unaffordable renewables

Hard-Hitting Probe, Into the True Impact of Wind Turbines…

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Special Investigation: Toxic wind turbines

BY DEREK LAMBIE, 23 MARCH 2014
  • Evidence has revealed environmental cost of wind farms.Getty Images

Part Two of The Sunday Post’s hard-hitting probe into the true impact of wind farms.

Damning evidence of wind farms polluting the Scottish countryside can today be revealed by The Sunday Post.

Scotland’s environmental watchdog has probed more than 100 incidents involving turbines in just six years, including diesel spills, dirty rivers, blocked drains and excessive noise.

Alarmingly, they also include the contamination of drinking water and the indiscriminate dumping of waste, with warning notices issued to a handful of energy giants.

The revelations come just a week after our investigation showed

£1.8 billion in Government subsidies have been awarded to operators to build turbines since Alex Salmond took office in 2007.

Anti-wind farm campaigners yesterday insisted Scotland’s communities are now “under siege” and demanded an independent inquiry into the environmental damage.

Murdo Fraser MSP, convener of Holyrood’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, said: “I am both surprised and concerned by the scale of these incidents.

“The fact there were more than 100 complaints is a dismal record.

“This should serve as a wake-up call that wind energy is not as clean and green as is being suggested.”

He added: “What’s worse is that the current Scottish Government seems to have an obsession about wind power and the expansion in the number of turbines shows no signs of relenting any time soon.”

Promotion of green energy, particularly the growth of onshore and off-shore wind farms, has been one of the SNP’s key policies since 2007.

The Scottish Government’s target is to generate the equivalent of 100% of the country’s electricity consumption, and 11% of heat demand, from renewables by 2020.

In recent years, ministers have invested heavily in the sector, insisting Scotland has a quarter of all of Europe’s wind energy potential.

But wind power is becoming increasingly unpopular, with giant turbines now scattered across much of the Scottish countryside.

There are now 219 operational wind farms in Scotland, with at least 2,400 turbines between them.

Moray has the most sites, with 20 in operation, while Orkney has the most turbines, with 600 across the archipelago, although the majority are owned by farmers and other individuals.

Now, we can reveal the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has investigated 130 ‘pollution reports’ connected to wind farms or turbines over the past six years. In June 2012, elevated levels of the banned insecticide Dieldrin were found in samples from a private drinking water supply in Aberdeenshire.

A redacted SEPA report, obtained under Freedom of Information, states: “It was noted a wind turbine had recently been erected by the nearby farmer.”

Run-off from the construction of a wind farm near Loch Fyne in February 2012 caused concern that fish had stopped feeding, with SEPA officers discovering a burn was “running brown” and that “a noticeable slick on Loch Fyne was visible”.

In another incident in November 2011, 1,000 litres of oil leaked from a turbine at the Clyde wind farm in Abington, Lanarkshire, resulting in an emergency clean-up operation.

Warning letters have been sent by the environment agency to a number of operators, including Siemens, after another fuel spill at the same 152-turbine site four months later.

A report on that incident states: “Siemens…maintained it was under control. However…operators who then visited the area did not see any action being taken and fuel ponding at the base of the generator”.

A warning was issued to Scottish and Southern Energy in February 2011 after the Tombane burn, near the Griffin wind farm in Perthshire, turned yellow as a result of poor drainage.

The same firm was sent another letter in June that year after SEPA found high levels of silt in a burn near a wind farm in Elvanfoot, Lanarkshire.

Officers also then discovered “significant damage” to 50 metres of land and found “the entire area had been stripped of vegetation” as a result of unauthorised work to divert water.

Other incidents investigated since 2007 include odours, excessive noise from turbines and heavy goods vehicles and the indiscriminate dumping of waste and soil.

Dr John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that publishes data on the energy sector, said: “The new information from SEPA deepens concerns about the corrupting effect of overly generous subsidies to wind power.

“Many will wonder whether wind companies are just too busy counting their money to take proper care of the environment.”

Linda Holt, spokeswoman for action group Scotland Against Spin, said: “A lot of environmentalists actually oppose wind farms for reasons like this. If you go to wind farms they are odd, eerie, places that drive away wildlife, never mind people.

“The idea they are environmentally-friendly is not true — they can be hostile. We have always suspected they can do great harm to the landscape and now we have proof.”

Officials at SEPA stressed not all 130 complaints were found to be a direct result of wind farms, with some caused by “agricultural and human activities” near sites and others still unsubstantiated.

A spokesman added: “While a number of these complaints have been in connection with individual wind farms these are generally during the construction phase of the development and relate to instances of increased silt in watercourses as a result of run-off from the site.

“SEPA, alongside partner organisations, continues to actively engage with the renewable energy industry to ensure best practice is followed and measures put in place to mitigate against any impact on the local water environment.”

Joss Blamire, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, insisted the “biggest threat” to the countryside is climate change and not wind farms.

He added: “Onshore wind projects are subject to rigorous environmental assessments. We work closely with groups, including SEPA, the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage to ensure the highest conservation and biodiversity standards are met.”

• The revelations come just months after evidence emerged of contamination in the water supply to homes in the shadow of Europe’s largest wind farm.

People living near Whitelee, which has 215 turbines, complained of severe vomiting and diarrhoea with water samples showing high readings of

E. Coli and other coliform bacteria.

Tests carried out between May 2010 and April last year by local resident Dr Rachel Connor, a retired clinical radiologist, showed only three out of 36 samples met acceptable standards.

Operators ScottishPower denied causing the pollution, but admitted not warning anyone that drinking water from 10 homes in Ayrshire was, at times, grossly contaminated.

Dr Connor said: “I would expect this likely contamination of drinking water must be happening all over Scotland.

“If there is not an actual cover-up, then there is probably complacency to the point of negligence by developers and statutory authorities.”

 

Michigan Wind Turbine Company in Legal Trouble….for NOISE!!

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Court Backs Finding Of Wind Turbine Noise Problem

Lake Winds energy plant in Mason County now has to mitigate noise of its windmills

By JACK SPENCER | June 28, 2014

The Lake Winds Energy Plant in Mason County.

Michigan’s 51st Circuit Court has ruled that Mason County was justified in determining that wind turbines at the Lake Winds Industrial Wind Plant near Ludington are too noisy.

In his June 16 decision, Judge Richard Cooper denied Consumer Energy’s appeal to have the court overturn the county’s finding that the wind plant was exceeding the county’s established decibel level limits.

In a highly technical explanation, Judge Cooper said it was reasonable for the county to take into account the impact of maximum wind speeds that are not outside the norm. He also rejected the argument that excessive noise levels occurring only during certain periods of time should be allowed.

Lake Winds is a 56-turbine facility located south of Ludington. It was the utility company’s first wind plant project in Michigan. Residents who live near the $255 million plant began complaining of health problems shortly after the turbines began operating. They filed a lawsuit on April 1, 2013, arguing that noise, vibrations and flickering lights emanating from the wind plant were adversely affecting their health. Among the symptoms noted in the lawsuit were dizziness, sleeplessness and headaches.

In September 2013, the Mason County Planning Commission determined that the wind plant was not in compliance with safety guidelines. CMS Energy, which is the parent company of Consumers Energy, then appealed that decision to the Mason County Zoning Board of Appeals and lost. In January, CMS took the case to court and it has now lost again.

CMS spokesman Dennis Marvin said the utility has yet to decide whether it will appeal Judge Cooper’s decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

“Obviously, we were disappointed by the decision,” Marvin said. “We are still evaluating whether or not to appeal. In accordance with the court’s ruling we are cooperating with Mason County on our mitigation plan.”

Mason County has hired experts to continue tests at the wind plant. However, because wind speeds are generally low in the summer the testing isn’t likely to resume until September, at the earliest. Under the mitigation plan, affected wind turbines are now operating at reduced power levels to lower the sound level.

“CMS energy has no one to blame but themselves,” said Kevon Martis, director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, a non-profitorganization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region. “The citizens living inside Lake Winds wind plant paid for independent noise studies of the project before it was built. Independent analysis demonstrated that the turbines would not only exceed the noise ordinance as proposed by CMS and adopted by Mason County but that the turbine noise would create widespread complaints and result in legal action by those subjected to this industrial development in a rural environment.”

Lake Winds is part of the utility’s effort to meet Michigan’s renewable energy mandate, which requires that 10 percent of the state’s energy be produced by in-state renewable sources by 2015. Though the mandate was ostensibly aimed at reducing carbon emissions, the 2008 law did not require that emissions be monitored to measure the mandate’s actual impact.

“This should be a warning that there is a price to be paid for ignoring the clear acoustical science that predicted this social disaster long before the first shovel of dirt was ever turned,” Martis said.

~~~~~

When it comes to Wind Turbines….there is NO democracy!!

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Windfarms and local democracy

April 2, 2014

Scotland Against Spin windfarm image Apr 2014 approved for reproduction

By LINDA HOLT

Scottish wind policy has been on a collision course with local democracy for a long time. The Scottish Government has promoted wind energy via target-led, developer-led planning policies instead of a plan-led system with clear restrictions on development, which is what planning is supposed to be about.

Instead there are so many holes in wind planning policy at national level (and often due to expressed or feared central government insistence at local authority level) that to call it a sieve would be to pay it a compliment.

Everything has to be considered on a case-by-case basis and every wind developer argues that his guideline-busting, spatial-plan-busting proposal is a special case, given the overriding nature of the Government’s 2020 renewables targets. Local authorities and reporters are inclined to agree often enough to make repeated punts at several hundred thousand pounds a shot worthwhile.

Scottish Governments have brazenly politicized the consenting process by appropriating the Electricity Act of 1989 to bypass (what remains of) the democratic planning process. The Act allows ministers to consent windfarms over 50 MW (and their extensions) ‘in the national interest’.

It was meant to ensure that NIMBY problems would not stop major power stations, which the country clearly needed, from going ahead. But a 50MW wind farm does not produce anything like the energy of a nuclear power station or even a small gas-fired power station.

In fact while the latter can produce its nameplate capacity or very close to it, no windfarm on earth produces its nameplate capacity for any length of time. Average annual output is very rarely even the 30% of nameplate capacity developers routinely claim and usually closer to 20%. In other words, applying the 1989 Acts to windfarms whose actual capacity is under 50MW is a democratic cheat to get more windfarms built.

The Scottish Government knows people aren’t happy. As with other troubling aspects of wind development, it has commissioned a study to pilot an alternative model for democratic engagement: citizens’ juries. SAS sits on the stewarding board, and Graham Lang has been a witness for three different juries in different parts of Scotland.

The leader of the research Oliver Escobar is speaking at a public event shortly in Edinburgh which seeks to ‘reclaim local democracy’.

According to an industry publication ‘the wind industry in Scotland is single-mindedly focused on delivering every last ounce of onshore and offshore capacity before the Renewables Obligation goes dark in three years’ time’. As the pace of wind development hots up as never before, the Scottish Government is sitting on its hands. Commissioning studies, laudable as they are, looks like fiddling while Rome burns.

Meanwhile those directly affected are taking matters into their own hands. Various legal actions against wind farm consents are underway following in the trailblazing footsteps of Aileen Jackson, Christine Metcalfe, Sally Carroll, Donald Trump and Sustainable Shetland.

Communities are also rising up. Recently, SAS were at a public meeting of Dunkeld and Birnam Community Council where voters called their local MSP John Swinney to account over allowing their iconic area to be besieged by 10 new wind farm developments.

Swinney tried to hide behind the ministers’ code of conduct and to pretend we have a clear and robust planning system for wind, but residents who already have Griffin and Calliacher windfarms on their doorsteps were not convinced. As this newsletter goes topress, another unprecedented communities’ meeting has been called to resist wind development in the Angus Glens.

The Scottish Government should be in no doubt that community councils the length and breadth of Scotland will be following Dumfries & Galloway’s lead. The cries of ‘Enough isenough!’ and ‘We can’t cope’ are growing. Paid employees in the Scottish Government, local authorities, SNH, SEPA and other official agencies cannot say so publicly but we know many agree.

LINDA HOLT is press officer for Scotland Against Spin

Noise Makes People Fat! Where are the Earplugs? LOL!

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Noise makes you Fat!

Posted on 27/06/2014

planes over londonForget the sugar folks. Three in my tea please! A recent study has come out with the conclusion that Noise makes you fat. There is nearly a centimetre increase for every ten-decibel rise in the noise levels. Is that why the most obese people live in cities? And I thought it was Big Macs and daytime television! Seriously though this study from Imperial College, London, does raise serious concerns, not lost on those suffering noise ‘pollution’ from wind turbines. Although the target of this study is urban, there is a fundamental difference in that the background noise from wind turbines issues is usually very low. That suggests that the often lower figures from  wind farms are as debilitating as those higher, 50-60 decibels, experienced in cities and around airports. There was another radio program recently that identified the fact that neurones are the bodies receptors to noise. In many circumstances they can blanket the noise after a short while as the body adapts to it’s environment. Walk into a noisy room and you can’t here what anyone is saying but after a few minutes we adapt and can hold a conversation. This adaption though can increase our stress levels and tire us more quickly. Just because we adapt to the noise does not mean it is not affecting our bodies. The School of Public Health at Imperial College London found that being exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise around Heathrow raised the risk of admission to hospital for heart disease by 20 percent, and yet people think they have learnt to live with it. We have variances with families with one partner badly affected and the other oblivious to any noise. What we should be asking is, are the impacts on health the same or different. We might find the answer is disturbing. So far the BMA, which has just moved it’s investments from fossil fuel to renewables, and the Government have chosen not to properly fund research into these issues. As well as the more obvious noise we have to address those low frequency, low level infrasound which has been known for years can have serious impacts on the human body. That is why they were used as a form of torture. What is unsettling is that noise pollution can affect you without you even consciously hearing it. Changes in noise, change of wind direction, a turbine starting may not wake us but our natural instincts, back from Stone Age man, causes the heart rate to increase, the blood to thicken and induces stress. Our fight or flight reaction to danger. I think a noticeable question on why you can live with a baby crying; most women would tell you even that has limits; the loud music of a disco or the health debilitating issue of wind farms can be identified as “nuisance noise” – you don’t seek it out or enjoy it. Now the question you all want answered. Can I blame the wind turbine noise on my expanding waistline? Last month, scientists from Karolinska University found an even more dramatic effect from plane noise. After tracking more than 5 000 people for ten years, they reported that the waistlines of those most exposed to plane noise increased on average by 6cm. Well over the last ten years it would be difficult to blame that on the noise but what is a fact is that stress induces comfort eating. A piece of chocolate makes you feel better ( a bar makes you feel sick!). So on that report I would suggest a certain caution. But hey, if the excuse works for you! What is pretty obvious though is that noise that causes sleep deprivation, also causes health issues. The decibel levels linked to health problems such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes and risk of hypertension don’t seem too high but do affect heart rate and stress, especially when intermittent, as experienced from Turbines.  Many turbine related health issues are stress related and dismissed by the industry as psychosomatic.  What we never chose was to have wind farms foisted upon us so the issue of “nuisance noise” is exceedingly relevant.

At this time the health implications of noise, be they psychosomatic or not, are not adequately addressed in planning. The industry statement that no proof of health issues exists is patently inaccurate and out of date. The first report on health implication goes back to a US study in 1987 and various peer reviewed studies have been released since them. Why do the politicians, councillors, planners and many in the Medial profession adopt such an ostrich like demeanour.  One day this may well bite them on the backside with numerous class actions for literally billions of pounds in damages because they never followed the precautionary principle! Perhaps one day soon those no win no fee adverts on TV will be all about “Are you affected by a Wind Farm?” Phone us and collect £zillions.

Wind Turbine Protesters in the UK, Were Able to Stop the Project! Yaaayyyyy!!

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DEVELOPER DROPS WINDFARM PLANS AFTER PROTEST CAMPAIGN

By Jenny Barwise

Last updated at 14:16, Thursday, 26 June 2014

People power has triumphed for hundreds of objectors against a windfarm development, as the company behind the scheme pulled its appeal at the eleventh hour.

Weddicar photo

Weddicar site

Plans for the £17 million Weddicar Rigg windfarm, near Whitehaven, were revealed three years ago.

Since then a fierce battle has raged between protesters and the developers, Banks Renewables.

Six hundred people lodged objections against the scheme, earmarked for land between Moresby Parks and Frizington, and it looked as though they had won as Copeland councillors threw the plans out on the grounds of negative visual impact.

The company lodged an appeal but after a six-day inquiry, the Secretary of State upheld Copeland’s decision.

Banks Renewables carried on its fight saying it would take the case to the High Court in London to appeal the grounds of the process, and a date was set for a hearing this month.

The Durham-based company has now made a U-turn and has withdrawn its challenge with “immediate effect”.

Phil Dyke, development director at Banks Renewables, said he still believed there was a “strong case” to put before the High Court, but that in the present political climate was “unlikely” to get a satisfactory outcome for the project as a whole.

The news has been welcomed by those who resisted the development.

Moresby councillor Geoff Blackwell, said he was pleased that Banks have “at last accepted” that the earmarked land was not the “right location”.

“I would like to thank all those people who had taken the time to respond in writing to the planning department and turn up at the planning panel and planning inquiry to put their views forward,” added Mr Blackwell.

“I feel that the right decision has at last been accepted.”

David Colborn, chair of Friends of Rural Cumbria’s Environment, said: “The voice of local people has for too long been ignored by the developers of both windfarms and single turbines.

“They have a history of riding roughshod over local opinion and have attempted to justify their schemes with the promise of ‘community funds’.

“The reality is that no amount of money can compensate for the misery that is caused to people living near turbines, let alone the devaluation of their properties.”

Mr Dyke said that Banks Renewables would look at ways in the future to bring the “very well-designed” and “sensibly-located” scheme forward again.

First published at 14:13, Thursday, 26 June 2014
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co

We are Wasting Precious Time and Money on Faux-Green Renewables!

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June 27, 2014

Photovoltaic Energy Is Not Renewable Energy

By David Archibald

Photovoltaic (PV) power is created from a burst of coal-sourced energy priced at 4 cents/kWh, which you get back as an intermittent and declining dribble over the following 20 years at 15 cents/kWh.  The numbers vary with location, but the basic relationship remains the same – at best, the energy produced by PV panels is at least four times the cost of the power consumed in making them.

That is one thing.  The main thing is that over their lifetimes, PV panels now produce slightly more energy than what it took to make them.

So a civilization that relies upon PV power is just getting its energy back, but at four times the cost.  If PV power were used only to make PV panels, and even assuming no energy losses in the process, then PV power at 15 cents/kWh would produce panels that made power at 60 cents per kWh, and so on to infinity.  So there is nothing renewable about PV power.

There are some applications in PV power is very useful, such as pumping irrigation water, in which the requirement is too small to justify a diesel pump or the cost of extending grid power to the site.  In fact, PV power is well under the cost of power from diesel – you just can’t access it at a time of your choosing.  It also has a role where high-priced grid power and reticulation costs make it competitive.  But it can’t pretend to be renewable or sustainable.  Apart from those niche applications, it bleeds energy and treasure from our civilisation.

The economics of wind power might be a net positive, but a wind-powered economy would have a standard of living similar to that of 17th-century Holland.  One rule of thumb is that each megawatt of wind power used in the grid requires half a megawatt of gas turbine backup.  That is why some of the major oil companies have been so much in favor of renewable energy.  It tricks us into burning a higher-cost fossil fuel.

Making cheap energy from a process requires that the energy produced from that process be at least five times the amount of energy that went into making it.  Anything less than that, and civilization will go backward very rapidly.  Instead of mandating renewable energy and installing PV panels, we should be concentrating on developing the technology that will sustain civilization in the post-fossil fuel eternity.

In that regard, we have a choice: either plutonium breeder reactors or thorium breeder reactors.  We should make the choice and get on with it.

David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).

Aussies to Scrap the Carbon Tax, next it’s the Renewable Energy Targets!

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PM’s Top Advisor – Maurice Newman – Hammers Palmer’s “Inconsistent” RET Plan

June 27, 2014 by  2 Comments

the_sting_3_newman_redford

As the dust settles on the Palmer/Gore circus of the bizarre, it’s now evident that the PUP’s leader has pulled one the greatest confidence tricks since Paul Newman and Robert Redford joined forces in “The Sting”. As the hard-green-left stared in awe at their grand warming alarmist, Palmer slipped through the net unnoticed.

It was a good 24 hours before the green-lefty press (Fairfax/ABC) and the Greens worked out that they’d been had. The play was a good ol’ fashioned “swithcheroo”. Clive put forward an ETS with the impression – sucked up by the Greens and their acolytes – that this was a die-in-a-ditch condition for supporting the Coalition’s plan to abolish the carbon tax. So far, so “green”.

But – as with most politics – the Devil’s in the detail. With the price for a tonne of CO2 under Clive’s ETS set at zero until all of Australia’s major trading partners also sign up to an international ETS, there will be NO price placed on CO2 at all: not now; not ever. Good one, Clive. To the horror of the Greens, it soon became clear that even that “policy” was a rubbery as Clive’s ample figure.

By lunchtime on Thursday, big Clive had dropped his demand to have his ETS replace the “carbon” tax, when repealed. The “carbon” tax will hit the legislative scrapheap within weeks – without a whimper; to be replaced by nothing: the “Sting”, complete.

There is, however, the small matter of the mandatory RET – which – as covered in detail in our last post – Palmer seems keen to support – at least for the moment.

The mandatory RET will see power prices double again between now and 2020, when the target hits the full annual 41,000 GWh target. The risk to the economy is something we’ve been banging on about for some time now. And it’s a matter not lost on the PM, Tony Abbott’s top business advisor, Maurice Newman – among others.

Here’s The Australian on the risk to real businesses in maintaining the mandatory RET.

Palmer’s RET policy ‘too costly for businesses’
The Australian
Annabel Hepworth
27 June 2014

THE head of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council has warned the Palmer United Party’s plan to retain key climate-change policies is at odds with getting electricity prices down and boosting industry competitiveness.

In the wake of Clive Palmer’s move to back the repeal of Labor’s carbon price, Maurice Newman said the carbon tax repeal should lower costs on businesses and households. “But it’s only part of the story,” he said, arguing that “we need to go a lot, lot further”.

He criticised the plan to oppose any changes to the renewable energy target before 2016 and to block the government’s plans to scrap Labor’s $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Climate Change Authority.

“Mr Palmer seems to want to hang on to them, which seems totally inconsistent with this idea of bringing down the price of energy,” Mr Newman said.

Australia needed to reduce its energy prices. “Australia is getting less and less competitive … We’ve got a very high wage structure and we’ve got very high energy costs.”

Other leading business figures lined up to back the warning on the RET, which is being reviewed by an expert panel headed by businessman Dick Warburton.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Kate Carnell said it was “enormously expensive”.

EnergyAustralia chairman Graham Bradley said it was “a very good thing” the carbon tax was likely to go swiftly, but that the RET should be changed to a “real” 20 per cent.

Executives at EnergyAustralia, which owns the Yallourn brown coal power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, estimated that ­delivering the required investment in renewables to meet the target would require a fivefold increase on past investment.

“We don’t believe this is achievable without driving up the cost of renewable energy,” group executive manager of strategy and corporate affairs Clare Savage said.

Mr Palmer’s single condition for his support for the carbon tax repeal is a legal requirement that power companies pass savings from scrapping the tax to households. This would go beyond government plans to give the competition watchdog extra monitoring arrangements in the carbon tax repeal.

Energy Supply Association chief executive Matthew Warren said: “It is not clear to us what other head of power the commonwealth could use, as regulating energy prices is a matter for state governments,” Mr Warren said.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox raised concerns most businesses had been unable to pass carbon costs to their customers.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission should “not expect reductions in prices for those goods and services that never rose in the first place”.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said he was confident that when the carbon tax repeal passed the savings would be passed on.
The Australian

A while back, Maurice Newman identified the mandatory RET as the Elephant in the room – tagging it as being responsible for the demise of motor manufacturer, Ford and lots of other energy intensive businesses (see our posts here and here and here).

The mandatory RET must go. As retiring Queensland Senator, Ron Boswell put it: “We can have a carbon price and renewable energy targets or viable manufacturing. We can’t have both” (see our post here).

maurice-newman

 

Excellent Open Letter to B.M.A., by Christine Metcalfe.

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Open letter to President of BMA

Credit:  Christine Metcalfe, 21.06.14. ~~

 

Dear Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran,

Although a very short time has elapsed since receipt of the last BMA reply on behalf of Mr. Bourne, it has been spent in serious thought and deep discussion with colleagues. Revisiting all reports and past research has made it possible here to give only a ‘tip of the iceberg/snapshot’ overview of these rapidly burgeoning problems. Please be aware that this final request is therefore made not only on behalf of the rising numbers of people suffering harm, but the many destined to join them should nothing be done to avert this. Health professionals, technical expects, engineers and others strive to have the implications of their valid findings fully understood by more of their peers and most importantly, the public.

This is why the decision was made to write to you as President of the BMA, to ensure your organisation’s attention is focused on an increasingly important health subject – namely the adverse health effects from exposure to operating wind turbines. I am referring specifically to wind turbine noise which includes infrasound and low frequency noise, which are not currently measured by the current noise pollution guidelines and regulations in the UK, (ETSU 97) despite wind industry knowledge since the 1980’s resulting from the NASA/Kelley research in the USA that wind turbine impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise directly caused a range of “annoyance” symptoms including sleep disturbance.

Responses received from your organisation’s Public Affairs Officer, reportedly from your CEO, appear to be using various pretexts to avoid both addressing this issue, and answering my specific questions. It will hopefully be understood that no offence to staff who have replied as instructed, is intended. With respect, it remains the case that, to my knowledge, neither your CEO nor your public affairs officer have medical degrees, and therefore are not bound by the medical codes of ethics which include the proviso to “first do no harm”.

The current widespread practice in the UK of continuing to ignore this issue is doing immense harm to the health of an increasing number of rural residents. Urban areas will become involved if current separation distances (only advised)remain and developments are installed near larger populations.

Despite the fact that no motions are currently on the table for your ARM, deliberately ignoring the issues I am raising demonstrates an alarming attempt by your organisation’s paid employees to evade a responsibility incumbent upon your organisation’s stated remit to inform members. It is clear that the BMA have a duty midway between resistance to political agendas which could interfere with their remit, and the clear requirements set out in their constitution.

No organisation with total inflexibility within rules when an obvious need for relaxation arises, can avoid working against the best interests of its members and ultimately in this case, the public they serve. So to avoid the BMA becoming part of the problem instead of actively participating in finding a solution, it is hoped that a route will be found to allow this subject to be raised at the coming meeting.

Given that your particular field of speciality is Obstetrics & Gynaecology, the reported effects from wind turbine noise of severe physiological stress and sleep deprivation should be of concern, as the consequences of both severe chronic stress and severe chronic sleep deprivation are well known to adversely affect both human fertility, and the health of women and babies during pregnancy and therefore foetal birth and health outcomes.

The recent report of miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities in mink in Denmark correlating directly with the start up of operation of four large VESTAS V 112 wind turbines in close proximity, provides clear evidence of adverse animal health impacts from wind turbine noise which have direct relevance for human populations. This information was included in material previously forwarded to the BMA and adds weight to the warnings given relating to human groups’ vulnerability from being forced to live in proximity to wind turbines.

In addition there are reports of disturbed fertility and menstrual cycles in women living near wind turbines in Denmark, Canada and Australia from both residents and health professionals.

Just some of the health professionals, including particularly medical practitioners, and acoustic experts and researchers who have firsthand knowledge of the severity of the reported health problems who are calling for urgent multidisciplinary research in this area include:

Professor Bob McMurtry, Dr Roy Jeffery, Associate Professor Jeff Aramini, Carmen Krogh and Mr William Palmer from Canada; Dr Alan Watts, Dr Wayne Spring, Dr David Iser, Dr Gary Hopkins, Dr Andja Mitric Andjic, Dr Sarah Laurie, Mr Les Huson, Mr Steven Cooper, Emeritus Professor Colin Hansen and Dr Bob Thorne from Australia; and Associate Professor Rick James, Mr Rob Rand, Mr Stephen Ambrose, Emeritus Professor Jerry Punch, Dr Jay Tibbetts, Dr Sandy Reider, Dr Nina Pierpont, Dr David Lawrence, Dr Paul Schomer, Mr George Hessler, and Dr Bruce Walker from the USA. There are others from Europe who are also becoming increasingly vocal on this issue as wind turbines increase in size and are being placed close to larger human populations.

I therefore ask that the UK BMA publicly resolve to support multidisciplinary independent research, such as the government in Australia has committed to do, and which other jurisdictions have commenced and which in some instances have completed, confirming wind turbine noise associated sleep deprivation, and inner ear problems, including the Ministry for the Environment in Ontario. These are issues which have been shamefully ignored by many UK authorities and medical practitioners to date.

As your Constitution confirms, human rights issues are a BMA concern, this being so, I refer you to pages 22–26 of the document “Leave no Marks” by the Physicians for Human Rights, where the clinical consequences and the legal precedents relating to torture from sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment from noise and light are clearly elucidated. Torture is clearly a human rights issue, so too sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment. This is precisely what many rural residents living near wind turbines in the UK are experiencing and have been reporting since Dr Amanda Harry’s survey, conducted in 2003.

I refer you specifically to Part 1 and Article 1 of the UN Convention against torture …

Article 1.

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

So, it could be successfully argued that a form of torture is being intentionally inflicted, because public officials have been told about it repeatedly and yet they are doing absolutely nothing to address the situation or prevent the known and established harm to human health. Should the defence be that this is not intentional, then it is at the very least gross negligence and dereliction of their statutory duty of care, or perhaps “wilful blindness”.

This distressing situation has resulted from the failure of many government public officials including those working in the respective government departments, e.g. DEFRA, DECC, local health environmental health officers, and medical practitioners working for the NHS to deal properly with this issue, despite being made well aware of the severity of the health problems, and the chronic sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise. Despite its resultant serious, known and predictable adverse health effects, these public officials have done nothing to address the root cause of the problems – wind turbine noise pollution – or to stop the cause of the sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation alone is itself acknowledged to be a form of torture and is described as such by the rural residents who are so badly affected.

The Adverse Health Impacts from IWT’s attachment included in past exchanges included direct reports from those citizens affected and this is again included for your attention. The Davis case is referenced. That made it clear that noise nuisance was occurring for that UK family, and the fact that the developer settled rather than having the case heard to completion in the UK High Court confirms that view. Unfortunately the Davis family are unable to speak of their experiences – they have been silenced with a broad non disclosure clause. Use of such clauses has been reported in the UK, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia and indicates the wind industry has much to hide.

The BMJ editorial in 2012 (over 2 years ago) raised wind turbine noise related sleep disturbance as an issue requiring attention. It is an entirely reasonable request that the BMA itself addresses the issue via its most senior officer bearers, and does not choose to continue to ignore it.

To add further to the ground base of information possibly not yet seen I have attached the Salt and Lichtenhan article describing how wind turbine noise affects people. The advice to acousticians extract below (my emphasis) is particularly relevant.

The primary role of acousticians should be to protect and serve society from negative influences of noise exposure. In the case of wind turbine noise, it appears that many have been failing in that role. For years, they have sheltered behind the mantra, now shown to be false, that has been presented repeatedly in many forms such as: “What you can’t hear, can’t affect you.”; “If you cannot hear a sound you cannot perceive it in other ways and it does not affect you.”; “Infrasound from wind turbines is below the audible threshold and of no consequence.”; “Infrasound is negligible from this type of turbine.”; “I can state categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.” All of these statements assume that hearing, derived from low-frequency-insensitive IHC responses, is the only mechanism by which low frequency sound can affect the body.We know this assumption is false and blame its origin on a lack of detailed understanding of the physiology of the ear.

The WHO 2009 Night Noise Guidelines for Europe about the effects of chronic severe sleep disturbance are a particularly important and relevant source of information, e.g.

2.1.2 DEFINITIONS OF DISTURBED SLEEP.

Sleep disorders are described and classified in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD) (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2005).

When sleep is permanently disturbed and becomes a sleep disorder, it is classified in the ICSD 2005 as “environmental sleep disorder”. Environmental sleep disorder (of which noise-induced sleep disturbance is an example) is a sleep disturbance due to a disturbing environmental factor that causes a complaint of either insomnia or daytime fatigue and somnolence. Secondary deficits may result, including deficits in concentration, attention and cognitive performance, reduced vigilance, daytime fatigue, malaise, depressed mood and irritability.

The attached letter to the AMA from Bruce Rapley BSc, MPhil, PhD, Principal Consultant, Acoustics and Human Health, relates audibility and infrasound effects from turbines and clearly summarises the known science and the consequences of ignoring what is known.

I am asking you personally to consider that by their example, those members of the United Kingdom medical fraternity who have acted according to their Hippocratic oaths – to name but a few, Dr Bridgit Osborne, Dr Amanda Harry, Dr Christopher Hanning, Mr A Farboud, Mr R Crunkhorn and Mr A Trinidade, together with Professor Alun Evans and Dr Colette Bonner from Ireland, have blazed a trail of which the UK Medical Profession can be rightly proud.

However, there is now an ethical responsibility for the current BMA office bearers to support much broader discussion of the subject regardless of current and past government policy, in order to prevent further “irreparable harm to physical and psychological health” as described in theFalmouth USA case where in December 2013 Justice Muse ordered an immediate injunction for wind turbines to be turned off at night, so people whose health had already been badly damaged on the basis of evidence presented to him, could sleep.

There is also an urgent need for the BMA to openly support multidisciplinary research together with the development and enforcement of health protective wind turbine noise pollution regulations and planning regulations in the UK. The current planning regulations and wind turbine noise guidelines in the UK are operating as a “licence to harm” UK rural residents. I am sure you will agree that this is unacceptable.

Finally, I am again presenting below for your attention and response, the questions which I request that your organisation answers.

Apologies are due for the length of this letter, but the importance and breadth of the subject matter defied my best attempts to reduce contents.

With thanks for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. V.C.K. Metcalfe.

Questions.

1. Do you accept the evidence that sleep deprivation from wind turbine noise is occurring, and that sleep deprivation is extremely serious and health damaging? You will have presumably have seen Prof Alun Evan’s recent review and also the Arra and Lynn review, by two public health physicians in Canada which supported the concerns expressed in 2012 about wind turbine noise by Dr Chris Hanning and Professor Alun Evans published in the BMJ – your own journal.

2. Would you support turning wind turbines off at night if there are noise complaints, so that people can sleep?

3. Would you support conducting urgent multidisciplinary research involving full spectrum acoustic monitoring inside homes, and concurrent physiological monitoring of EEG, heart rate, blood pressure and sequential cortisol in those people who are reporting adverse health effects?

4. Has the BMA or any of its members ever received any money or gifts, either directly or indirectly from the wind industry? There are reports that some surgeries have been refurbished via “community grants” from wind developers.

5. As has been previously requested, what is your complaints procedure?

[Click here to read follow-up letter.]

The Left-wing Government of Ontario, is Destroying our Economy.

/ 1957chev / 10 Comments

Government stifles business in Ontario and Quebec, report says

BARRIE MCKENNA

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jun. 25 2014, 12:00 AM EDT

Canada is becoming a country of two solitudes when it comes to business investment.

Provinces are increasingly falling into one of two camps, according to a report being released Wednesday by the C.D. Howe Institute. In the West, business spending powers the economy. In much of the rest of the country, government spending is swallowing an ever greater share of economic activity, most notably in Ontario and Quebec.

The report puts a new spin on the “dead money” debate and why Canadian companies have been running up growing cash reserves since the recession.

The C.D. Howe report theorizes that governments in parts of the country may be crowding out and dissuading private investment.

Canada’s corporate cash holdings have continued to grow in recent months, according to Statistics Canada. Non-financial companies had cash holdings of $630-billion in the first quarter, up from $621-billion in the final three months of last year.

Part of the reason is that some provinces are creating a more business-friendly environment, while others are scaring away investment, argued the report’s author, Philip Cross, the former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada and member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council.

“It’s not a case of dead money and companies not willing to invest,” he said in an interview. “You can see that in certain provinces, they are willing to invest like mad men.”

It’s more than just about the Alberta oil sands and other resources projects, Mr. Cross said. “The West has had resources for a long time. What unlocked them were good policies,” he said.

Mr. Cross said the blockage lies in Quebec, Ontario and much of Atlantic Canada, where high deficits and the prospect of higher taxes are crowding out access to capital and discouraging business investment, according to Mr. Cross.

And efforts to kickstart business investment with government money clearly are not working, he explained. “If I was a firm in Ontario, what I’m planning for next year is a hike in minimum wages, higher income taxes and the introduction of a new pension plan,” he said. “I’m dealing with all these things and I’m not planning on the future of my firm.”

Private-sector investment has grown rapidly in all four western provinces, particularly since the resource boom took off in 2003. In Alberta, business investment as a share of GDP reached 25.5 per cent in 2012, the highest of any province. Public-sector investment has stabilized at less than 3 per cent.

In much of the rest of the country, there has been a “marked shift” the other way. In Quebec and Ontario, for example, private-sector investment slumped to 7 per cent of GDP in 2012 from 10 per cent in the 1990s. Government spending in Quebec is now the highest in the country at 5.7 per cent of GDP. In Ontario, it’s roughly 4 per cent, up from 3 per cent in the mid-2000s.

A separate report released Tuesday by Toronto-Dominion Bank presents a much rosier picture of the investment environment. Senior economist Randall Bartlett is predicting that business investment is poised to “rev up” in Canada over the next two years after a long slump.

He says six things will drive investment – the strengthening U.S. economy, a rebound in corporate profits, stronger corporate balance sheets, shrinking spare capacity, low interest rates and growing business optimism.

Business investment will lead GDP growth over the next couple of years, expanding at an annual rate of 4 to 5 per cent through the rest of 2014 and in 2015, the report said. “As investment increases, so does productivity, and ultimately wages and incomes in the long term,” Mr. Bartlett said.

Follow BARRIE McKENNA on Twitter: @barriemckenna

Some facts Behind Wind Turbine Noise, and Why it is So Harmful!

/ 1957chev / 2 Comments

Before the Wind Turbine was installed we asked about noise. No professional Wind Turbine Noise studies were presented to the Village Board. The Wind Turbine Company sales rep stated it would sound like a refrigerator. If we are forced to select an indoor appliance for comparison, we say it sounds like a washing machine. A 60 decibel noise limit was adopted by the Village. No standards were specified for how, when and where to measure Wind Turbine Noise.

How, When & Where to Measure Wind Turbine Noise is critical.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on location. Standing at the base of the Wind Turbine might sound like a refrigerator. However, noise travels in a cone emanating from the top of the 120 foot tall Wind Turbine. The noise travels over treetops into our backyards and open windows. It travels over rooftops and reverberates between buildings. Now it sounds like a washing machine spinning out of balance! Move from your back yard to your front yard, and you can hear it bouncing off the homes across the street. Inside your home, the noise varies based on how it bounces between the walls. Moreover, low frequency Wind Turbine noise caused by three 23.7′ long, 330 pound wind trubine blades rotating at 114 miles per hour can’t be heard, but wreaks havoc in the inner ear.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on Wind Direction. Behind the rotor and with the wind direction is noisier than in front of the rotor and against the wind direction.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on Wind Speed & Turbulence. More wind speed/turbulence – more noise. Less wind speed/turbulence – less noise.

Wind Turbine Noise varies based on the make, model, type and quality of the Wind Turbine. All Wind Turbines sound alike is like all vehicles get the same gas mileage. If you’ve heard a quiet Wind Turbine, you may have been standing too close or too far away, you may have been in an empty field, you may have been in a wind lull, or you may have been listening to the Prius of Wind Turbines. Trust us, the Entegrity Wind Systems, Inc. EW50 is the Hummer of Wind Turbine NOISE makers!

The Never-Endingness of Wind Turbine Noise is critical.

Sure, we hear things every day that are louder than Wind Turbines: planes, trains & automobiles. Please understand that living and sleeping with continuous 24/7 Wind Turbine Noise is different. Unlike the leaf blower that eventually goes away, Wind Turbine Noise never goes away. It’s always there and even when it’s not, you think it is, you anticipate it. It’s weird. And its quite disturbing. Imagine listening 24/7 to this.

Hummer vs. Prius
Wind Turbine’s are not all created equal regarding noise.
From the U.S.Department of Energy

Wind Turbine Components

What Causes Wind Turbine Noise?

A: Mechanical/moving parts + wind/turbulence/vibration = noise.

Rotor: The rotor diameter is 49 feet comprising three 23.7 ft. long blades that weigh 330 pounds each. The ends of the blades go around at 114 miles per hour. This creates a noise called SWOOSH that sounds like this.

Gear Box: Gears connect the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft and increase the rotational speeds from about 30 to 60 rotations per minute (rpm) to about 1000 to 1800 rpm, the rotational speed required by most generators to produce electricity. The gear box is a heavy part of the wind turbine and engineers are exploring “direct-drive” generators that operate at lower rotational speeds and don’t need gear boxes.

Generator: An induction generator that produces 60-cycle AC electricity.

High Speed Shaft: Drives the generator.

Low Speed Shaft: The rotor turns the low-speed shaft at about 30 to 60 rotations per minute.

Yaw Drive: Upwind turbines face into the wind; the yaw drive is used to keep the rotor facing into the wind as the wind direction changes.

Yaw Motors: Power the Yaw drive.

Pitch: Blades are turned, or pitched, out of the wind to control the rotor speed and keep the rotor from turning in winds that are too high or too low to produce electricity.

Brake: A disc brake, which can be applied mechanically, electrically, or hydraulically to stop the rotor in emergencies. BTW, what emergencies are they referring to?

A Wind Turbine creates an oscillation of sound that is like a washing machine, a washing machine that:

  • rumbles constantly and is very noisy on spin cycle from bad drum bearings due to bearing seal failure.
  • sends out a loud noise with each revolution of a split drum or a drum where the spider at the back of the drum has come away from the drum, is corroded or broken.
  • makes a horrendous noise as coins or other obstructions trapped inside the tub under the drum get tossed about on spin cycle.
  • clanks with coins and other obstructions inside the water pump. This noise only occurs when the washing machine is emptying the water.
  • emits a light scraping or ratchety noise caused by a bra wire trapped between the tub and drum.
  • generates a high pitched squealing or harsh noise from motor bearing wear.
  • produces a knocking noise from loose or unbalanced tub weight caused when the tub (or outer drum) shakes about on spin.
  • creates surprising noises like those coming from a badly worn washing machine drive belt.
 Noisy Washing Machine

Wind Turbine Noise Syndrome

There are other problems from living too close to a Wind Turbine. Researcher Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., coined the phrase “wind turbine syndrome” for sleep problems, headaches, dizziness and other maladies experienced by some people who live near wind energy farms. Her research says wind turbines should never be built closer than 2km (1.24 miles) from homes! See: http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/