Where I live on the outskirts of Chico, I have an almost constant supply of wind. I’ve considered a wind turbine as a way of getting closer to being “off-grid” so that I don’t have to pay PG&E the exorbitant rates. After reading this ChicoER story, I think I’ll pass on a wind turbine and focus on more solar. – Anthony
From the Chico Enterprise-Record: Disturbing the silence: Wind turbine not sustaining to neighbors’ sleep
By HEATHER HACKING – ChicoER Staff Writer
CHICO — A year and a half ago when Don Steinsiek installed a wind turbine at the top of Stilson Canyon Road, he was excited to harness the wind.He had been interested in the technology for a while, and when tax credits and rebates became available, he went for it.
The wind will vary, but he figured with the incentives, he could pay off his $82,000 investment in six or seven years.
When energy generation is greater than his use, he can sell electricity to the grid for 5 cents a kilowatt. But overall, he said the turbine provides energy for about two-thirds of his energy use.
It sounded like a good plan, and fit with the trend toward renewable energy sources. But neighbors say the wind turbine ruins the quiet nature of the neighborhood, lowers their property values and deprives them of sleep.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting there was a lengthy discussion of Steinsiek’s turbine.
The state is passing new rules that will make it easier to install small wind structures, explained Tim Snellings, county development services director. Unless Butte County passes its own rules before Dec. 31, the new state rules will apply, he continued.
Neighbors took the opportunity to talk about the wind turbine.
O.J. Sutherland lives at the bottom of the hill from the turbine. He described the sound as similar to a “hovering helicopter to a whining or moaning sound.”
He told the supervisors some neighbors have changed the rooms in which they sleep, others wear earplugs and some just can’t sleep.”We no longer have a quiet neighborhood. There is only one acceptable relief — to remove it,” Sutherland said.
Farther down the road is Gary Marquis, who said for 20 years he has heard frogs and crickets. “Now I listen to a wind turbine,” he said.
Read the full story here at the ChicoER
About 8 years ago I commuted up to the Gold Country from Oakland for several months. Two round tips a week. Those wind turbines at Altamont are butt-ugly, inefficient and dangerous to raptors.
PP, that’s right. He soaked his neighbors for his green energy boondoggle. Just a quick guess, but at the prices I pay for electricity $82k would have a payout of 40-45 years. Probably less in California. Not only does it bother the neighbors, it has about zero economic viability unless he can dip into their pockets to pay for it.
Bad deal all around
Real estate agents trying to sell a house near a 6 lane freeway will try to convince a prospective buyer that the traffic noise sounds like a mountain stream. BS. It sounds like traffic. Same with turbines.
We decided to go geo-thermal heating and cooling this year. It is currently being installed. I wish we did it last month to beat this heat!
Here in NJ, I am now paying over $0.19 per kWh plus additional demand charges. The rate went up drastically in part to pay for all these solar and wind installation. My utility bills to run some hall lights (all CFL’s) in an apartment building and a laundry have become staggering.
The most popular windmill brand is “Masochism Tango” after Tom Lehrer’s title.
Which sane person would pay a fortune, knowingly violate property rights, generate electricity at more than 3 times the grid price … all because a few vested interests with deplorable science say you’ll go to Hell if you do not.
What a scam!
I live on Stilson Canyon Road near the wind turbine. In the past year it has bothered me once, for about 1 minute!
Sick of the “Not in my back yard” attitude. Next my pool pump will be deemed too loud.
I thank fenbeagle for citing my paper on wind turbine noise and sleep disturbance.
Wind turbines, especially the large 2.5Mw+ monsters now being erected, are noisy. It’s not the gear box noise, that’s only audible for a couple of hundred metres, it’s the aorodynamic noise from the blades. They generate a spectrum of noise that is probably unique with a large element of low frequency noise that travels a long way, disturbance at up to 3.5km has been documented and they are extremely annoying, several times more annoying than road, aircraft and aviation noise. They wreck sleep.
Not everybody is affected, but at least 15% of the population is noise sensitive, more in rural areas because such people seek quiet locations, and they are vulnerable. Sleep disturbance is not trivial and is strongly associated with ill health. If you don’t believe me, check out Nissenbaum’s study of the residents of Mars Hill, Maine http://www.windaction.org/documents/27985 and described in my paper. The results of this small study are sobering.
Wind turbines fail on almost every front, electricity production, CO2 reduction, environmental protection and human health. They are the idols of the modern religion of AGW and they demand sacrifices.
dave ward says:
July 15, 2010 at 1:34 pm
“Solomon Green says: “The mortality rate per turbine has been put at two birds per year.
Try 14 in six months! – as this UK primary school found out:”
Most think that bird kill is a statistical calculation, but on a WUWT post of some months ago, a You Tube video showed a hawk circling back and around through the blade swath a dozen times until it did get killed. They like the drafts from the thing, especially soaring birds. Re the noise, I think I’ll will corner the market on quiet windless land areas – a good niche business for the brave new future.
I just mentioned the work of Victor Schauberger with water, on the comment-of-the-week thread. Schauberger found ways to harness the mechanics of water so skilfully that conventional designers said it was impossible. But it worked.
OWLS FLY SILENTLY.
I feel that within the remit of the Universe there’s got to be subtle, sensitive different kinds of windmill design that, working with the spirit of Air, would produce power not only more efficiently, but also with more beauty and silence or even musical sound. Why not? Or does this already exist somewhere – pooh-pooh’ed by academia and the greenies?
Moderators – Snip if this is already up
From
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/13728
Jeff Id at The Air Vent posted this excellent summary about energy sources and why the fossil and nuclear fuels work and the so-called renewables are too limited to support our modern society. Jeff brings to the debate an understanding of the general physics behind energy use, that is important in understanding why liberal fantasies about energy are based mostly in ignorance (if not, misinformation).
links to
Greenthink
Posted by Jeff Id on July 9, 2010
First there is no such thing as renewable energy, it’s kind of fitting that the very word greenies have coined is itself a lie. I say that because there are so many lies and exaggerations in the world of green energy that it makes ‘renewable’ a perfectly fitting term.
Car tyres are difficut and expensive to dispose of properly. 20 years ago I visited a plant which was on less than 1/2 acre. It was generating a megawatt by burning 40 tyres an hour. The clever combustion system meant it was within the acceptable emissions standards of the day. The waste heat from the turbine was heating a small sheltered housing complex nearby.
A larger proposed system was turned down by the enviro lobby 3 years later. The project has not been revived.
The irony on this website is that wind is likely carbon increasing! Wind does not blow all the time, let alone when you are likeiest to run your AC. As a result there have to be power plants on in case the wind dies down (happens all the time and screws up the Texas grid). These power plants burn natural gas to stay “hot” for a quick response time. Wind is intermittent and will never be a reliable source of power until the electricity can be efficiently stored.
DR – a review on your geo-thermal experiences and economics would be appreciated.
Here is a useful product for those that:
1. Have too much money
2. Want to save the planet
3. Need to lose weight
http://www.windstreampower.com/
($600 for a pedal powered generator – where you supply the pedals)
(I’m in the wrong business).
Straight from the ERCOT website. They claim to have the largest wind generation caspacity in the U.S. Percentage of wind nameplate capacity considered dependable for peak loads, 8.7%. http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/2009/nr05-29-09.
i should add… at least with solar you get the electricity when you are most likely to need it (hot, sunny, summer days). solar genuinely reduces peak demand from fossil plants.
BarryW says:{July 15, 2010 at 1:45 pm}
“The town I live in, Lewes DE, has a University of Delaware campus just adjacent to our neighborhood. This year they’ve installed a wind turbine on the campus that they say will provide all of the University’s power needs.
Turbine model Gamesa G90
Generator power 2 MW
Tower height 256 feet
Tower weight 203 tons
Blade length 144 feet”
Barry, that makes the “damage circle” surrounding the base about 800 feet in diameter. Anything under the machine within that circle?
Nuclear is the only sane solution.
Even some alarmists are coming around to that point of view.
Wind power is ridiculously expensive and inefficient. This morning I drove from Seville in southern Spain to Granada, a distance of about 300kms. Hundreds of windmills spoiled the view and only five were actually turning.
It is not really the audible sound, it’s infrasound.
Responses of the Ear to Infrasound and Wind Turbines
Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis
Alec Salt Ph.D., Revised June 17, 2010
The highest power comes below 1 Hz. It can’t even be measured by microphones, you need a microbarometer. There is no insulation against it and no regulation covers this frequency range. Also, health effects of infrasound below 1 Hz is a neglected field so far.
It’s a good idea to keep at least 2 km safety distance from any human habitation or workplace. Even that might be insufficient if wind turbines are installed en masse. Man-made microbaroms can get global eventually.
There is an ongoing discussion of the topic here. Read backwards.
hell_is_like_newark says:
July 15, 2010 at 2:27 pm
“Here in NJ, I am now paying over $0.19 per kWh plus additional demand charges.[…]”
Thanks! It’s good to hear that it’s not only us Germans who pay idiotically high prices (about 20 Eurocent == 25 US cents generally; expected to rise by 10% next year due to a large increase in solar cross-subsidies).
I wonder what the noise level is like, compared to sitting here about 1/2mi away from a freeway and 15mi south of SFO Rwy 28L.
I’ve got the fairly gentle background hum of the freeway, punctuated by periodic clouds of aluminum overcast of varying decibel levels.
Been here for two decades and it’s not a problem.
The economics of these machines are not even remotely plausible. As noted in a number of comments, there will always be a negative cash flow associated with small scale wind turbines (and likely for large as well). When realistic economic inputs are used (ie real cost of capital, tax credits, depreciation, maintenance, replacement/standby power cost, etc), there will always be a negative payback. Reality; face it. I think the same “guidelines” used to produce climate models are used to produce economic payback scenarios for wind/solar, ie, twiddle the inputs/model until the “desired” output is produced.
I installed a thermal solar hot water heater at my house in Maine a number of years ago. I did so because of engineering interest, and I could get the equipment (with my own installation) for under $1000, ie about a third what a new installed system would cost. At the $1000 (ie 1/3 off real cost), the system would have a real payback in about 4-5 years. At $3000, there is a negative payback.
some residents living as far as 3 kilometres from a windfarm complain of sleep disturbance from the noise
Yes, but they are making it up, albeit unconciously.
The big windmills are very noisy, although the ground hum would bother me much more. However a couple of kilometres and its gone. Smaller turbines are far less noisy, though still irritating close up.
Not so long ago some people were complaining that cell phone towers gave them headaches and prevented them from sleeping. That is because some people can’t sleep when they know about something that bothers them. I bet if we look back virtually all new technologies “spoiled” sleep in the overly sensitive.
Once the freaking out about the current new thing has passed, which it will, we will get used to them. Like all the complaints that a new hydroelectric dam will spoil the landscape, only to find that the new lake is actually quite pretty. We put up with ugly motorways and power pylons right up close, but apparently the clean lines of a windmill on a hilltop is the ugliest thing ever seen! (It’s very funny seeing places that allow monstrous great billboard advertising along the roadside complaining about “visual pollution” from windmills.)
They will eventually be cost effective too, though I grant you that few are at the moment.
This guy has money to burn! So, let’s set aside that he is annoying his neighbors, lowering their property value.
Let me assume, he uses 12,000 annually (that’s what I use in Texas for a large house). Assume the $82,000 cost is inclusive of all startup costs. Assume zero maintanence and a life of 20 years. Assume the cost is not subsidized with tax credits or tax deductions – ie, that it is indeed the true installation costs. Of course, he also gives up the opportunity costs of using that money over the 20 years. This is not insignificant to the economics.
So, in 20 years, his wind turbine provide 2/3 of his usage which is 160,000 kw which works out to $0.51/kw! Add in an estimate of the lost opportunity cost, and the cost goes up to maybe $0.60-0.75/kw depending on tax assumptions and investment returns. Even giving the wind turbine zero life cycle maintanence costs, and a 2o year life, it is still, what I consider, very, very expensive – in Texas, I’m paying $0.11/kw. I just don’t see how this can be good for anyone unless one is expecting the government to artificially and dramatically increase the cost of electricity. Even then, I’d be surprised if it even got to break-even.
1DandyTroll says:
July 15, 2010 at 1:28 pm
From the article,
‘Grant said of the 160 similar turbines his company has installed, there have not been noise complaints.’
Possibly because the contracts the company makes the landowners sign specifically prohibits noise complaints. And note that the wind developers’ lobbyists always make sure all reports and regulations are in terms of dBA, which is rolled off heavily at low frequencies, instead of dBC, which is flat. The WHO recommends that all noise measurements where there is substantial low-frequency content be made in dBC, for obvious reasons. And it is the low-frequency noise that is most disturbing, that causes health problems in humans, livestock, and any wildlife that sticks around (most doesn’t; deer, bear, and even squirrels clear out for two to three miles in all directions).
As to crops, each tower has a heavy-duty access road leading to it. Chops up the fields something fierce.
As to clean, these things are notoriously unreliable and each holds between 60 and 100 gallons of industrial lubricant for the bearings and transmission. Wait till they start to fall apart in eight to ten years.
They generate no actually useful power whatever, but they very nicely dump taxpayers’ money into financiers’ pockets. While simultaneously turning vast swaths of countryside, wilderness, and wildlife habitat into surreal War-of-the-Worlds nightmares. How very, very ecologically responsible of them.
Wind power, like the other “renewables”, is completely delusional. Since when is peaceful wilderness a “renewable resource”?