesis of different wind speeds orpower outputs, there was definitely a link.

Rodney Lohse: It’s the report that has the wind energy industry in aspin. Same report, two very different interpretations, all depending on what you have at stake.

Lane Crocket: There is nothing in this report to justify any form of compensation.

Steven Cooper: We’ve found certain wind speeds that related to the high levels of disturbance.

Rodney Lohse: According to medical authorities, wind farms are perfectly safe and cause no adverse health impacts. Yet here and overseas, people who live near them say they’re getting sick.

Norma Schmidt from Ontario: You’re not able to do anything. You’re not able to cook. You’re not able to clean. You’re not able to live. You’re not able to work.

Melissa Ware, Cape Bridgewater, Victoria: We’ve actually vacated the house and we’ve been away for about 3 months.

Wind farm victim: Ever since they started turning my ears have been hurting.

Rodney Lohse: But despite this, no one could prove what it was about wind farms that made those living nearby feel unwell. And so they have continued to be constructed in their thousands. Enter Steven Cooper and Pacific Hydro. Stephen Cooper is a acoustic engineer, recognised in this country as an expert in his field, involved in writing Australian standards on noise, especially for the aircraft industry.

Steven Cooper: When I started this study, I was utilising the results of testing in South Australia at the Waterloo wind farm, where residents could perceive the operation of the wind farm without seeing it or without hearing it. And I was linking that perception to what’s called infrasound, which is below the normal level of frequency of hearing.

Rodney Lohse: Pacific Hydro is an energy company owned by Australian superannuation funds and the operator of wind farms in Australia and overseas. Lane Crockett is executive general manager of Pacific Hydro.

Lane Crockett: If you go to the peak medical body they will tell you that there is no causal link between wind farms and health.

Rodney Lohse: It is a concept supported by Sydney University’s School ofPublic Health’s Professor Simon Chapman. Not a medical specialist, but an avowed enemy of wind farm critics.

Simon Chapman: You can see, I’ve put some examples of quotes there, conclusions, there’s no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects.

Rodney Lohse: And so Pacific Hydro decided to stump up the money for another study.

Steven Cooper: There are sensations that are recorded … .. I was required to conduct noise and vibration measurements to determine certain wind speeds and certain sound levels that related to disturbances by six specific local residences.

Rodney Lohse: Steven Cooper was looking for a link between something happening at the wind farm and complaints by residents in three houses nearby, each with two residents. His theory, infrasound, low frequency noise below what can be heard, was impacting residents.

Steven Cooper: What you’re able to do when carrying out tests is that you can demonstrate people can feel infrasound at a level below when it becomes audible.

Rodney Lohse: Pacific Hydro has so far played down Cooper’s study.

Lane Crockett: In our view, the results do not demonstrate a strong enough correlation to support the conclusion of a causal link between the infrasound frequencies in existence, and residents’ observations.

Steven Cooper: We don’t have a correlation with the results because we don’t have enough data. There is definitely a trend. There is definitely a connection between the operation of the wind farm and what the residents were identifying as disturbances. And so it’s open to debate as to what a causal link is in terms of that data.

Rodney Lohse: But the people who were in the study, like Melissa Ware, say it’s sufficient proof to show this isn’t all just in their head.

Melissa Ware: We been talking about the noise and the vibration in our home for a long time, and to have Steven Cooper come and do such an intensive study means a lot to me and to the other residents.

Rodney Lohse: Although hearing impaired, Melissa says she can sense the turbines. Often the sensation drives her from her home.

Melissa Ware: The noise and the vibration come up through the pillow, worse than what, the impact’s worse than when you’re standing, just listening.

Rodney Lohse: For 2 months, the test subjects had to fill out diaries of what they felt, in particular, if they sensed anything, especially a sensation many said made them unwell. This was called “Sensation 5″. And Cooper then tried to correlate that to something possibly happening at the wind farm.

Steven Cooper: The sensation criteria came from a UK wind farm study, which was based on noise and then the word in the severity ranking changed from noise to vibration or sensation.

Rodney Lohse: As this was never a medical study, he can’t say the wind farm was making people sick. But at the exact time people were reporting “Sensation 5″, something was happening at the wind farm.

Steven Cooper: Severity 5 was classified as being a level that was harmful to a person’s health, or was causing them severe discomfort. The residents, in looking at the data, also added that “Sensation 5″ was a level at which they wanted to leave, or did actually leave their property.

Rodney Lohse: The study has already attracted a lot of attention, support and criticism.

Paul Barry: … and Sydney University’s Professor of Public Health, Simon Chapman, was even more damning, telling Media Watch …

Simon Chapman: Scientifically, it’s absolutely an atrocious piece of research, and it is entirely unpublishable other than on the front page of The Australian.

Rodney Lohse: Mr Cooper responded in this way to his main critic, Professor Chapman; and has commenced legal action against him.

Steven Cooper: As far as I understand, Professor Chapman is not a scientist. He is not an engineer. I’ve had eminent acousticians around the world who have can congratulated me on the work, have issued reviews to say that the work is of significance, is of benefit and is a step forward in trying to understand what wind farms are generating.

Rodney Lohse: Doctor Paul Schomer, the Standards Director for the Acoustical Society of America, is one of those acousticians.

Paul Schomer: I think it’s a very good study. It’s the only study in the world, that we know of that’s been done with the cooperation of a wind farm, and so was able to get data that no one else has been able to get.

Rodney Lohse: And its integral in showing a connection between infrasound and human impact.

Paul Schomer: It doesn’t quite form the link between medical issues, it forms the link that people are affected, not by hearing sounds, that there is a pathway to the peoples’ brain, other than hearing.

Rodney Lohse: Doctor Schomer was involved in a similar study in a community called Shirley, in Wisconsin in the United States.

Paul Schomer: Three families in Shirley that had moved out of their houses because of the sound, the problems with the, or I should say the infrasound.

Rodney Lohse: He hopes wind power has an important future in terms of meeting our energy needs, but he also says more needs to be done to understand how it impacts humans.

Paul Schomer: They don’t want to acknowledge problems, it really doesn’t matter what the problem was, it just happens to be infrasound.

Rodney Lohse: For Steven Cooper he says, now it’s time for a well funded medical study.

Steven Cooper: To do medical studies you need to have a character or a signature that you can apply to a wind farm to identify that the wind farm is operating, before you can do the medical studies. What has come out of this work, is that by use of the signature and a level and characteristic that I have determined, allows the medical researchers to now start that work.
Today Tonight

Wind Pushers Desperate to Deny the Negative Health Risks from Wind Turbines!

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

February 19, 2015 by stopthesethings

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:

*****blob:https%3A//www.youtube.com/f15b0282-7dea-4343-a0c6-60f67336a9b0

****

Steven Cooper has Windweasels on the Run! Truth is the Windpusher’s Enemy!

February 15, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

A stampede to the exits

Posted on 02/15/2015 by windaction

by Harvey Wrightman
In the 6 years and 6 Environmental Review Tribunal appeals we have been appellants to, there has been a bagful of issues connected with wind projects and how they are “imposed” upon ordinary working communities without theexpress consent of the communities – in newspeak, that would be “social license.” Yet the one issue that drew us to actively oppose wind projects (health effect), remains at the top of the list and all other issues really come as a result of the harm to health that occurs, picking its victims at random, that one cannot say, “It won’t affect me.”

So the recent study done by acoustician Steven Cooper for Pacific Hydro has set a bomb off amongst the….umm, the wind wankers – an all inclusive category for the acousticians, $800/hour lawyers, PR people, the smirking engineers and administrators of the MOECC and the ERT, the clueless politicians, the sleepy investment bankers.

But success leads to outrageous behaviour. Pac Hydro was assured by its “experts” that nothing would be found; so, acting the bit of the good, green corporate citizen it agreed to have Cooper do the study, and agreed to provide the operational co-operation that is essential to producing accurate data. Curiously they refused to have the study submitted to a professional journal for peer review – perhaps an afterthought – what if he does find something??? No matter, peer review can be done by, well, peers in the field. And so two of the most respected names in the American acoustical community, Paul Schomer and George Hessler, have published their review of Cooper’s study. Hessler has done numerous noise assessments for wind companies. Schomer is Standards Director Acoustical Society of America.

None of what is published will come as a surprise to the many individuals I encountered who experienced the same sensations resulting in the same symptomatic responses and the entirely rational response of fleeing the scene. Now your observations have been validated by two of the most prominent acousticians in the US. With an ethical obligation to protect the public, one awaits the stampede of engineers to the exits. Some have already done so.

The Results of an Acoustic Testing Program, Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm
Prepared for Energy Pacific by Steve Cooper, The Acoustic Group
A Review of this Study and Where It Is Leading

Paul D. Schomer, Ph.D., P.E.; Schomer and Associates, Inc.; Standards Director, Acoustical Society of America
George Hessler, Hessler Associates, Inc.
10 February 2015

Recently Cooper has completed a first of its kind test regarding the acoustical emissions of wind turbines. His is the first study of effects on people that includes a cooperating windfarm operator in conjunction with a researcher that does not work exclusively for windfarms. This study makes three very simple points:

There is at least one non-visual, non-audible pathway for wind turbine emissions to reach, enter, and affect some people
This is a longitudinal study wherein the subjects record in a diary regularly as a function of time the level of the effects they are experiencing at that time
This periodic recording allows for responses as the wind-turbine power changes up and down, changes not known by the subject

The results are presented in a 218 page report augmented by 22 appendices spread over 6 volumes so that every single detail in the study has been documented for all to see and examine. The methods and results are totally transparent. The 22 appendices and the main text exhaustively document everything involved with this study.

Six subjects, 3 couples from different homes are the participants in this study. They do not represent the average resident in the vicinity of a wind farm. Rather, they are self-selected as being particularly sensitive and susceptible to wind farm acoustic emissions, so much so that one couple has abandoned their house. Cooper finds that these six subjects are able to sense attributes of the wind turbine emissions without there being an audible or visual stimulus present. More specifically, he finds that the subject responses correlate with the wind turbine power being generated but not with either the sound or vibration.

Although the very nature of a longitudinal study provides for a finding of cause and effect, some will undoubtedly argue that a correlation does not show cause and effect. In this case they must postulate some other thing like an unknown “force” that simultaneously causes the wind turbine power being generated and symptoms such as nausea, vertigo, and headaches to change up and down together. But that is the kind of “creative” logic it takes to say that this correlation does not represent cause-and-effect. So, rather than making such groundless arguments, perhaps something like an “expert statistical analysis” can be expected “proving” this is not a “valid sample” of the public at large, or proving the study does not do something else it was neverintended to do.

So it is important to sort out what, by design, this study was intended to do and does do, and what, by design, it was not intended to do and does not do. This study is not in any way a sample of the general population nor is it in any way a sample of the general population in the vicinity of windfarms. According to Cooper’s report, this study was intended to address the issue of complaints from residents in the vicinity of Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm. Pacific Hydro requested the conduct of an acoustic study at 3 residential properties to ascertain any identifiable noise impacts of the wind farm operations or certain wind conditions that could relate to the complaints that had been received. The study was to incorporate three houses that are located between 650 m and 1600 m from the nearest turbine. This research represents a case study at 3 houses, each with one couple, 6 people. This is one sample, and only one sample, of a small group of people who are all self-selected as being very or extremely sensitive to wind turbine acoustic emissions. A similar group could be assembled elsewhere such as in Shirley Wisconsin, USA or Ontario Canada.

This study finds that these 6 people sense the operation of the turbine(s) via other pathways than hearing or seeing, and that the adverse reactions to the operations of the wind turbine(s) correlates directly with the power output of the wind turbine{s} and fairly large changes in power output.

Attempts may be made to obviscate (sic) these simple points with such arguments as it cannot be proved that infra-sound is the cause of the discomfort. But that again is a specious argument. The important point here is that something is coming from the wind turbines to affect these people and that something increases or decreases as the power output of the turbine increases or decreases. Denying infra-sound as the agent accomplishes nothing. It really does not matter what the pathway is, whether it is infra-sound or some new form of rays or electro-magnetic field coming off the turbine blades. If the turbines are the cause, then the windfarm is responsible and needs to fix it. Anyone who truly doubts the results should want to replicate this study using independent[1] acoustical consultants at some other wind farm, such as Shirley Wisconsin, USA, where there are residents who are self-selected as being very or extremely sensitive to wind turbine acoustic emissions.[2]

Some may ask, this is only 6 people, why is it so important? The answer is that up until now windfarm operators have said there are no known cause and effect relations between windfarm emissions and the response of people living in the vicinity of the windfarm other than those related to visual and/or audible stimuli, and these lead to some flicker which is treated, and “some annoyance with noise.” 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. Windfarms will be in the position where they must say: “We may affect some people.” And regulators charged with protecting the health and welfare of the citizenry will not be able to say they know of no adverse effects. Rather, if they choose to support the windfarm, they will do so knowing that they may not be protecting the health and welfare of all the citizenry.

[1] Independent Consultants are those who have worked for both industry and communities, and or have espoused the need for research to sort out the issues of people reacting to non-audible non-visual stimuli.

[2] Cooper’s test shows cause and effect for at least one non-visual, no-audible pathway to affect people. If one only wanted to test for the ability to sense the turning on of wind turbines, and not replicate the cause and effect portion of Cooper’s study, this reduced test could be accomplished in one to two months with a cooperative windfarm where there are residents who are self-selected as being very or extremely sensitive to wind turbine acoustic emissions and who also assert that they have this sensing ability. This study, a subset of the full Cooper tests, would only prove, again, that non-visual, non-auditory pathways exist by which wind turbine emissions may affect the body and “signal” the brain.

Paul D. Schomer, Ph.D., P.E.; and George Hessler

Irrefutable Proof, That Wind Turbine Noise Can Affect Our Health!

February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/unseen-unheard-wind-farms-a-blow-to-health/story-e6frg8y6-1227219122344

Unseen, unheard wind farms

a blow to health

Graham Lloyd

Environment Editor

Sydney

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 review of a study by Steven Cooper of residents living near Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm was undertaken by Paul Schomer, standards director of the Acoustical Society of America.

Dr Schomer’s research has been used to define the dose response and acoustic criteria for road traffic, rail traffic, aircraft traffic and shooting.

As a result of the Cooper research, Dr Schomer said wind farm developers should now say “We may affect some people”.

He said regulators charged with protecting health and welfare “will not be able to say they know of no adverse effects”.

Pacific Hydro has said previously it did accept the Cooper research had established a cause-and-effect link, a claim that was not made in the report.

The National Health and Medical Research Council this week said there was no consistent evidence wind farms caused adverse health effects and further research was needed.

The NHMRC did not review the Cooper research.

Dr Schomer said the Cooper work had shown clearly there was “at least one non-visual, non-audible pathway for wind turbine emissions to reach, enter and affect some people”.

The six people from three households involved in the study had recorded the timing and level of effects they were experiencing.

Their notes had shown that impacts corresponded with wind turbine power changes. The subjects did not know what was happening with the wind turbines when they recorded their notes.

“This study finds these six people sense the operation of the turbine(s) via other pathways than hearing or seeing, and that the adverse reactions to the operations of the wind turbine(s) correlates directly with the power output of the wind turbine(s),” he said.

“The important point here is that something is coming from the wind turbines to affect these people and that something increases or decreases as the power output of the turbine increases or decreases.

“It really does not matter what the pathway is, whether it is infra-sound or some new form of rays or electromagnetic field coming off the turbine blade. If the turbines are the cause, the wind farm is responsible and needs to fix it.”

Dr Schomer said criticism that only a small number of people were involved in the study was not relevant. “One person affected is a lot more than none; the existence of one cause-and-effect pathway is a lot more than none.”

The peer review was co-signed by George Hessler, the president and principal consultant for US acoustics specialist Hessler Associates.

Steven Cooper’s Study, has Windweasels in a Panic! The Truth is Not What they Wanted!

February 12, 2015February 12, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Bombshell Sends Wind Industry into Flat Panic

February 12, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

In the three weeks or so that have passed since Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm noise study hit the press (see our post here) the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers have been in absolute panic mode.

Pacific Hydro – the operator of the Cape Bridgewater disaster, which paid for the study, but deliberately limited its terms of reference – has gone into absolute “damage control” (see our post here).

Having completely underestimated Cooper’s ability and, lulled into its own sense of delusional belief that its victims are simply “making it all up”, Pac Hydro has enlisted the “help” of the usual band of useful idiots, in an effort to manipulate and control the media and its reporting of Cooper’s groundbreaking research.

The wind industry’s shills – like the Clean Energy Council and the Australian/Victorian Wind Alliance (aka Andrew Bray) – clearly haven’t bothered to read the highly technical and detailed study, which, with its six appendices, runs to nearly 800 pages and, in the unlikely event that they have, are clearly incapable of understanding it.

Or, perhaps, the predictable response from the wind industry and its baggage train of parasites is best captured by Upton Sinclair’s pithy observation that:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salarydepends on his not understanding it.”

Moreover, as we have pointed out before, it’s not Cooper’s study they need to worry so much about but the dozens of others that – following his insights – will involve matched control groups; will involve physicians, including sleep specialists, for example; and be scaled up to include dozens, if not hundreds, of victims at wind farms, both in Australia and around the world.

Properly qualified experts (ie those with acoustic and vibration engineering qualifications, with decades of experience in that field) have identified the significance of Cooper’s study; and rightly applauded it for its rigour and insights; despite Pac Hydro’s deliberate efforts to limit the scope and reach of the study (see our post here).

What those in the know have to say contrasts pretty sharply with the shrill press releases and media comments pouring out of the wind industry cheer squad; as you’d naturally expect from people equipped with little more than self-interest, and media and marketing degrees.

But this merry band of media manipulators has well and truly lost control of the media game.

As it is with the wind industry “case” more generally, what these spruikers pitch up rarely stacks up against the true facts; and is full of internal inconsistencies, fluff, guff and good old-fashioned lies.

One of the giveaways is the Clean Energy Council’s response to the study when it started ranting that it “would not support further research” into Cooper’s findings. What on earth are they so afraid of?

It’s a style that has all the persuasive power of Little Britain’s vacillatingQueen of Darkley Noone, Vicky Pollard, whenever she’s put on the spot.

None of which is lost on STT Champion, Annie Gardner who came out with this crystal clear Opinion piece, published in the Hamilton Spectator. Over to Annie.

Hamilton Spectator
Opinion
7 February 2015

Study is World First Research
Ann and Andrew Gardner, Penshurst

I write in response to the article ‘Study “suggests” health and wind farm noise link’ published recently in the Hamilton Spectator.

It would appear that many adverse comments are not related to the study, but opinions proffered from the media release. The study report is very comprehensive and could not be read, absorbed and understood in a few days, let alone a few hours. The same issue of concern would also apply to the Hamilton Spectator, where the facts have unfortunately been misrepresented in the above article.

World first

This study is world first research, where the brief was to work backwards and discover what wind or noise levels agreed with the complaints made by residents at Cape Bridgewater over six years.

The measurement results show what has been known since Dr. Neil Kelley and NASA’s work, funded by the US Dept. of Energy in the 1980’s which originally identified the direct causal relationship between symptoms and sensations and impulsive Infrasound/Low Frequency noise from various sound sources which included wind turbines, gas turbines and military aircraft.

The study has a number of world first claims that are simply ground breaking. This is the first time a wind farm operator has undertaken a “transparent” study where the wind farm worked with residents and provided all the wind farm data and unlimited access to the study team.

Identified problems

The study is the first that has considered sensation as an observation by residents.

This study has identified problems with instrumentation and measurement of infrasound, and has then provided answers and suggested standardisation for other researchers.

Whilst Pacific Hydro are being cautious with their comments, other wind farm proponents or members of the wind energy consortium are being extremely mischievous with their criticism, as reported in this article, of what has been detailed scientific research.

The limitations which the wind industry are busily highlighting are those which were placed on the acoustic engineer Steve Cooper, purely by Pacific hydro, the developer of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm.

The features cited as lacking were –

Large sample size. The brief by Pacific Hydro to Steven Cooper was for ONLY THREE HOUSES to be studied.

Peer review. Pacific Hydro refused to allow Steven Cooper’s study to be peer reviewed.

No control group. There was no control group purely by design of Pacific Hydro.

No assessment of “compliance” with the permit conditions under instructions of Pacific Hydro.

Contrary to the statement in the article (para 3) the observations from the diaries used in the study were not reporting “health complaints”.

Observations

Contrary to the statement in paragraph 10 of the article, the participants were not “made aware of what the wind farms” (there is only one) “were doing whilst their responses were being recorded”.

Contrary to comment in this article by the wind industry representatives, this study can EASILY be replicated at other wind farms, in particular the Macarthur wind farm, in this district.

The symptoms experienced at Macarthur wind farm are IDENTICAL to those which residents at Cape Bridgewater suffer from. Some families living around the Macarthur wind farm have been forced to move away, whilst others are forced to leave their homes repeatedly, in order to get a decent night’s sleep.

Hundreds of complaints

AGL and ALL levels of government and government bodies, in particular the Victorian Health Department, are in receipt of hundreds of complaints from residents at Macarthur, but are in total denial, and have done NOTHING to acknowledge, or rectify this truly unacceptable situation.

The wind farm proponent interviewed had a swipe at the residents making complaints, even when the turbines were turned off and, by not reading the report, failed to identify the qualification of some sensations (of a lower magnitude) and further investigations that showed pulsations in the turbine towers and the ground following wind gusts.

Around the Macarthur wind farm, residents suffer from infrasound emitted by the turbines, even when they’re not operating, similarly to Cape Bridgewater. Even when the turbines are turned off, we feel the same “sensation”, being headaches, ear pressure, nose pressure, heart palpitations, nausea, dizziness etc., and still cannot sleep at night.

Movement

Due to the mammoth scale of these towers, there is movement ALL the time, whether high or low winds, in addition to when they’re turned off. Due to the extreme size of the towers, they still continue to vibrate, thus emitting infrasound waves. The laws of physics show such structures exhibit natural frequencies that are associated with structural resonances in the infrasound region. Nobody with appropriate qualifications and experience can deny this. The residents at Macarthur have comprehensive evidence and noise testing, showing infrasound emitted whilst the turbines are not operating.

The truth is emerging, and will continue to be exposed as more evidence is brought to light, but for those receiving millions of taxpayer dollars, the truth is beginning to hurt, and it appears they are in damage control.
Hamilton Spectator

A Simplifies View of the Recent “Cooper Acoustic Investigation”…. by the Waubra Foundation.

February 3, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Acoustic Engineering Investigation into Airborne and Ground-Borne Pressure Pulses from Pacific Hydro’s Wind Turbines at Cape Bridgewater

Waubra Foundation – 1st February, 2015

1. Background

Turbines create “waste energy” in the form of airborne pressure waves (sound) and ground-borne pressure waves (vibration).
Noise is that part of the sound frequency spectrum which is audible, but “noise” is also defined by psychoacousticians as “unwanted sound”.
The strength (sometimes expressed as a loudness in the case of noise) of the sound is measured in decibels (“dB”).
The wavelength of individual sound waves is a measure of the distance between the peaks of the pressure waves. The speed of sound divided by the wavelength gives the frequency of the sound and is expressed in hertz (Hz).
Where the frequency of the sound waves is below 20 Hz, the distance between the waves is relatively long, and the general term for this portion of the frequency spectrum is known as infrasound. Infrasound is only audible at very high levels (dB). However it can be damaging to the human body at levels well below audibility.
Impulsive infrasound from a variety of industrial sources has long been known to have the potential to be harmful to humans, especially with chronic exposure. For example, human and animal studies have shown infrasound directly causes both physiological stress,i and collagen thickening in a variety of tissues including cardiac valves, arteries, and pericardium which themselves lead to a variety of cardiovascular diseases.ii
Infrasound persists for much greater distances than audible sound and, unlike audible sound, penetrates well insulated building structures (including double glazing) with ease; and often increases the impact by resonating within the house, like a drum.iii iv This occurs, regardless of the source of sound & vibration energy. Penetration of buildings and amplification via resonance can also occur from sound and vibration from natural sources such as earthquakes and thunder.
Standards for wind turbine noise pollution in Australia are set in audible decibels (“dBA”) outside houses.v Use of dBA excludes accurate measurement of frequencies below 200 Hz, including both infrasound (0 – 20 Hz) and low frequency noise (20 – 200 Hz). These Standards do not require infrasound (either within or outside homes) to be predicted in planning submissions nor to be measured in the required compliance testing to the planning permit noise conditions. Most jurisdictions do not require wind turbine generated low frequency noise to be predicted or measured either (unlike other sources of industrial noise). In fact most noise measuring instruments and microphones are unable to measure accurately in the infrasound range, especially below 8 Hz, and some Standards explicitly specify the use of equipment which cannot measure infrasound.
Wind turbines produce infrasound along with audible noise. The morepowerful the wind turbine the greater the proportion of infrasound and low frequency noise emitted,vi which then increases significantly if the turbines are sited too close together, now common practice in Australia.vii Most newer wind turbines are now 3 MW or 3.5 MW, compared to 2MW at Cape Bridgewater.
By the use of different sound meters and microphones, and in narrow (frequency) bands it is quite possible to identify and measure infrasound specifically from wind turbines, in the field. This unique “wind turbine signature” has now been demonstrated by the acoustic consultants involved in the Health Canada Studyviii and by Professor Colin Hansen’s team at Waterloo,ix in addition to Mr Cooper’s measurements at a number of locations in Australia prior to, and including, the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation.
Increasing numbers of residents living within 10km of wind turbines have suffered, and are still suffering, severe adverse health impacts since the wind turbines started operating.x xi Many have left their homes repeatedly, and eventually permanently, to live in greatly diminished financial circumstances, as their homes are no longer habitable or saleable. Some residents become too unwell to work. Wind turbines are not the only source of impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise causing severe health damage. The same pattern of identical serious adverse health effects, sleep deprivation and home abandonments, sometimes out to similar distances are being reported by neighbours to other known sources of infrasound and low frequency noise, at open cut coal mining (eg Hunter Valley in New South Wales), underground mines with large extractor fans (eg Lithgow, in New South Wales), gas turbinepower stations (eg Uranquinty, in New South Wales, Port Campbell in Victoria) and numerous other sources (eg Tara gas field in Queensland).xii
Wind power projects and other energy generating noise polluting industrial developments involve very large sums of money in construction, in revenues and in the case of industrial wind turbines – public subsidies. It is not uncommon to find companies with large investments and large cash flows going to great and improper lengths to maintain their cash flows.
The wind industry has never been asked to prove that their machines are safe, unlike other products on the market. When queries are raised about impacts on neighbours, the industry and its supporters trigger the “Four Ds” of denial, dissemble, delay and destroy the messenger, despite the wind industry being well aware of the seminal research by Dr Neil Kelley and NASA which established direct causation of symptoms from impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines and other sources in the 1980s, by both field and laboratory research.xiii

2. The Purpose of the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation

The purpose of the investigation was simply to find out what was causing the symptoms and sensations, resulting in sleep disturbance and health damage, reported to Pacific Hydro between 2009 and 2014 by the residents of three homes sited between 600 – 1600 metres from wind turbines sited at the Cape Bridgewater Wind Project in Victoria, Australia.xiv

3. What Are the Key Findings of the Cooper Acoustic Investigation?

The findings include:

Please read on

The Not-so-Great, Wind Power Fraud!!! Falling apart at the seams!

January 28, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry RUNS & HIDES as World Wakes Up to the Great Wind Power Fraud

January 28, 2015 by stopthesethings 5 Comments

Around the world, people are waking up to the scale, scope and magnitude of the great wind power fraud.

Rural communities are fighting back hard – in efforts to protect their homes, health and well-being. Their anger extends to the goons that lied their way to development approval – and the bent officials that rubber-stamped their applications and who, thereafter, help the operators ride roughshod over locals’ rights to live in and enjoy the peace and comfort of their own homes and properties (see our post here).

A little while back, the usual response from those opposed to wind farms was along the lines of: “we’re all in favour of renewable energy, so long as wind farms are built in the right place”.

But that was before people understood the phenomenal cost of the subsidies directed at wind power through massive corporate welfare schemes, like Australia’s mandatory LRET (see our post here) – and the impact on retail power prices (see our post here).

Fair minded country people are usually ready to give others the benefit of the doubt; and, not used to being lied to, accepted arguments pitched by wind power outfits about the “merits” of wind power: guff like “this wind farm will power 100,000 homes and save 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions” (see our post here).

Not anymore.

Switched-on people everywhere have cottoned on to the fact that wind power – which can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – is meaningless as a power source because it cannot and will never replace on-demand sources, such as hydro, gas and coal.

And, as a consequence, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector. The wind industry has never produced a shred of actual evidence to show it has; and the evidence that has been gathered shows intermittent wind power causing CO2 emissions to increase, not decrease (see our post here; this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

The realisation that the wind industry is built on series of unsustainable fictions has local communities angrier than ever and helps explain the remarkable numbers opposed: 90% is what’s fairly called a solid “majority” in anybody’s book (see our post here).

Up until now, the lies pitched up endlessly from the wind industry’s well-scripted “playbook” by wind industry parasites – like the American Wind Energy Association (AEWA) and Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC) – among others – have worked a treat.

Wind industry spuikers have been aided and abetted with the aid of the useful idiots that happily parrot for them in the media. You know, the usual ABC wind industry love-ins that occur with remarkable regularity on The Drum; and the sheep-like publication of the endless stream of press releases pumped out, ad nauseam, aimed at “shaping” the debate: aka “churnalism”.

Well, it seems that the wind industry’s spin-doctors are having a harder time of it these days – as real journalists get a grip on the fundamental nature of what is – without a shadow of a doubt – the greatest economicand environmental fraud of all time.

Better still – there are a growing number from the fourth estate with the temerity to call it for what it is; and equally keen to wallop those that have profited handsomely from it.

When finally rumbled by well-briefed journos with the facts of their own infelicities – like any good fraudsters – these hucksters do the only honourable thing: they run and hide.

Here’s a great little report from Michigan Capitol Confidential that shows how – when factual push comes to shove – the wind industry’s “case” turns to water; and its spruikers respond in kind, by slamming doors and slamming down phones.

****

Around the world, people are waking up to the scale, scope and magnitude of the great wind power fraud.

A little while back, the usual response from those opposed to wind farms was along the lines of: “we’re all in favour of renewable energy, so long as wind farms are built in the right place”.

Not anymore.

Better still – there are a growing number from the fourth estate with the temerity to call it for what it is; and equally keen to wallop those that have profited handsomely from it.

When finally rumbled by well-briefed journos with the facts of their own infelicities – like any good fraudsters – these hucksters do the only honourable thing: they run and hide.

Pacific Hydro’s “Monumental Own Goal”: Or How Steven Cooper’s Wind Farm Study Helps Sink the Wind Industry

January 24, 2015 by stopthesethings

In our last post we popped up the study done by Steven Cooper at Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm, that’s sent the wind industry and its parasites into complete melt-down.

And its keenest advocates have turned on Pac Hydro, with the kind of hate-filled vengeance (usually reserved for traitors) for letting Cooper off the leash in the first place (see this rant from the Climate Speculator).

One thing that’s really incensed them is the fact that they’ve completely lost control over the (usually pliant and gullible) media – as seen in this sharp little piece from Channel 7’s Today Tonight – available here.

And here’s a couple more press articles, detailing just what’s causing the frantic-fuss among giant fan advocates and profiteers.

Cape Bridgewater wind farm ‘a health hazard’
The Standard
Peter Collins
22 January 2015

SIX Cape Bridgewater residents involved in groundbreaking research on side-effects of wind farm infrasound have called for the state government to declare the area a health hazard.

They have also called on the federal government to fund new studies on long-term health implications of living near wind farms, of which many are scattered across the south-west.

However, the Australian Wind Alliance, which represents companies associated with the renewable energy industry, has disputed the study findings and described them as speculative.

Acoustic engineer Steven Cooper was commissioned by Pacific Hydro to determine if wind conditions or sound levels caused disturbances identified by residents.

His preliminary findings from eight weeks of monitoring data and residents’ diaries claim to have identified a trend between acoustics produced by turbine blades while generating electricity and sensations reported by the residents.

He also claims to have identified a “signature sound” from turbines below the level of normal hearing which he said should be the basis for medical research.

Alleged health side-effects have been debated for decades. Some residents living nearby the huge towers and turbines have long complained of effects including headaches, nausea, pressures in their head, ears and chest, ringing ears and racing heart.

The Cape Bridgewater residents issued a joint statement yesterday saying the Cooper report also demonstrated that current noise pollution guidelines were useless. “Are we just third-class citizens whose fate it is to become collateral damage to these unsafe machines?” they asked.

“We expect Pacific Hydro will rectify the problems at Cape Bridgewater, address proper compensation for those who have been harmed and join,indeed lead, the drive for reform of regulation of wind power facilities.”

Mr Cooper will present his report to a public meeting at Portland Golf Club on February 16. The wind alliance said the report was based on a narrow band of information and did not account for the sensations described by residents when the turbines were not operating.

“Hundreds of thousands of people live comfortably in close vicinity of wind farms across the world – this report can’t change this,” the alliance said.
The Standard

Among the howlers pitched up by wind industry parasites, the – creepily named – Australian Wind Alliance is this piece of demonstrable rubbish: “Hundreds of thousands of people live comfortably in close vicinity of wind farms across the world”.

No they don’t: see our post here.

And the fact that they don’t “live comfortably in close vicinity of wind farms”, has been admitted by Danish wind power outfits that are buying up homes and villages, calling in the bulldozers and flattening them (seeour post here).

The wind industry in Australia is equally alive to that FACT – and – wherever they’ve had to concede it – they quietly buy out their victims’ properties, bulldoze them (see our post here) and make damn sure they stitch up the unfortunate (homeless) family with bullet proof gag clauses (see our posts here and here) – that their lawyers enforce with the zeal and vigour of the Old GDR’s Stasi (see our post here).

Next is the carping about the report being “narrow” and “speculative”.

STT doubts that the unnamed spruiker from the Australian Wind Alliance has even bothered to read, what is a detailed and technical report, and if they did, they clearly haven’t understood it. Calling a report of 295 pages with 500 pages of Appendices “narrow” suggests the spruiker concerned hasn’t even seen it, let alone read it.

Moreover, as is the want of eco-fascists, these boys have a keen eye for what’s been and gone; but their lack of intellectual equipment generally leads to a failure to consider what comes next: what those with the equipment call “foresight”.

A theme to which we’ll return in a moment, but first, here’s another fine wrap up from Graham Lloyd.

Noise specialist cheers wind farm report
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
23 January 2015

A STUDY of health impacts from low-frequency noise at Victoria’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm is “groundbreaking” and makes “a unique contribution to science”, a noise and health expert says.

Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician qualified to assess health impacts from noise, said the obvious question from the report, written for owner Pacific Hydro, was whether the operation could be modified to reduce or mitigate disturbances to residents.

“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 in a letter to its author, Steven Cooper, and provided to The Australian.

Mr Cooper was asked by Pacific Hydro to assess three households that had complained about impacts from the wind farm.

He used sophisticated recording equipment inside and outside the houses and near the wind turbines and matched the wind farm performance with sensations recorded in diaries by six residents.

In his report, Mr Cooper said the residents’ observations “indicates that the major source of complaint from the operation of the turbines would appear to be related to sensation rather than noise or vibration”.

The impacts were found to be most pronounced when the turbines were starting up, at full power or changing load by more than 20 per cent up or down. The trigger for adverse sensations was identified as 4Hz to 5Hz at 50 decibels, well below the hearing threshold for that frequency.

Mr Cooper said the results were in line with studies in the US on early-model wind turbines and appeared to be the result of instability of the turbine blades, which did not have free air flowing over them.

Due to the small number of residents surveyed, Mr Cooper and the company said, more testing was required. Pacific Hydro has said that it did not accept Mr Cooper’s findings that a “cause and effect” had been established between wind-farm performance and resident complaints.

The Clean Energy Council has dismissed the findings.

Dr Thorne, who has been asked previously to investigate the health concerns of residents living near wind turbines, said the Cooper report “has raised hard questions for Pacific Hydro to discuss with the residents … The development and determination of the concept of ‘sensation’ as distinct from ‘noise’ due to infrasound, low-frequency sound, audible sound or vibration is groundbreaking and unique”, Dr Thorne said.

“The concept has an important place alongside standard measures such as ‘quality of life’ and psycho-acoustical correlates.”

The obvious support from both Pacific Hydro and the residents was the standout feature of the Cooper study, “and it is clear from the text that the outcomes were not envisaged by yourself (Cooper) or study participants”.
The Australian

Good to see the Clean Energy Council adopting the “if we ignore it, it will all go away like a bad dream” approach. But, with what’s to follow, their wind industry clients might reasonably ask for a refund.

STT hears that the spin-kings at the CEC – now headed up by near-bankrupt wind power outfit, Infigen’s head, Miles “Boy” George – are seething at how Pac Hydro let this one get so completely out of control.

Just goes to show, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. The ruckus that’s blown up amongst former team-mates, is a bit like what happens among professional gangsters, when things don’t pan out quite as meticulously as they were planned.

So, how did it end in such a trail of wind industry tears?

After 6 years of being bombarded with hundreds of bitter complaints from residents, Pac Hydro engaged a top-flight “community outrage” management outfit, called Futureye to slam the lid on those complaints (see our post here).

Futureye failed to quash the complaints – the victims’ seething rage and the complaints continued. No surprises there.

Pac Hydro then made a decision which runs entirely counter to everything that appears in the wind industry’s “playbook”.

Pac Hydro decided to give the residents what they wanted: agreeing to pay to engage Steven Cooper to carry out a proper noise study – and to cough up all the wind speed and turbine operational data required for that task – what’s called SCADA data.

In that one move, Pac Hydro turned the “playbook” on its head, rule 1 of which says:

never, ever, ever cooperate with independent noise studies;
under no circumstances will a wind power outfit hand over wind speed and turbine operational data for any such study (or at all, ever);
if faced with any heat to do so, the operator must automatically claim “commercial-in-confidence” over (wait for it) wind speed measurements etc; and
unless and until hell freezes over, no wind power outfit is to shut down wind turbines to allow for meaningful on/off noise and vibration testing, ever.

Although, we note, the “on-off testing” that occurred at Cape Bridgewater was the result of a two-week shutdown related to high voltage cabling work associated with the wind farm; rather than any deliberate decision on Pac Hydro’s part – much like the “lucky break” that occurred at Waterloo, SA last year (see our post here).

So why did Pac Hydro do it?

STT hears that the boys from Marshall Day and Sonus – Pac Hydro’s pet acoustic consultants – took the view that Steven Cooper would never find anything; their own testing showed that the wind farm was “compliant” with the noise standard; that the infrasound produced by the turbines was the same as that produced by waves on a moonlit beach; the whole thing was like a zephyr in a thimble; and that it would all blow over soon enough – so why not let Cooper have the data and knock himself out?

Hubris can lead to destructive over-confidence; and that can easily lead the sufferer into unforced errors – just like this one. Oops!

And this little boo-boo leads to COMPENSATION time.

As we pointed out above, the wind industry – and the eco-fascists that parrot for it – score high on the register for carping and moaning about matters immediate; but tend to lack the intellectual finesse needed to forecast anything that might pop up from the other side of the horizon.

Sure, this study was limited to 6 long-suffering people and a period of 8 weeks, but as we pointed out in our last post, what Steven Cooper achieved at Cape Bridgewater is easily capable of being:

reproduced;
scaled up to include more homes and residents;
further validated and supported with the inclusion of a representative cohort as a control group in any further study; and
therefore, repeated, validated and extended, both here, and all around the world.

And that is what is going to allow for a raft of litigation, pursued by hundreds of wind farm victims around the Globe.

In the distance, STT can hear the gleeful sound of lawyers opening files, already.

The evidence gathered so far at Cape Bridgewater – and that which will be gathered in reams, both elsewhere in Australia and around the world – will provide lawyers with precisely the kind of ammunition needed to slot just about everybody that is involved with – or who has profited from – the great wind power fraud.

The grounds for liability to victims are pretty straightforward: common law claims in nuisance and/or negligence (for starters) to obtain substantial damages for personal injury – caused by either – for pain and suffering, loss of amenity and enjoyment of life etc – as well as very substantial damages for the loss of the use and benefit of homes; diminution in the value of those homes and properties; relocation costs etc, etc.

The defendants in the gun will include:

the wind power outfits concerned;
the landowners hosting the turbines that cause the damage;
local Councils (where they are responsible for approving noise conditions and/or enforcing them);
State government Planning Departments (where they are responsible for approving noise conditions and/or enforcing them);
authorities, such as Environmental Protection Authorities (where they have either been involved in the creation – and/or (non)-enforcement – of wind farm noise standards);
acoustic experts engaged by the wind industry for their manifest failure to protect the health and well-being of wind farm neighbours – part of their (purported) ethical responsibilities, and especially those involved in the production of the noise standards;
State Health Departments, etc.

In short, a veritable cast of ‘thousands’. And behind them (with the exception of turbine hosts) stand a phalanx of insurers and underwriters – who will, no doubt, be taking a good hard look at their exposure.

Pac Hydro, Infigen & Co are already in a world of financial pain (see our post here).

Pac Hydro is backed by IFM Investors – which last year announced a $685 million profit forecast write-down due to the collapse in the value of its Pac Hydro wind farm investments. Pac Hydro has had $220 million knocked off its value due to “uncertainty” surrounding the RET (see our post here).

And things for these cowboys – and wind power outfits everywhere – can only get worse from here.

The word that investors and lenders need to sear into their cognitive machinery is simple and – wherever the big bucks are involved – profane: we’re talking about RISK.

STT hears that commercial lending institutions in Australia have slammed the door on wind power outfits looking for the cash needed to fund new wind farms for very good reasons (see our post here). What blew up at Cape Bridgewater will simply reinforce that attitude – banks will not touch wind power outfits with a barge pole from here on.

Now, while wind farm victims have the opportunity of slamming those responsible in private litigation, STT begs the poser: why should the victims of a government sponsored subsidy scheme have to pay upfront to be compensated for their inevitable suffering and losses?

These are the boys who have sought to evade and avoid any kind of reasonable controls on their operations.

From the outset, they’ve made every effort to ensure that irrelevant and, therefore, woefully inadequate noise standards were adopted and are maintained; refused to cooperate whenever victims are trying to impose even those woeful standards; and who now – like the Clean Energy Council and the Australian Wind Alliance – are quick to pooh-pooh Steven Cooper’s study on obviously spurious grounds; and who will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent any possibility of the same thing ever happening again.

Remember, governments set this mess up in the first place; and, therefore, it is well within their power to clean it up and put things right.

And now is the hour.

Fortunately, all these matters and more are on the radar and squarely in the sights of the Senate Select Committee, it’s terms of reference including the following:

…

(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 Medical Research 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;

(i) any related matter.

If, like those unfortunates at Cape Bridgewater, you are suffering from, or are threatened by, turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – then you’ve got chance to have your say on:

the ‘standards’ and planning ‘controls’ that are so lax as to be risible;
the callous conduct of wind power outfits, like Pac Hydro & Co;
the institutional corruption that not only permits, but which actively defends that conduct;
the losses you have suffered, or are likely to suffer, as a result of the above;
why there should be mandatory compensation payable to wind farm neighbours for all such losses (incurred or anticipated) caused by wind power generators; and
that the compensation payable should come from a fund set-up through a mandatory levy placed on the RECs received by all wind power generators.

So why not get in there and hammer them, by dropping a detailed submission to the Senate Inquiry along those lines?

Note that the opportunity to make submissions to the Committee ends on 27 February 2015. See the link here.

	How The Climate Grif… on There is NO Global Warming…
	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
	William Hooi on Germany’s Renewable Energy Dis…
	Jessica on Issues for Landowners to Consi…
	Raymond on Poorest Families Left Powerles…

"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

Children Deserve Protection!

Acoustics experts.

Wind Pushers in “Panic Mode”. Aussies Planning to Make them Liable for Damages!

Top Acoustics Professor Calls for Full Compensation for Wind Farm Victims, as Council Calls for “National Noise Cops”

Steven cooper Discusses the Results of His Wind Turbine Study!

Today Tonight Report on Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Study

Wind Pushers Desperate to Deny the Negative Health Risks from Wind Turbines!

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

Steven Cooper has Windweasels on the Run! Truth is the Windpusher’s Enemy!

A stampede to the exits

Irrefutable Proof, That Wind Turbine Noise Can Affect Our Health!

Unseen, unheard wind farms

a blow to health

Graham Lloyd

Steven Cooper’s Study, has Windweasels in a Panic! The Truth is Not What they Wanted!

Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Bombshell Sends Wind Industry into Flat Panic

A Simplifies View of the Recent “Cooper Acoustic Investigation”…. by the Waubra Foundation.

Acoustic Engineering Investigation into Airborne and Ground-Borne Pressure Pulses from Pacific Hydro’s Wind Turbines at Cape Bridgewater

1. Background

2. The Purpose of the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation

3. What Are the Key Findings of the Cooper Acoustic Investigation?

The Not-so-Great, Wind Power Fraud!!! Falling apart at the seams!

Wind Industry RUNS & HIDES as World Wakes Up to the Great Wind Power Fraud

Wind Pushers Everywhere Terrified That the Truth Will Be Known to All!

What REAL Experts are Saying About Steven’s Cooper’s Wind Farm Noise Study

Wind Weasels in “Damage Control Mode”, After Wind Farm Study!

Pacific Hydro’s “Monumental Own Goal”: Or How Steven Cooper’s Wind Farm Study Helps Sink the Wind Industry

Top Acoustics Professor Calls for Full Compensation for Wind Farm Victims, as Council Calls for “National Noise Cops”

Today Tonight Report on Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Study

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

Share this:

A stampede to the exits

Unseen, unheard wind farms

a blow to health

Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Bombshell Sends Wind Industry into Flat Panic

1. Background

2. The Purpose of the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation

3. What Are the Key Findings of the Cooper Acoustic Investigation?

Wind Industry RUNS & HIDES as World Wakes Up to the Great Wind Power Fraud

What REAL Experts are Saying About Steven’s Cooper’s Wind Farm Noise Study

Pacific Hydro’s “Monumental Own Goal”: Or How Steven Cooper’s Wind Farm Study Helps Sink the Wind Industry