Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and their "health effects".

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

I think there's too much air time given to wind turbine nay sayers. They're not that noisy and anyway, they're not usually built near residential areas. If a person lived as near an oil fired power plant they'd be complaining too. But we don't hear from them do we?

I was on holidays in Wexford recently and spotted a wind turbine farm in the distance. We thought it would be a cool thing to go and see them with the kids. As we got closer, they started disappearing behind the trees and were getting hard to find. Which is the "height" of irony, given how big the things are! I guess the planners got the location right then. Anyway, we eventually found them and parked up within falling distance of one and it was going well fast but wasn't that noisy. I waited for 30 minutes taking pics and having lunch with the kids and it never got annoying listening to the turbine. Moral of the story? Quit listening to silly nay sayers and lets build as many of these things as is feasible.

ollie

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Just to illustrate how unreasonable people can get, there was an actual case of a restauraunt having to go to completely unamplified (no PA system) live music on the patio because a certain person in the neighborhood complained about the volume. Even that did not satisfy the neighbor and one day that neighbor called the police complaining about the sound of a canceled show.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

I know how to deal with this kind of guy.

Phone in several noise complaints to the police against yourself in the days leading up to whatever event you have going on. Then when they show up, obviously nothing's going on. Eventually they won't take the neighbor seriously and when your event actually does happen, the police ignore his calls.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

The study needs to be more specific and look at the frequencies and the hearing range of the individuals. Some people cannot hear particular frequencies, myself included. Also, some people are highly sensitive to other frequencies, myself included. While I was in the Navy working in the Engine room, we were given training on stress. The first form of stress was heat stress which was very important in a workspace that regularly ran over 100 degrees. The second form of stress was noise stress. We would spend 18 or more hours a day in the engineroom at anywhere between 90 to 100 decibles depending on where we wer working at that time. When I hit the rack I could literally feel my body still vibrating for more than an hour after leaving the engineroom. Sound frequencies can do some strange things so I wouldn't be too quick to disregard this potential problem. If it's found to be particular frequencies then they can offset those frequencies by adjusting the pitch of the fan blades or adding noise counteracting devices.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

I think noise pollution is a legitimate issue. People sometimes move to the country for the peace and quiet. If a neighbor erects a noisy or malodorous facility next to a residence it seems legitimate to object to the nuisance. In a city, regulations regarding noise and hours of operation might kick in (the same regs that keep many contractors from starting before 7AM in many residential neighborhoods. ) I suspect that the noise level would be unnoticed in the usual urban cacophony, but is pretty blatant in a rural setting. The sound probably irritates some people the way fingernails on a chalkboard irritates many.

To me this story feels like an escalated complaint situtation; maybe power company reps. sent callers to the usual customer service voice mail hell instead of addressing concerns.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Just how loud is a turbine at 1/2 mile-1 mile ? Anyone have any numbers on it?

I understand that the DBs aren't everything, but I'm curious about just how much noise we are talking about. My suspicion - since there isn't any mention of DBs - is they aren't very loud at a mile or so.
Anyone have any numbers?
Charlie
PS I looked it up. A Brit study says 35-45 DB(A) at 350 meters from a windfarm. This is ~1/4 mile . We - in the USA - use downwind blades which can add an extra "pulse"- Brits use upwind blades. 35 DB at 1/4 mile is barely a burp at 1/2 mile.

This concern sounds like BS . They just don't don't like to view Turbines from their hobbyfarms.; lowers the land values.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Found this interesting article.

Bats apparently aren't doing well around wind turbines.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080825-bat-bends_2.html

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

These gigantic wind turbines have such long blades that their passage at right-angles through the wind curving around the towers' support columns produces very low (long) frequency pressure waves which are below the audible range. These low frequency pressure waves travel for great distances and impact biological and neurological systems, producing a wide range of health problems.

Unfortunately, the wind industry has benefited from governments' past practice of only addressing those pressure waves that are audible. This has resulted in the incorrect belief that "what you can't hear can't hurt you". It is only in the past few years that the phenomenon and the health impacts have come to light. The resistance by governments to recognize these negative aspects of giant wind turbines has resulted from them having already committed themselves to "wind power" policy without having conducted any in-depth impartial testing of either the turbines' health impacts or the practicality of maintaining power grid levels.

The low frequency pressure waves produced by the giant wind turbines can apparently travel much further than audible frequency pressure waves. Some experts are recommending minimum setbacks for giant wind turbines of two kilometers (or more) from residential properties. There are accounts of dogs barking hour after hour for no "audible" reason and of horses becoming disturbed for hours on end. Numerous wind farms are on record as having killed great numbers of bats, not by impact, but rather by rupture of their tiny lungs due to the extreme air pressure variants caused by the low frequency pressure waves. There have also been accounts of wildlife vacating the vicinities of wind turbines. In addition, an increasing number of families living close to giant wind turbines have also opted to vacate their homes in order to regain their health.

If you wish to do more reading to get up to speed on the situation, I refer you to the following websites ...
http://www.wind-watch.org
http://www.windaction.org
http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Hi Barry,

I hope you will return to elaborate more on this. Do you have sources from non-advocacy groups, say a study from a university or lab? I did find this:
Wind turbine syndrome and while cases have been reported, the vast majority of residents near wind turbines are suffering no ill effects.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

BarryB:

From Wind-watch.org

Immediately discredited as nonsense.

Are we in grade school? Why is this held in high regard?

I don't know of any windfarms, but know people with a majority of these symptoms, what does that mean?

I'm not one to type long responses, this wont be a start either, however I find it hard to believe this garbage especially since Wind Turbines are the only things that cause these problems.

We are exposed to a daily variety of frequencies in and out of the audible range. There is really no basis for these "claims". I'm sorry, but imploding/exploding bat lungs makes me raise a brow. Also, how were these a proven effect of the wind turbines?

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

I didn't bother checking BarryB's sources but my source that raised the Bat issue is National Geographic, a source that some would consider an advocate, but certainly not for the anti-wind forces.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Some people fear anything different. Property owners within the viewshed may fear a loss in property values --a fear which I don't think should be a major source of policy concern. On the other hand, I can see how neighbors might construe wind turbine noise as a tangible nuisance, so setback requirements might be reasonable.

I haven't yet heard of any health effects in a population of approximately 1000 students exposed in close proximity to the large wind turbine erected at our local Junior/Senior High School. The football teams should be particularly vulnerable since its foundation is at their practice field. Time will tell I suppose, but to me the health claims feel more like marketing than science.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

I wound hope that with any development near existing property that if there are legitimate loss in home value it would be a serious consideration for policy.

Noise is a real concern, sight not as much.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea...ar-windfarms-see-property-values-plummet.html

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

This may be a legit article on wind turbines killing bats.

BarryB may never see this post, but if he was attempting to influence us, he should consider a longer stay than a hit and run post with only advocacy sites....try articles like I just did in the above paragraph.

His POV may have merit, but his execution hurts his credibility.

Let's say his concerns are valid - are they so bad we should continue to use coal-fired generation plants? Wind turbine would have to be really bad to stay with coal.

I can't prove this (yet), but have the suspicion the environmental concerns raised by wind turbine opponents are insincere if they don't have an alternative than coal.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Tinkering with sound frequencies is what I do. Conceptually, it is quite simple to make these sound waves harmless, however the tricky part would be executing the design to affect the efficiency as little as possible.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Upon reading that article Chuck, it would seem that the low pressure zone created by the blades as they spin pose a danger to bats. There are a couple low pressure zones from this actually. One is the "draft" zone right behind the blade, the other is caused by the actual sound waves. Very low frequencies produce a higher pressure drop, so it shouldn't be too difficult in modifying the frequeny of the turbine blades. Theoretically, these waves would only be produced when the wind changes direction or downwind from the turbine. The turbines should be extremely quiet save for mechanical noise (friction) at the center outside of these boundaries...

So we're worried about possibly slightly interrupting ecosystems in Mexico while we pump more harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere:eyebrow:?

What about pets and other animals dying in winter by crawling up into warm engine bays?

What about the possibility of oil spill pollution wiping out hosts of marine lives and destroying the way of life of natives? Oh wait that already happened.

This is child's play and pointless.

 

Re: Wind whips up health fears; wind turbines and thier "health effects".

Just saying wind turbines are not 100% safe, but if anyone says they are as bad or worse than coal plants, they will have to make a heckuva argument.