From the UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
Recognizing health concerns in wind energy development a key recommendation in new study
As wind energy development blossoms in Canada and around the world, opposition at the community level is challenging the viability of the industry. A new study with research from the University of Waterloo, published in Nature Energy, identifies four major factors leading to disputes over wind farms, and offers recommendations on avoiding disagreements.
The research project focuses on the province of Ontario. It lists socially mediated health concerns, distribution of financial benefits, lack of meaningful engagement and failure to treat landscape concerns seriously, as the core stumbling blocks to a community’s acceptance of wind energy development.
“There has been debate over whether reported negative health outcomes in nearby residents are valid” says Tanya Christidis, a PhD researcher at Waterloo’s School of Planning, who contributed to the study by looking specifically at the health impacts section in the publication. “Regardless of whether or not people are sick from wind turbine noise or from social factors they deserve to be acknowledged if renewables are going to become a key part of our future energy mix.”
The study makes recommendations for all four identified major areas of dispute.
For community members who feel the distribution of financial benefits is unfair, it recommends the province, which is constitutionally responsible for managing all energy resources within its territory, mandate more community-level decision-making and ownership. It also recommends increased transparency and compensation distribution for everyone in a community.
The study suggests that Ontario’s approval process does not encourage enough meaningful engagement. Acknowledging that this is difficult to mandate, its recommendation is that improvements in this area should still be pursued.
Finally, the study recommends greater consideration for the impact on landscapes, and in particular changes to the cultural landscapes of areas with wind energy development.
Over the past decade global wind energy capacity has increased eight-fold. Ontario, with a population of close to 13 million people and land area of 1.1 million km2 is approximately equivalent in population, size and contracted wind energy capacity (5,700 vs 6, 200 MW) 2 to Sweden and Norway combined.
Research for the report was assembled by researchers, from Waterloo. York University, Western University, Queen’s University, University of Ottawa as well as Trent University. The study is unique as it also includes a community representative and a wind industry advocate engaged in the Ontario wind energy industry.
About the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo is Canada’s top innovation university. With more than 36,000 students we are home to the world’s largest co-operative education system of its kind. Our unmatched entrepreneurial culture, combined with an intensive focus on research, powers one of the top innovation hubs in the world. Find out more at uwaterloo.ca
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The University of Waterloo’s study and report are disingenuous at best. “Opposition at the community level is challenging the viability of the industry”? The researchers conveniently don’t mention that the “opposition” includes the public’s knowledge that without subsidies there would be no wind industry at all, because the machines are economically useless, and have contributed substantially to soaring electricity costs. The utter economic uselessness of wind turbines and the fact that they slaughter birds and bats in huge numbers are just as much “core stumbling blocks” to public acceptance as all the other issues, and make the wind industry’s victimization and coerced sacrifices of rural people even more tragic.
What the researchers chose to ignore, especially perhaps because, incredibly, a conflict-of-interest “wind industry advocate“ was part of the team (the price to pay in exchange for wind industry funding of this study, perhaps?), is that no amount of “community-level decision-making and ownership” or “meaningful engagement” will trump the draconian Green Energy Act, and its biased companion the Environmental Review Tribunal, which give wind companies Liberal-legally-sanctioned permission to ride roughshod over the democratic rights of the people and municipalities of rural Ontario.
You nailed it. There is no way that the public can challenge any aspect of wind or solar generation as mandated by the Liberals. Its the nanny state gone mad
University of Waterloo students are currently voting on whether to ban Israeli academia. If this vote gets up I will be sending both of my degrees back to them and demand that my name be removed from their alumni.
Link: http://www.therebel.media/uwaterloo_collaborates_with_a_palestinian_university_which_serves_as_a_hub_for_terrorist_groups
Disgusting! Good for you, Ms. Cameron, to stand up for Israel. Very sorry that your alma mater makes you want to stuff your diplomas into a drawer instead of hanging them on the wall. One of my schools is REALLY messed up (supports socialism and envirostalinism to – the – max). I just try to ignore them and pretend… . Good for you, you do the Scots PROUD!
This is a rare opportunity where I can type from direct experience and research on a topic of this magnitude.
Large In district Wind Turbines do produce pulsating emission which can hurt people. Unfortunately, my family and I have experienced this and it is very difficult to determine that they were the source.
Fortunately, we are not currently as bad as some people who have had to leave their homes. But it is quite a task to know whether you are being subjected to pulsating infrasonic or not. For me, it started suddenly with 9 of the 11 health issues shortly after IWTs started operating 5km from our home. I should say, the first issue, ringing in ears, started very suddenly one night while a very subtle Whoom-whoom noise and vibration was present in our home.
Later, in troubleshooting, I confirmed during turbine startup, shutdown and startup again and other steps that those emissions are indeed from those Wind Turbines. Gradually over time, new issues appeared and all became worse, varying in severity the same as the intensity of that noise and vibration.
Further, I observed the issues go away when I am away from home over about 2 days. Further, I noted Wind Direction to be a factor.
There is more, but my guests have arrived!
Thanks.
some links for you –
bibliography of IWT, infrasound, low frequency vibration effects on mammalian physiology:
http://www.aweo.org/infrasound.html
audio-engineering study of human infrasound effects in Shirley Windfarm (Wisconsin)
http://docs.wind-watch.org/Shirley-LFN-infrasound.pdf
one researcher in this study experienced the effects and they persisted until he was three days absent from the environment – it is like sea-sickness where not all are affected by the vibrations at the specific amplitudes and lengths emitted. All will be at tuned frequencies – search Wright-Paterson Air Force studies in flight simulation and total body human vibration.
these are low frequency, very long wavelengths – many miles
With the awful pictures of Zika virus affected babies in Brazil on my mind , the comments about the internal effects of low frequency sound suddenly made me wonder whether there has been a study of birth defects of babies born to women living in the proximity of wind farms.
Ultra sound is of course a safe and universal imaging procedure , but there must be limits to the number of scans that are permitted during a pregnancy I would assume, based on studies with pregnant nonhuman species. Is that information relevant in terms of frequency and intensity to the situation of pregnant women living near collections of wind turbines . Surely there must be some risk assessment publicly available .
Thank you Bubba Cow! I have the 2nd link, but the first is full of good information which I had not seen.
Mike Jankowski.
Resonances are very, very tricky to diagnoise with windmills. (Well, to diagnose also.)
If a single,isolated windmill – and I use that term deliberately since they all grind and creak and make useless noises indiscriminately – starts and stops, it is (somewhat) easy to determine when its influences (bird strikes, shadows, health effects) start and stop.
But if 14 of 15 windmills are in the adjacent field, starting or stopping just one out the 15 is almost impossible to determine when – if ever – that one is started, loaded, unloaded, or stopped. (Continuous camera monitoring is difficult, but unless the utility owner’s electric logs are available and the loaded/unloaded/partial loading values are found by court order, tracking times are visually impossible. ) See, a slow windmill rotation is nearly the same for low loading as for “windmilling” for shaft protection by the internal motors.
Now, if a group of windmills are resonating – and that resonation is the cause of the problem to people’s health or their house vibration – then by definition, more than 1 mill must be running. But, at what load did the resonance occur? Same load on all running? High loading on the outer windmills, low on the downstream mills? Different effect with wind from different directions? That’s very likely – and with each direction, the resonating noise may go downstream at different noise levels in different frequencies to different lengths. Change the wind speed = change in resonance. Might be higher, might be lower peak values. Might cancel completely even. Might just change frequency.
Nasty problem to figure out, then to assign “legally valid” blame!
I think the issue is more one of beat notes as the turbines are never in exact sync.
fwiw
WillR
Like having to listen to a woodpecker glued to the side of your bedroom wall. Never quiet, but not quite steady either. You’re always “waiting” for the next tap (the next rumble) and you know it is going to come, but it is not never repetitious.
Many years ago I was flying in a regional turbine prop airplane. I was seated over the wing. As we reached flight altitude, I began hearing (and feeling) a harmonic resonance set up between the two engines. This “wave of sound” traveled back and forth between the engines the entire flight. After about 10 minutes of the novelty, I became nauseas and had to move to an open seat in the back of the plane. The flight attendant said its a regular occurrence.
I agree and am working on it.
Anyone know how much it costs to buy and install the typical large modern wind turbine?
All studies to date have found no meaningful adverse health link to wind farms,apart from neg placebo effect.
Anecdotal stories are useless evidence.
MJ,
Please show me the neg study otherwise this is all biased conjecture
Why should Mr. Jankowski answer you? You refused to answer his reasonable inquiry to back up your counter-intuitive assertion with cites to the research and a definition of terms. You say, “all” and do not cite even ONE study.
Common sense says that the air turbulence and noise (not to mention depressingly ugly looks) would cause at least some measurable and meaningful harm over a long enough and close enough exposure.
Thus, the burden of proving your worse-than-useless monstrosity of a machine has “no meaningful adverse effect” on people or animals is on you.
You have yet to provide one bit of evidence.
You have provided us with some highly probative evidence of the nature of your character by your choice of pseudonym, I must say.
JM,
A proper study showing a negative effect has’nt appeared yet , only ones showing NO link, wtf,go look for yourself !.
Your reverse burden of proof demand shows no common sense .
What health studies? Do mean literature reviews because this is what are being used?
These modern wind mills are “new” to North America. Never needed any health studies to be done when there were no IWTs here. Research money not spent on something that does not exist.
WTF January 27, 2016 at 4:31 pm
All studies to date have found no meaningful adverse health link to wind farms,apart from neg placebo effect.
Anecdotal stories are useless evidence.
You know, if you had shown some intellectual & self honest and looked the subject up people would not have to spoon feed you.
This is your study. It’s about medical stuff, the human ear and what sounds do to it.
http://oto2.wustl.edu/cochlea/wind.html
michael
Okay
WTF January 27, 2016 at 4:31 pm
Both
Michael Jankowski January 27, 2016 at 7:51 pm
and myself have provided you with “studies”
My link also cites other similar “studies”
So since both Michaels are your servers this evening we have just for your dining pleasure :Wind turbine chopped crow ” Or “Spotted owl under glass”; both served with a side of wilted “greens”. Or you can do take out and chew your shoe.
michael
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, David. What a sad, pathetic, wasted life. -mod]
It’s a clever way to “kill” comments or posts.
Michaels,
I did say “proper” studies not subjective surveys, really desperate cherry picking.
The ball is still in your court
Did you digest them all? How about the points I made with regard to the scientific lifecycle? You may also refer to the Health Canada study. Despite it disqualifying the homes people abandoned because they could not stand to be in them due to the issues they suffered and self reported to be invoked by large Wind Turbine emissions, and despite it being randomized, not actually looking into the problems, they found a non-Trivial percentage of people to be clinically severely annoyed. Annoyed does not mean “Doesn’t like” or “Pissed off at the site”. WHO acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be an adverse Health Effect. Look at the indirect pathway here. http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=2beb55d6-ecb1-4c83-9948-a18a92a06305
I can reference close to 100 studies of varying types, but more evident to me are my own observations and state of mind. The conclusive proof will come in time. Your view of science is that it is only science when in the rear view mirror and that is evidence of possession of the least scientific mind. Desperation – Yes. If some thing were impacting your health and that of your children, and doctors did not have a Diagnostic Criteria (other than that which is currently proposed) – you would be too.
The scientific lifecycle begins with a Hypothesis! The hypothesis is derived from people’s experiences and reports. I spoke directly to the manager of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change’s Standards Branch and he admitted to me that they see the science diverging.
To date, only the Direct pathway has been tested. Those of us who are living with the issues and can observe the emissions will not have our experiences and observations, which in parts are absolutely proven by science, not only in Wind Power Generation, but also in other areas such as industrial ventilation. I could like you to approx. 90 studies, but I will instead link to a few because I am here to tell you what I think – and that’s where I draw the line.
Proposed Medical Diagnostic Criteria: Until family practitioners and specialists are armed with a criteria, this issue, difficult to detect and diagnose as it is, will largely fly under the radar. http://shr.sagepub.com/content/5/10/2054270414554048.full
Here are several studies to lead you to where we are now. (Navigate with arrows at top.) http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0Ak2bgr7C0nhPdGR3S1lEekU3T3p4ZDhUNDdRV2Y2ZkE&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650
Variables to be considered to know whether people will have adverse reactions or not: After observing these things myself, I found this paper and believe it to be absolutely applicable to today’s large wind turbines. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910007366.pdf (Start on page 31)
You will note that neither permitting nor monitoring considers ANY of these variables.
So you see, we are admittedly earlier int he scientific lifecycle of understanding why and how this is. There is much more I can share. But comments like yours toward people who are living through this are neither helpful, nor appreciated. I encourage you to continue taking in information from both sides of the issue. Haven’t found does not equal doesn’t exist.
How come this group of “researchers” included, by their own admission, a wind industry advocate? Surely such a group should consist entirely of unbiased individuals seeking the truth, whatever the subject they are “researching”? The inclusion of this biased individual must by definition skew the result of their work to e point where it has nil value?
It’s the fashion now to have a stakeholder involved when these papers are written.
Energy policy in the province of Ontario has been a disaster. Here’s a sample from the auditor general’s report in The Globe & Mail:
Another shoot, ready, aim by the environmentalists. There are obvious applications for wind energy, solar, hydro, etc. but none are a cure all for every situation and environment. I’m tired of the green machine shoving solutions down our throats that are not even half baked. The environmentalists need to be reeled in and spanked.
And that is why labeling them “socialistic” is an accurate description. That is what socialists do: control. Whether the solution is half-baked or well-done, no free people should put up with that. It is called: tyranny. Freedom is the right to choose (so long as it does not stomp on another’s basic rights, e.g., to life…).
Janice Moore:
Socialism is a system that attempts to provide each individual with the ability to choose the life each individual wants to seek, and that is the only true freedom.
I explained socialism on WUWT here.
And I add that there has been far too much unnecessary and right wing propaganda polluting WUWT recently.
Richard
“richardscourtney
January 27, 2016 at 11:25 pm”
That may be the definition choose you use however, history and reality are very different.
“richardscourtney
January 27, 2016 at 11:25 pm”
Dammit!
That may be the definition you choose to use however, history and reality are very different.
Richard – “Socialism is a system that attempts to provide each individual with the ability to choose the life each individual wants to seek, and that is the only true freedom.”
I knew you were a Libertarian at heart!!
Patrick MJD:
That is THE definition of socialism; read the link I provided.
Whatever your distorted views of history and reality may be, they don’t change reality.
Richard
richardscourtney commented: “…That is THE definition of socialism….. Whatever your distorted views of history and reality may be, they don’t change reality….”
Reality? I laugh at the definitions we attach to the various “isms” since none of them exist in the pure form and that makes it a moot point. I have noticed that there is excessive sophistry when admonishing Marxism/Socialism/Communism claims.
Mr Green Genes:
Libertarianism is a system that attempts to prevent people obtaining what they need to better themselves and thus society. It is the antithesis of socialism which is a system that attempts to provide each individual with the ability to choose the life each individual wants to seek.
Richard
It really is fascinating how some people equate the ability to steal what they need from others as freedom.
That is how socialism works, it takes from those who produce and gives freedom to those who don’t want to.
Anybody who considers national socialism to be right wing, has no business declaring who is right wing and who isn’t.
Richard’s claim that everyone he knows agrees that national socialists are right wing reminds me of the warmunists shrieking over and over again that 97% of scientists agree with them.
Fascinating Richard.
A system that allows people to keep what they have earned, you condemn because it prevents others from taking what they want.
Socialists are all thieve at heart. They want what they haven’t earned and don’t mind using govt to steal what they want.
“richardscourtney says: January 28, 2016 at 6:27 am”
My distorted view on history and reality? Really? Errmmmm…how about Greece? 150 years of socialism that FAILED spectacularly! Socialism produced two world wars. Leninist socialism slaughtered hundreds of millions until it collapsed. The list of examples is almost endless.
Richard:-
“Libertarianism is a system that attempts to prevent people obtaining what they need to better themselves and thus society. It is the antithesis of socialism which is a system that attempts to provide each individual with the ability to choose the life each individual wants to seek.”
You will not be surprised to learn that I don’t agree with your definition of Libertarianism. However, this is neither the time nor the place to get into a discussion on the subject. Suffice it to say that if we ever meet, I’d love to engage with you on the subject. We may not persuade the other to our point of view but I’d like to think that we could both learn something.
Mr Green Genes:
You say to me
Thankyou. I, too. would welcome that engagement.
I wish some others would adopt the attitude you have expressed instead of venting spleen. I see no purpose in further replies to them; learning is not their purpose.
Richard
Renewable Energy has nothing to do with making renewable energy. It is all about making the generation of electricity expensive and unreliable. Those pushing RE KNOW that it is a losing game, but they want people to get used to not having reliable, cheap energy. Clearly they do not care at all for the environment as they are so willing to destroy so much of the landscape, the existing power grid, birds and animals, while generating huge mountains of unrecyclable materials containing rare and toxic elements. The fact that wind and solar have to be subsidized so richly shouts that these are failures from the very start.
You cannot have industry with unreliable energy. It’s that simple. The goal is to bring down the Industrialized World, lower our standard of living to that of their ideal country, North Korea. Those of us existing after their programs decrease the world population below one billion, between 6 of 7 or 13 of 14 would be dead, we are to be relegated to human settlements. Human settlements are to be bordered by buffer zones of very limited and restricted human use and the buffer zones surrounded by forbidden zones, with no humans allowed. Settlements would be cut off from each other, meaning travel would be seriously restricted. Farming would be subsistence farming, with no machines (farming by hand), no livestock (everybody is mandated to be vegans), and no guns (no meat to be hunted and no means of resisting oppression, i.e., the rulers of this one-world government). They even plan to have “tool libraries” in the settlements, so the average individual or family, if families are even allowed, would not have any personal tools—no one could possibly build anything that was not known of.
Yeah, renewable energy is just part of the plan to destroy humanity, reflecting the deep ecology principles originally created by the Nazis. We may have defeated Germany, but the Nazi philosophy simply migrated to the United Nations and is now more a threat to humanity than Nazi Germany. By definition a one-world government would have be to be socialist and totalitarian. To have socialism, they have to destroy religious moral systems, which is why there is the current war on Christianity and Christian principles, which in turn serve as the basic moral system for construction of human rights and principles of the US Constitution. This war on religion is targeted at the US and the Constitution; it has to go for the UN’s plans to proceed.
Currently there is a small community activist group trying to stop the now Ontario Provincially approved industrial wind farms on the Bruce Peninsula. The electricity generated will send power to Toronto in Southern Ontario.
“The Bruce Peninsula is a key area for both plant and animal wildlife. Part of the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve, the peninsula has the largest remaining area of forest and natural habitat in Southern Ontario[1] and is home to some of the oldest trees in eastern North America. An important flyway for migrating birds, the peninsula is habitat to a variety of animals, including black bear, massasauga rattlesnake, and barred owl.” (wiki)
Currently there are three wind turbines at Ferndale, half-way up the Bruce labeled “leap Frog” which provides power to 3600 inhabitants when the wind blows, otherwise base load is provided by Bruce Nuclear at Kincardine 50 miles south of the Bruce.
The Northern Bruce Peninsula Municipality has ordinances like “dark skies” which regulates night time outdoor lighting. These and other ordinances, combined with the Niagara Escarpment Authority focus on maintaining the unique wildlife community of the Bruce. The Bruce Trail Conservancy purchases land to maintain the Bruce Trail from Niagara Falls to Tobermory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula.
“The trail follows the edge of the Niagara Escarpment, one of the thirteen UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Canada, for almost 900 km (560 mi). The land the trail traverses is owned by the Government of Ontario, local municipalities, local conservation authorities, private landowners and the Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC).” (wiki)
The local community does not need industrial wind turbines. The local community does not want industrial wind turbine farms. The local destruction of sight lines, by wind turbines already in place (at Ferndale the width of the Bruce Peninsula is 15 miles from Lake Huron to Georgian Bay and one can see the wind turbines from each shore) have provided community first hand what 3 wind turbines do let alone another 100+ new wind turbines in this ecologically fragile region. The jobs that will be provided for the construction of these wind farms, the Bruce Peninsula subsistence farmers and small boat commercial fisherman do not have such needed skills.
The whole scheme for industrial wind farms in such an ecologically sensitive region is the product of?….Environmentalists who had political power for a brief time now almost a decade ago. The fruits of their labor is forest clear cutting; wind turbine slaughter of migrating birds; decimation of the bat population so vital for the ecology of Bruce; and a desecration of the visual landscape.
Now tell me, when the Federal and Provincial subsidies disappear for wind turbine farms and the wind turbines are no longer profitable as Bruce Nuclear (Power), the largest operating nuclear power station in the world and is currently leased to operate until 2044 will provide power not only for local use but for Toronto and environs, who will remove these wind turbines? The subsidies are folded into the rate payers bill. Will the removal costs be folded into the rate payers bill? I believe it will.
When the wind blows at night, who will purchase the extra power? Currently such power is discounted or….”given away” to the grid in the USA. So “free” electricity to being generated for the benefit of the lower 48 and Ontario Hydro One rate payers are footing the bill.
More wind farms are not needed in Ontario. Only the companies who have subsidized leases and power purchase agreements are benefiting now. Tomorrow, they will be gone.
RiHo08, Great response but a few corrections. the 3600 inhabitants is the nameplate capacity, so given the benefit of the doubt that they actually achieve 30% capacity, the number is closer to 1080. But now that the turbines are at half life (10 years old), their generating power is half again, so realistically only power for 540 homes, annually reducing for another 5 years until the equilibrium is reached where it costs more electricity to keep them operating than they produce. Just another 10 years and they will be able to be torn down, or pulled down as they are the smaller versions of turbines. What a blight on the peninsula.
There are about 5000 wind turbines in the San Gorgonio, CA pass and I drive through their midst several times a year. We are always amazed at how many of them are idle, as in stopped without any blade rotation even during opportunistic wind conditions…..as demonstrated by those that are busily spinning.
Have you read what has happened in East County, CA with the wind turbine issues? East County Magazine has a series of articles on what is taking place there.
I think it’s Ocotillo, CA.
East County Magazine @ur momisugly http://www.eastcountymagazine.org
Topics> wind farms and Ocotillo.
It’s almost unbelievable what has happened to the residents there.
I feel that I am banging my head on a wall.
Take Germany
1. Free energy provides electricity at four times the price
2. 100% wind solar produces net increase in co2 and no reduction in fossil fuel use
3. How much did that lot cost
What on earth is so difficult to understand, here you have an experiment on nation state scale and its failed.
Green, renewable drivers. Toxic, marginal technology. There must be a better way of judging specific fitness than marketing slogans and emotional appeals.
Here is a “time line” showing the history of Wind Turbine Noise problems, going back as far as 1979. Each entry provides documentation:
http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0Ak2bgr7C0nhPdGR3S1lEekU3T3p4ZDhUNDdRV2Y2ZkE&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650
1979 “First complaints received from a dozen families within a 3km radius of turbine”.
1981 “Wind turbine operation creates enormous sound pressure waves”
1982 “Closed windows and doors do not protect occupants from LFN”
1982 “NASA research on human impacts provided to wind industry”
1985 “Hypothesis for infrasound-induced motion sickness”
1987 “Wind industry told that dB(A) unsuitable to measure LFN emissions from wind turbines”
…
2004 “Wind industry knows noise models inadequate” (from Vestas)
…
2011 “Vestas knew that low frequency noise from larger turbines needed greater setbacks”
” It’s always about the almighty Dollar $$$$$$$$$$$$..The fact is ! There is no safe distance for wind Turbines, NOT GREEN, NOT CHEAP, NOT RELIABLE, and come with a very BAD side EFFECT on people and the ENVIRONMENT. there is Nothing GREEN about WIND TURBINES . SAY NO TO WIND TURBINES.
The worst side effect
Four times the price, proven
Q.E.D.
You are just so right have a look at this page of diseases caused by the evil turbines:
http://ramblingsdc.net/windsymptoms.html
sergeiMK,
That can’t compare with Prof John Brignell’s list:
Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, Arctic bogs melt, Asthma, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, bet for $10,000, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, Britain Siberian, British gardens change, bubonic plague, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north. Cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt. Early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El NiZo intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, less, not polar bears), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California.Famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming… &etc.
And how about this one:
‘Humans Could Evolve Webbed Feet if Sea Levels Rise’
[source]
Actually this is a better list of symtoms of wind turbines
http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/10501/4/Wind_Disease_List.pdf
“It also recommends increased transparency and compensation distribution for everyone in a community.” So if a farmer puts up windmills, he has to pay the community? And who is “the community” and how much payolla is enough? One could make the same argument for any business that makes profits–it is “unfair” and profits should be distributed. This is simply communism at work.
Do we also distribute the fines when birds are killed? (oh, wait, there are never fines…)
Craig Loehle
An odd conclusion from the original quote.
Rather, the original quote calls for the identification (greater transparency) of WHO is getting paid BY the government money being used (when paid as subsidies for the wind turbines) when the windmills are fabricated and installed. That may include the farmer who leases the site, but other people as well. But, if/when/since damage (harm) from windmills is widespread, should not damage (rental fees) be paid to those affected by the damage/hazard/inconveniences/noise/harm?
“And who is “the community” and how much payolla is enough?”
Oh! Oh! (raises and shakes hand vigorously) Me! Me!
The community are those effected by the act. If you do something to harm me, you either pay me what I want in compensation for the harm, or you don’t do it. If you refuse to pay compensation, or I refuse to accept the compensation offered, we engage in warfare. At that point you either kill me or I kill you.
It’s been a human tradition for thousands of years. Next question?
BTW? Communism has no concept of private property. I can’t charge you, under communist doctrine, for harming “my” property because I don’t have any.
And so we suffer the”tragedy of the commons”; since no one owns anything, everyone uses it until it’s a trash heap unable to support life. And that, in a nutshell, is Communism.
Craig, pretty good point.
Whatever outreach/engagement that is required of the large developments will also be weaseled into a tool to beat on others independent individuals (farmer with a single windmill).
Bottom line: Wind power is ugly. Wind power creates obnoxious and potentially health threatening low frequency noise. Wind power is unreliable. Wind power kills wildlife.
In the 1960’s, the very same people who were screaming about hydro power are now building wind generators. It’s flat out absurd and a very bad plan. Shut it down before more billions are wasted on this brain dead technology. Wind power works on subsistence farms. It has no place in a 21st century energy infrastructure.
And I’ll add a footnote: I don’t care if people choose to privately fund wind farms; as long as it’s not in my back yard. You can waste all the money you want to so long as it doesn’t have any impact on me. Go for it.
But don’t expect to tax me to do it. It’s all on you.
finite “fossils” imitating rigorously replenished “renewables”:
rusty “renewables” imitating finite “fossils”:
Finite “fossils” often spring back to life, like the phoenix rising from the ashes.
Wind farms will never do that. The wind can’t even assemble a working 767 from a fully-equipped junk yard, apparently! 🙂
Not sure what the message here is Khwarizmi, but at least you can tear down a wind farm and after a decade or so restore the environment. I don’t think that holds true for a volcano.
Got it Khwarizmi. You’re one of these idiots that thinks natural phenomenon associated with oil and gas are the purview of humans. Sort of like those millions of barrels of oil released constantly in subsea vents consumed by microbes evolved over millions of years to eat the stuff?
I’ll bet you consider yourself a naturalist and ecologist?
My point was that hydrocarbons aren’t really fossils and they must be renewable, given that, as you say, microbes have been eating the stuff for millions of years (hence my remark about the phoenix rising from the ashes), whereas wind farms are “renewable” only in the sense that you can rebuild them when they fall apart. They typically have a very short lifespan.
How could you have missed my point?
Regarding your strange assertion that I’m “one of these idiots that thinks natural phenomenon associated with oil and gas are the purview of humans“, I actually have a webpage dedicated to studies of, get this….non-human organisms that thrive on petroleum!
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/ncr
Fancy that!
And the “Door to Hell” isn’t a “volcano,” it’s a gas seep. A gas seep is “natural environment.”
If we piled all of the world’s windmills in one giant stack, it might conceivably sink deep into the earth and become a molten mass…of something, which in a few thousand millennia might create turbinia oil or perhaps the turbinia tar sands
now put that in your volcano and smoke it
There are some who wail about the poor in Africa and other countries who can’t afford electricity but say nothing about the poor in Ontario who now can’t afford electricity. Also effects the poor in New England.
Who exactly cares about the poor in Africa? I certainly don’t and I’m not clear on why I should? The poor in Africa are on the threshold of on using nuclear weapons to destroy the infertile plains of northern Europe? Scandinavia? Siberia? What is it you folks are afraid of? Does anyone really think [trimmed. ]?
[ Cut it out. .mod]
Bartleby
Well, I am not afraid of the poor in Africa, Asia, nor India.
I have reason to be afraid of the illegal aliens from the Muslim-poor countries now invading Europe, North America and points in between due to their thousands of rapes and assaults across every nation they have crossed in search of money and free-handouts.
I HAVE reason to be afraid of the “rich” in poor countries such as North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and points in between because they HAVE exploded nuclear weapons … many times. That these “poor countries” have not yet exploded their nuclear bombs across the very fertile plains of northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and North America is due to their inability to do just that. This month. Next month? Next year?
Do I fear the “poor” in these countries? No. I pity them for their leaders, the very leaders and policies who are being supported BY the “rich” and the “leaders” in the rich countries worldwide. []
The poor in Africa and other places in the 3rd world are being used to promote a global agenda. Electricity supply is one part of this agenda.
And at the same time those engaged in this don’t care how many people are thrown into energy poverty right here in North America and right now.
If “wind is free,” why does it cost so much?
Electricity via burning fossil had to have the infrastructure built, which was paid for via the cost of the power.
So too the wind grid. Subsidy was needed to encourage it’s growth. To bring economy of scale.
The energy is free then forever.
It will reach it’s potential when electricity storage is developed …. as it’s bound to.
Like anything in lif, nothing comes free – or often, immediately.
That does not make it something we shouldn’t do.
Toneb says:
Electricity via burning fossil had to have the infrastructure built, which was paid for via the cost of the power. So too the wind grid. Subsidy was needed to encourage it’s growth. To bring economy of scale. The energy is free then forever…
So many fallacies in so few pixels.
Windmills today only have a 7-12 year life expectancy. Not “forever”, but only 7 years.
Subsidies are for construction, for electric rates purchase priorities (windmill power is paid for at higher rates BEFORE any other sources are allowed to be purchased), for tax write-off’s in the factories and the permitting process, in the land use contracts, and in the construction (start-up) contracts.
NEVER for long-term or short-term operation and maintenance: 6 month repair outages, 18 months outages, and 7-year repair and replacement outages. If not done, even that 7 year optimistic lifetime will fail. ALL maintenance gear and parts have to be brought up the towers by hand, climbing hand-over-hand 200 and 300 feet up. Then you get to START work.
Kills lots of people worldwide.
There is a lot more wrong with wind energy than what is in this article.
The following link is an interview with Fritz Vahrenholt by SPIEGEL, where he argues that the official United Nations forecasts on the severity of climate change are overstated and supported by weak science.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/breaking-global-warming-taboos-i-feel-duped-on-climate-change-a-813814.html