By Robert Bradley Jr. — September 14, 2021
Ed. Note: The health effects of industrial wind on local residents continues to attract mainstream research despite severe political incorrectness. It’s common sense: huge industrial machines moving in the open air have negative effects. For other posts at MasterResource on this subject, see here. This post complements yesterday’s on the nighttime amplification of noise.
“Wind turbines generate low-frequency noise (LFN, 20–200 Hz)…. [which causes] headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness, tinnitus, aural pain sleep disturbances, and annoyance. Clinically, exposure to LFN from wind turbines may cause increased risk of epilepsy, cardiovascular effects, and coronary artery disease.”
“In order to reduce LFN transport from outdoors to indoors, we recommend that the windows should be kept closed, especially at nighttime because LFN is most noticeable at night. In addition, … residences in close proximity to wind turbines should be equipped with airtight windows.” (Nature, September 8, 2021)
Make no mistake: the obvious is becoming mainstream despite the protests of the mighty industrial-wind complex. The latest evidence on aerodynamic noise comes from Nature magazine [Scientific Reports volume 11: 17817 (2021)]: “Effects of Low-frequency Noise from Wind Turbines on Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Individuals.”
The Abstract follows:
Wind turbines generate low-frequency noise (LFN, 20–200 Hz), which poses health risks to nearby residents. This study aimed to assess heart rate variability (HRV) responses to LFN exposure and to evaluate the LFN exposure (dB, LAeq) inside households located near wind turbines.
Thirty subjects living within a 500 m radius of wind turbines were recruited. The field campaigns for LFN (LAeq) and HRV monitoring were carried out in July and December 2018. A generalized additive mixed model was employed to evaluate the relationship between HRV changes and LFN. The results suggested that the standard deviations of all the normal to normal R–R intervals were reduced significantly, by 3.39%, with a 95% CI = (0.15%, 6.52%) per 7.86 dB (LAeq) of LFN in the exposure range of 38.2–57.1 dB (LAeq).
The indoor LFN exposure (LAeq) ranged between 30.7 and 43.4 dB (LAeq) at a distance of 124–330 m from wind turbines. Moreover, households built with concrete and equipped with airtight windows showed the highest LFN difference of 13.7 dB between indoors and outdoors. In view of the adverse health impacts of LFN exposure, there should be regulations on the requisite distances of wind turbines from residential communities for health protection.
Introduction
Wind energy is used around the world as a source of clean energy. However, wind turbines generate low-frequency noise (LFN) in the range of 20–200 Hz. As many community complaints have centered around the LFN from wind turbines, it is important to evaluate the health impacts of LFN on residents near wind farms.
LFN exposure has been found to cause a variety of health conditions. Exposure to LFN from wind turbines results in headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness, tinnitus, aural pain sleep disturbances, and annoyance. Clinically, exposure to LFN from wind turbines may cause increased risk of epilepsy, cardiovascular effects, and coronary artery disease.
It was also found that exposure to noise (including LFN) may have an impact on heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is the variation over time of the period between adjacent heartbeats, which is an indicator of the activities of the autonomic nervous system, consisting of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Autonomic imbalance usually represents a hyperactive SNS and a hypoactive PNS and results in reduced HRV.
An autonomic imbalance may increase the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases25. A review paper indicated that road traffic noise may overactivate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPA) and sympathetic-adrenal-medullar axis (SAM), increase the blood pressure and reduce HRV, and finally affect the cardiovascular system26. A recent study analyzing 658 measurements of HRV obtained from 10 healthy males (18–40 years old) indicated reductions in HRV due to environmental LFN exposure27. However, few studies have specifically examined the effect of LFN from wind turbines on HRV in healthy individuals; thus, this was the aim of this study.
In view of the adverse health impacts of noise exposure, many countries and international organizations have established regulations for noise control. These regulations are set for noise in the full spectrum of human hearing (20–20 k Hz). The Ministry of Environment of Finland set limits for wind farm noise of 45 dB (LAeq) during the day and 40 dB (LAeq) during the night.
In the United Kingdom, the fixed limit for turbine noise is 40 dB (LAeq) for the daytime and 43 dB (LAeq) for the nighttime. In the United States, noise levels of ≤ 55 dB (LAeq) are set for outdoors in residential areas, farms, and other outdoor areas as requisites for public health protection, and levels of 45 dB are set for indoor residential areas, hospitals, and schools.
In addition to the full noise spectrum, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) also established regulations for LFN to avoid impacts on residents, since wind farms have been set up very close to residential communities. The LFN standards for wind turbines in the daytime (7 a.m.–7 p.m.) and evening (7 p.m.–10 p.m.) are 39 dB (LAeq) for environments requiring tranquility such as residential areas, 44 dB (LAeq) for mixed residential and commercial/industrial areas, and 47 dB (LAeq) for industrial areas; those at nighttime (10 p.m.–7 a.m.) are 36, 36, 41, and 44 dB (LAeq), respectively32. This study assessed the LFN in the indoor environments of households near wind turbines to evaluate whether the LFN levels meet the Taiwan EPA standards.
One of the most important factors influencing residential noise exposure from wind turbines is the distance of the wind turbine from the observer33. For example, at a distance of 120–500 m, the measured turbine noise levels decreased by 3–5 dB (LAeq), while at a distance of 1000 m the noise was reduced by 6–7 dB (LAeq). Hansen et al. reported variations in indoor LFN levels (15–45 dB (LAeq)) for two households (houses made of sandstone/concrete/iron or bricks with windows remaining closed or half open) at different distances from wind turbines.
This study assessed the indoor/outdoor differences in LFN exposure in several households located at varying distances from wind turbines. Our main focus was on the indoor LFN levels in several recruited households; we did not intend to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the influential factors. These households serve the purpose of demonstrating the potential impacts of influential factors.
Besides distance from turbines, building materials also affect indoor LFN exposure. This work assessed the indoor LFN levels for several recruited households with different building materials and open/closed windows to illustrate their potential impacts. It is known that materials have different sound absorption coefficients.
The overall sound pressure level and spectrum of external noise change when transmitted to the interior of a building. Mid- and high-frequency noises are selectively attenuated by roofs and walls, causing the building structure to function like an LFN pass filter.
Outdoor to indoor noise reduction generally decreases with frequency, which is related to housing construction and room dimensions. Factors contributing to indoor/outdoor noise reduction also include structural resonances, room modes, and coupling between the air volume inside the residence and the stiffness of the walls, roofs, and ceilings. It is known that the appropriate choice of construction materials and designs can contribute to LFN exposure reduction for residents. Hence, these factors are not evaluated comprehensively in this study.
Taiwan is a small and highly populated island. Wind farms have been set up near residential communities, affecting the day-to-day lives of the residents. The hypothesis of this study is that LFN from wind turbines might affect HRV of residents. In order to verify the hypothesis of this study, we defined two objectives: to evaluate the LFN and HRV relationship with an intervention design and to assesses the actual LFN exposure of the community residents.
This investigation is the first in Asia examining the impact of LFN from wind turbines on the HRV of healthy residents. In addition, the variations in LFN exposure inside several residences constructed of different building materials are examined. The findings of this study would serve as a useful reference for Asian countries planning to launch or promote wind power generation.
I’d like to see a study of the effects of wind turbines on sea life due to LFN.
it would also be useful to see an assessment of the effects of LFN persistently compared to intermittently. Travelling in a car for example generates exposure to LFN at much the same frequencies but we are generally not in a car 24 hours per day.
Preventing sleep while driving is probably a plus.
In a car, you also have audible noise maybe modulating the LFN.
Where I used to farm in North Cumbria, England, a couple of characters showed up totally unannounced. They’d been ‘in the area’ and had heard that I had a pair of small (300Watt) windmills.
I do like my techno toys.
Anyway, they wanted to plant 500kWatt windmills around somewhere anywhere.
Me and my place seemed perfect – the farm had the word ‘hill’ in its name, faced westwards with 35 mile clear view (its why I left believe it or not and impacts this story massively (##)), there was a 11kV 3-phase line running across it and I. the landowner, was obviously ‘into’ electrikery.
Perfect
Except that a place name of Eskdalemuir was just shy of 50km away in SW Scotland.
Eskdalemuir was/is UK home of the British Geological Society’s (BGS) earthquake monitoring network.
Previously, many decades ago, were based on Kew Gardens London but were forced to move because, the ground in and around London became ‘too noisy’. I think because of the new-fangled underground trains..
Thus I/we came to discover that windmills do in fact make a lot of underground noise and BGS Eskdalemuir had established, with the local councils and planning authorities, a blanket ban on large, over 10kW I think, windmills being planted within that 50km radius of their base.
So near yet so far. Think how minted I could have become (They were offering 1 pence per kWh for any/all electric it made as rental for a 10 by 10 metre square in the corner of a field
## Why i was eager to leave my farm was, maybe the business of aging, but it occured that the near relentless wind, gave me splitting bad headaches. As I would tell anyone and as I’m doing now, the wind hurt my ears.
It wasn’t noisy and I do have lots of experience with some very expensive sound level measuring equipment from my days as an electronics research engineer.
Something was ‘in the wind’ that did my head in.
Quote:”One of the most important factors influencing residential noise exposure from wind turbines is the distance of the wind turbine from the observer!
Never mind all the ‘residential’ and ‘turbine’ guff in there, No It Does Not
I told you that I was in London last wknd, ‘dancing’
Especially I do like the technology, the big amps and speakers – there is a Magnetic Attraction.
Where I was, look it up, was at an out-of-doors gig at The Drumsheds in N. London.
The stage and main speakers were at one end of the field and as far away as possible within the confines of the site was a bar and the Merch Stall/Tent.
Google map tells me 250 metres.
You could hear the music clearly but didn’t need to ‘shout’ in conversation.
But, at The Very Far End of the site and beside the bar was a 2 by 2 stack of 40ft steel shipping containers.
If you ventured in front of those containers, 20 or 30 feet away, the music was as loud and clear as it was in the Mosh Pit
I kid ye not.
Next:
At another little gig I went, was a large (maybe 5ft) square box, just on its own and on the edge of the ‘dance-floor’
I HAD to check it out
I was THE Most Gorgeous Thing I had clapped eyes upon for a very long time.
It was a Sub-Woofer.
One single drive unit, maybe a metre in diameter. The Small print on the back of it told me it was rated at 2kW RMS and had a frequency response up to the dizzying height of 55 Hertz
Epic. A earthquake in a box. Just wow. want want want
geddit.
Is noise from the turbines being carried underground and rattling people’s houses?
You heard (haha), it here first
What was it doing there, why so much effort and expense for something no-one can really hear?
Because, and as all the fellow dancers I have inspired around here will know, you feel sound as much as hear it.
And that is why these muppet scientists with their 20Hz LFN, sound meters and Rectum Spanalysers (**) haven’t got an <expletive> clue…
The kids know, it’s encoded into their genes. And yours also funnily enough.
(Genes are great fun, go explore and play with them before you get old)
** fellow electronics engineers will know exactly what I’m talking about and NO, it is not ‘rude’
edit to PS
There was in fact 2 of those big subs, one atop the other.
You Had No Escape
Good post, Peta.
I wonder if the people at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) looked into how windmills could affect their instrument? I seem to recall they were trying to eliminate as much vibration around the site as possible, but I don’t remember windmills being mentioned specifically.
“I’d like to see a study of the effects of wind turbines on sea life due to LFN.”
That’s just what I was thinking reading the article.
Sound travels a lot farther in water, so presumably windmill-generated sound/vibration at sea would bother creatures at long distances.
Where are the Greenies when you need them, to defend the rights of the whales?
Nowhere to be found. When it comes to windmills, the Greens have no mercy.
Regarding sea life: We know that low frequency noise travels extremely well in sea water and that marine mammals use low frequency sounds to communicate.
The Biden administration plans a massive increase in construction of offshore wind farms. We should demand an environmental impact study on the affects of these wind farms noise on whales and other marine mammals. The east and west coasts of the US and Canada are major migratory routes for whales.
Simple Goose/Gander stuff.
“Wind turbines generate low-frequency noise (LFN, 20–200 Hz)…. [which causes] headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness, tinnitus, aural pain sleep disturbances, and annoyance. Clinically, exposure to LFN from wind turbines may cause increased risk of epilepsy, cardiovascular effects, and coronary artery disease.”
And that isn’t the workforce.
Residential areas don’t get tend to have that long list of problems with gas, nuclear or coal. It’s those who work in the industries who take the risks and who get paid reasonably well to do it.
None of the problems associated with renewable energy – high ecological footprint, bird and bat slicing, intermittency, high peak-to-mean ratio on transmission lines, noise pollution, interference with radar – are borne by the companies who operate them.
Imagine a nuclear power company discharging radioactive material into a river and saying ‘not our problem’
It is entirely selective with environmentalism. My observation is they gauge their compassion for a species by their estimation of its cuddliness cuteness, and/or its intelligence. Life with these people does not mean life…. it is highly selective.
So, when an exotic species of bird seldom seen on these shores arrives…
“The white-throated needletail, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia, was spotted on Harris. [Scotland]
About 30 birdwatchers travelled to the island to see the unusual visitor, which has only been recorded five times in the UK since 1950.
However, they then saw it die after colliding with the wind turbine. “
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-23082846
All of the TV celebrity scientists – eg Chris Packham, David Attenborough etc remained utterly silent. Not a peep for the death of such a rare visitor – it was, after all, eradicated in Scotland as soon as it arrived.
Recently a TB positive alpaca named Geronimo was ordered to be put down in line with regulations. Farmers face this problem all the time. But the alpaca is cuddly and cute…
He spoke about the footage of Geronimo being removed from the farm. “I found those images extremely distressing. Because I like animals, because I like life. Because I respect life,” Packham, who went vegan in 2019, said.
He continued: “When I saw those images of that terrified animal being separated from its small herd, and dragged across a field, and tied inappropriately in a van in extraordinary distress to be led away to slaughter, I thought to myself, there can’t be a person with any real depth of compassion for other animal life in this country who would condone that behavior.”
https://plantbasednews.org/culture/ethics/chris-packham-geronimo-alpaca/
A vegan? So obviously, Packham’s compassion for life doesn’t include plantae or fungi. I bet he’s taken an antibiotic or two as well.
Their concern for animals also depends heavily on who is killing it.
If a goose is killed in a tailings pond, it’s full DefCon 1.
If that same goose is killed by a windmill, it’s no big deal.
The tailings pond didn’t need to be there, but the windmill did…./s
The bottom-ash settling pond at the coal plant I worked at was full of fish and even turtles. When it had to be periodically drained to excavate it, we had to drain the water down to the point where we could capture them & relocate them into the nearby river. When it was excavated & then refilled, new fish & animals originating from the river would go thru the water flushing system & eventually repopulate it until the next time.
But he does own a lovely 13th Century house in France according to a recent Sunday newspaper magazine.
No doubt he walks across the water whenever he visits the place to escape the brutal task of explaining to the BBC viewers why they must give up their right to eat decent food, enjoy light and heating and foreign travel. The plebs have to be kept in their place.
He is yet another hypocrite…
“Funnily enough, Chris’s concerns with climate change and capitalism mysteriously vanish when it comes to his own “Travel with Chris Packham” business. It turns out Chris is quite happy to take punters thousands of miles round the world on luxury wildlife tours, pumping out hundreds of tonnes of carbon dioxide to fly there. Provided they’re paying several thousand pounds each:
This August you’ve got a “a rare opportunity to spend time in the company of Chris whilst surrounded by the spectacular wilderness of Alaska” on a Wildlife Photography Cruise – for a cool £7,195 per person excluding flights.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/eco-loon-chris-packham-cashing-in-on-carbon-belching-luxury-wildlife-tours/
Rules for thee, not me.
“Imagine a nuclear power company discharging radioactive material into a river and saying ‘not our problem’”
It’s been done in Russia. Reka Теча (реки Тобол)
The Tobol is a sub-tributary of the ob.
Approx 102pB of radioactive isotopes were dumped into that river, used for the drinking water of as many as forty villages, with a combined population of about 28,000 residents, lined the river at the time.
For 24 of them, the Techa was a major source of water; 23 of them were eventually evacuated.
Does anyone here know anything about sound propagation? This layman would (naively, no doubt) have thought that doubling the distance (from 500 m to 1000 m) would attenuate the sound by at least 6 db. But 6 to 7 minus 3 to 5 works out to only 2 to 3.
The only things I can think of are (1) the ground is acting as a waveguide or (2) the writer garbled something.
Also, “decreased” from what?
Any ideas?
I don’t have exact numbers, but low audio frequencies carrying much further and with less dampening in air than midrange and high ones is a well-known phenomenon. Isn’t it elephants or some other kind of large animal that communicate through LF (for humans, mostly infrasound) “rumbling” noises that carry easily across considerable larger distances than higher-frequency sounds?
You may look here for some explanations
https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/handbook/Sound_Propagation.html
Thanks for the link. It doesn’t quite answer the question, but it does provide helpful background. Thanks again.
Dear Krishna Gans,
Quoting from SFU site:
https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/handbook/Sound_Propagation.html
“There are two common kinds of geometric spreading: spherical and cylindrical spreading.”
Audible sound spreads as a sphere (~ -6 dB per distance doubling) while very low frequency sound, infra sound, spreads as a cylinder (~ -3 dB per distance doubling).
Measurements of low frequencies (1Hz, 2Hz, 3Hz, ) the harmonics of the blade pass frequency, are significant out to at least 10km on large machines, consistent with cylindrical spreading.
Joe,
One of the largest influences on sound propagation is the temperature profile of the atmosphere. Methods of estimating sound level in the absense of actual data assume a modest inversion like that formed on clear nights. However, stronger inversions produce a situation where level decreases at 3dB per doubling. Then, near ground the temperature profile and topography can interact to produce waveguides where there may be no geometrical attenuation at all. So, at times and under varying conditions a person can observe a very broad range of results.
Thanks a lot.
I’m guessing that the “no geometric attenuation at all” is particularly relevant for low-frequency sound because dissipation is slow?
That, and the wavelengths for even low frequency sound (20 Hz is only 17m wavelength) are carried efficiently in the temperature inversions and cold air stuck in arroyos and canyons in the morning because the characteristic size of the canyon is many many wavelengths.
This topography is to A-weighted and G-weighted sound what an optical fiber is to light. I have a UPRR mainline yard about 3 miles from my house which is on the margin of a shallow canyon right at the mountain front. During the night I can hear, in fact I can be awakened by, trains being assembled, and trains passing through as sound is confined to ground level in this canyon by an inversion. During the day a person never hears such a thing except during an exceptional inversion in the winter.
Sound levels outdoors are difficult to measure anyway, and transient sounds are nearly impossible to catch. No wonder that people who have an incentive to not find nuisance noises, can easily not find them.
Thanks again. Always good to get some authoritative input.
Your explanation prompts me to speculate that the wide sound variations I hear from small planes when I’m hiking in the desert must be caused by a lot of non-line-of-sight propagation.
Are you measuring infra sound (<20 Hz). There is an acoustic pulse, a “wind turbine signature” in the harmonics of the blade pass frequency.
Please see the following paper,
. Vanderkooy and R. Mann. “Measuring Wind Turbine Coherent Infrasound”. Wind Turbine Noise 2015, INCE/EUROPE, Monday 20th April to Thursday 23rd April 2015. Glasgow, Scotland.
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/%7Emannr/WTN2015.pdf
It can happen. I worked at a refinery and we installed a couple of very large crude pumps. Upon startup we got a complaint from a lady over a mile away. Preposterous we said. No complaints from anyone closer, some living only a few hundred yards away. We checked it out and sure enough, step onto her property and there was a very discernible rumble. We switched over to the old pump and it went away. Turned on the new pump and it came back. Turned out that the water table and local geology conspired to mirror and focus the sound. Not sure how/if they ever solved it – I had left for another location by then.
Very interesting. I did some consulting for Weidlinger Associates some 45 years ago on what was triggering missile silo alarms in a very remote region. Once again it was the local geology conspiring to carry a narrow band of sounds over 300 miles from the source.
Is there ANYTHING beneficial about wind turbines?
No.
In Ontario, turbines have been sited to surround rural residents’ homes. These arrays are especially problematic. Residents, including leaseholders, did not consent to being harmed.
Take a look at an explanation for the harm being reported.
https://stopthesethings.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/sub409ss_atkinson-rapley.pdf
Synchronicity and Phase of sound waves
Yes – if you have some land to rent out for one.
“David Cameron’s wealthy father-in-law is making almost £350,000 a year from a publicly-subsidised wind farm on his country estate”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027708/Samantha-Camerons-father-nets-350-000-year-subsidised-wind-farm.html
It’s an elitist thing, of course.
As said before on this blog, it’s Robin Hood in reverse, stealing from the poor & giving to the rich!!! All the windmills & solar arrays are on land owned by wealthy private landowners, for which they are handsomely paid by the bill-payers in the renewable energy charge on our energy bills, for the wealthy ruling elites, it’s a win-win situation, it’s brilliant, for them!!!
This is the new feudalism
No.
This is the good ol feudalism.
The new world order (great reset) is neither new nor an order
but the old feudal tyranny.
Even the disguise is old (communism with some green paint).
You ‘ve got the feudalists(Ceo’ s etc)
The high priests who to controle the masses (celebrities,politicians,scientist etc who all ,by some strange coincidence have the exakt same opinions and contradictions)
and the rest who does not belong to the more equal animals.
There are differences – eg money they can’t get at in the form of bitcoin.
Not even Elon Musk could sink it!
Feodalism is socialism for agricultural society.
Socialism is feodalism for industrial society.
One of the biggest AGW promoters(Edenhofer)
even admitted that AGW has nothing to do with environment,but everything with redistribution of money.
He did not say which direction the redistribution goes,
but if we take a closer look at all those artificial crisis we realise:
Since Covid pandemic the superrich got richer,
Since AGW all former not so rich humanistic actors (warmongering carreer politicians)
became superrich,be it the Clintons, Al Gore,Obama, Biden.
Before the artificial banking crisis of 2008 (only happened because banks were forced to give loans to people who can not pay them back)
the mega banks controlled less than 30% of US money supply.
Now they controle more than 50%.
The Waterloo crisis :When Napoleon lost the war Rothschilds agitators claimed he won.
Rothschilds sold their shares and a selling panic started.So the Rothschilds bought all they could for pennies on the dollar before everyone realised that England won the war.
The FED was created in 1913 with he aim to prevent further banking crisis.
What happened?Just a few years later the biggest crisis ever happened = great depression,created by the FED on purpose by systematically reducing the money supply(Imagine what a centralised digital currency could do to the planet.
)
There are several videos of Milton Friedman talking about this on youtube.
Who do you think were the big winners of the great depressions?
The little guys or the Rockefellers,Baruchs, Lehman,Warburgs and Carnegies?
Redistribution of wealth explained…
““But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy any more.” — Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-chair of IPCC WG III, New American, Nov. 19, 2010
The Maldives have screwed that narrative up – a bit
If you aren’t careful, griff will accuse you of being a conspiracy monger.
MarkW,
Isn’t being accused of anything by the griffter one of the more prestigious merit badges to earn?
You forgot Bernie Sanders, the multi-millionaire admitted communist who was married and honey-mooned in the old Soviet Union & who never had a job in his life other than politics.
Well, the idea of wind turbines’ “free energy” sounds good to those who don’t have to hear them.
Profits for those with these things on their land.
So, tastes like $..t and is expensive, but is a great virtue signaling to like-minded loonies? Get you some of that? Who is lobbying to have a wind turbine complex constructed next to their house? COP26 wants us to eat more of this stuff?
Google” Mariana Alves-Pereira” and, if you have an hour to spare, listen in particular to her lecture in Ljubljana, Slovenia, May 2019. There are many similar lectures and interviews by her but this I regard as the best. It is in English although she is Portuguese.
In one of her interviews she admits that there is nothing that you can do to mitigate the effects of Low Frequency Noise and her advice was “If you can see a wind turbine, move.” Otherwise you lay yourself open to all of the symptoms and damage from VibroAcoustic Disease (VAD).
True, if you happen to be bothered by the noise, moving elsewhere is the only option. Fortunately, for some, they only run 1/4 of the time….
Forced relocation is unacceptable.
Trump said once that if they build a windmill within sight of your home, that your property value will drop by over 50 percent (I think the exact quote was 65 percent). Trump knows real estate. 🙂
I don’t think closing the windows is going to help as the most annoying infrasound travels through the ground and into the fabric of the building which acts as an amplifier, according to its resonant frequency. My larger double glazed windows also vibrate when a car leaves its engine running outside.
Is there no way of acoustic decoupling (i hope thats the correct English term)?
Houses are effectively defenseless from sounds and vibration travelling through competent rock and entering through the foundation, unless one builds isolation into the foundation the first time. Unfortunately the sources of this noise will enter the neighborhood long after the home is first built. Who would bear the expense of this when the house is first designed and permitted?
Scotland has guidance suggesting 2km and Wales suggests 500m between a wind turbine and housing. Most UK wind turbines are in those nations and they are seldom even that close to housing.
This study seems to be looking at distances of 330M ?
and it isn’t reproduced or linked to in full, so we don’t know if there actually was any health impact?
I’d say this is misrepresentative cherry picking and alarmism!
You’d know more about cherry picking and alarmism than I do, but, a question:
How many windmill/solar farms would it take to power the UK with zero CO2 emissions?
If 2km distance was maintained, would there be room left for real farms?
Would there be room left for people to live in their own house?
No problem with living in their own house. Everyone will be herded into 10 square metre apartments in cities.
There would be no room. Here in puny Alberta Canada, population 4.5million, if we electrify everything (triple the grid requirement), we would require at least 90,000 3MW wind turbines, plus 50 sqkm of “battery” as well.
No there will be no room for people.
That is the point i think.
Griff knows
I’d say this is misrepresentative cherry picking and alarmism
That’s the best description I have yet to see of what you post – on a daily basis.
Well done, griff It’s bang on the money. What you post is misrepresentative, cherry picked alarmism.
And without evidence, too.
Griff, We would be gob smacked if you didn’t.
Thus speaks the nutter who doesn’t live anywhere near a wind farm!
He has no idea, NONE, ZILCH! WTF does he do commenting on stuff?
Wind farms never have less than at least 15-30 turbines, so the effect is collective, Ie. each noise source is reinforced over a large area, and when the wind blows your way, you get what is basically a large LF distributed loud speaker, with incredibly irritating random noise sources as the blades sweep by the supporting masts.
As the blades age, it gets worse and worse.
We have a massive one nearby, and it’s got a lot more to do with the way the wind blows (ha if it does!)
The only way you get zero nuisance from those things is when it’s dead calm.Ie. they produce no electricity.
It is alarmist for good reason, but the important question is why the proponents of wind and solar live in towns and cities away from the consequences of their stupidity and why are they connected to a grid which still moves around dirty electrons generated by fossil fuels or nuclear.
The study revealed the impact of wind turbine noise on the autonomic nervous system. Describing the variety of resulting symptoms is not the objective here, but has been done ad nauseum elsewhere.
This German video documents the harmful effects of the infrasound produced by industrial-sized wind turbines.
This video presents various studies by acoustical engineers and other scientists showing infrasound’s affect on the ear, the heart, the brain and other organs.
And it’s not just LFN, there is the added issue of shadow flicker which can trigger an epileptic seizure. Not that there should be any issues given that these things should not be used in the first place.
And for what?
A measly 1.67GW @12:45 on Wednesday, 15th September
Redge, In September 2016, Heysham 2 completed 940 days of continuous generation ( possibly a record.)
Yet Don ‘ Griff’ Quixote still believes we should take a ‘punt’ on windmills.
I’ll be looking at this more closely, but I’m much more interested in infrasound issues than audible issues. Here in NH, and I believe the rest of the populated country, wind project developers have done a good job getting sound measurements to use dbA weighting. That tries to mimic the ear’s response – if you can’t hear it, OSHA considers it not a problem. So dbA pretty much ignores ultrasound (which attenuates in air) and infrasound (which refracts in temperature inversions down to the ground and can be measured and sense miles away.)
I have equipment to record infrasound, I had hoped to be doing that this summer but too much other stuff going on.
Besides, my recorder is part of a seismograph, and, wow, that’s much more fascinating and way too distracting.
With some music you don’t so much hear the bass, you feel it.
Tru dat. It happens to me frequently when I am stopped at a traffic light, thanks to massive subwoofers in the car typically one over and three back. Sucks to be me when it’s the car next to mine.
I believe the term used for those people is “bassers.” I always shudder to think of what they are doing to their hearing. If it’s that bad in my closed-up car, I can hardly imagine what it’s like inside their car.
I think they just like the feeling of their giblets jiggling.
I always look for the trickles of blood coming out of their ears.
They should look into a product called “The ButtKicker”. It hooks into the sound system to do the “giblet jiggling” without the high volume.
“I believe the term used for those people is “bassers.””
They are really impressive at the stoplight. That’s sarcasm.
I think I would describe those people as juvenile and rather selfish, for imposing themselves, and their sounds on others. I wouldn’t do it to them, because I think it would be rude of me to do so. Some people have less empathy than others.
Yeah, Tom. Which is why I’m with Mr., above.
We can always hope, eh?
Maybe one day…
Buh-boom, whumpa, buh-boom, thumpa-thumpa, buh-boom, thumpa-whumpa
POP!
“Oops! There went my spleen!”
And how are they any different from the Harley riders who modify their bikes? I have never yet heard a car sound system that even approaches the sound pressure of those bikes.
Should be against the law.
Do you know why bikers go for loud pipes?
So that “cagers” (car drivers) HEAR them and know they’re there.
I heard a big bike go down the highway not long ago, as he passed me, and you could still hear the bike even after he had gone completely out of sight, which on this occasion, on a flat landscape, would have been over a mile away. I don’t know how the rider keeps from going deaf.
Especially when those morons drive with their windows down, just to ensure that other can enjoy their choice of “music”!
Yeah. I’m a big fan of Baroque music, Mike.
Maybe I should invest some bucks and blast those bassers out with some Vivaldi, maybe a little Bach, eh?
Bingo. LAeq weighting greatly discounts those low frequencies and should not be used here.
Hmmm … I wonder if there were any wind turbines set up nearby when The Old Man in the Mountain collapsed? 😎
(Probably not)
One needn’t travel beyond their own neighborhood to see the hypocrisy of left-wingers who proudly favor solar and wind power, but can’t be bothered with hanging laundry on a line.
Here in the U.S., some communities with Homeowners Associations and deed restrictions on property do not allow clotheslines and hanging out your laundry.
I wonder if a few green HOA Karens have had their heads explode over that one.
“The rules, the rules! Green, green! Aaaaarrrghhh!!!!” 💥 💥 💥
😵
I remember communities in CA that required you to keep your lawn green (i.e. well-watered), so you had to water it even in a drought with government imposed water rationing. They would fine people who followed the rationing because their grass wasn’t green enough.
Good one, Tony.
HOAs vs, Greens may be the ultimate hypocrisy test, or the ultimate cognitive dissonance machine.
In that case, it sucks to be Karen.
I started hanging my laundry to dry indoors over a decade ago (not to save electricity), and i now have shirts and pants a decade old that still look good, no fraying edges or wearing. Its not the washing machine its the hot dryer that destroys your clothes.
Added benefit as a gardener with many house plants here in dry calgary, it adds humidity to the air in my house.
Win win, Dryer is a huger adder to the electricity bill
My wife faithfully hangs it outside 8
– months of the year.
This reminds me of “The Hum” acoustic phenomenon, it is low freq noise, and it penetrates house walls, sounds like a truck idling out in the yard.
That is Griff, rocking himself to sleep out in your garden.
Wind power would not exist without government mandates & subsidies, so the real solution to wind turbine LFN is eliminate the mandates & subsidies for a source of power that doesn’t have any benefits,
Not too long ago I wrote this short essay on my experiences dealing with wind turbine noise estimates made by using a standard that no longer applies to wind turbines, is far too simplistic, and doesn’t offer much guidance on how to achieve an operating/design margin based on what one should do in the face of uncertainty per the GUM. This “standard” also does not consider anything at all about ground propagation from tall sourse, infrasound, LFN, or vibration carried through hard rock interacting with resonances in a building. But hey, we are saving the world.
My engineering students are going to get a lecture about these issues next week.
This has been known for years, but the UK government doesn’t want to know about something that might kill off onshore wind turbines – so it ignores the problem and lets people suffer.
It seems to me that how the house is orientated in regards to the windmills could make a difference as well.
Does a house that has a corner pointed towards the windmill have less interior noise compared to a house that has a long flat wall facing towards the windmill?
In Ontario, whoever sited the turbines in the largest project, surrounded homes in clusters. This situation needs to be resolved.
Sympathetic noise?
Forget effects on humans. Greens hate humans. Find out how they negatively affect wild life.
[Oh, I just remembered, they hate birds too. Never mind.]
I’m about 12 miles away from large towers, but there are houses much closer, but still 400+ m. If any of those folks have complained of health effects I have not seen such in the local paper.
In my previous car, I could partially open the passenger-side windows, front and back, and set up a recurring thumping sound that was most unpleasant. This seemed to resemble the sound and feeling I noticed when visiting one of the area’s large wind facilities.
Bottom line: It is good that this issue is being properly investigated.
MSM in Ontario has failed to properly investigate the issue of harm.
Orange man said wind turbine noise causes cancer.
90% of the things he said that at first seemed idiotic, turned out, and not long after, to be totally true ! For which virtually no one ever gave him any credit. Because of course, Orange Man Bad…
Last year most high profile Democrats were proclaiming that they never take a COVID vaccine that was developed while Trump was in office.
This year, those same Democrats are saying that anyone who refuses to take that same vaccine, will be fined.
More importantly, 90% of the things he is reported to have said, he didn’t say.
“90% of the things he said that at first seemed idiotic, turned out, and not long after, to be totally true !”
That’s because most of what Trump said was distorted by the Leftwing News Media.
They hear what Trump has to say, then they distort his words for political reasons, and these lies go out over the broadcast airways and the internet, and then a day or two or three later, the actual truth of what Trump said comes out and it was nothing like the Leftwing Media portrayed it. It’s still happening today. Everything Trump says is distorted by the Left, for political purposes. The truth is not in them. Whatever they say about Trump, believe the opposite, and you will be pretty close to the truth.
The Left is scared to death of Trump. And with good reason. Trump is bad for radical Democrats and good for the United States. So the Left attacks, attacks, attacks, relentlessly.
It will be interesting to see who wins in the end: Truth (Trump/the Right) or Lies (the radical Left). More freedom, or lose our freedoms? That is the question.
The Left is trying to lie their way into being able to take all our freedoms away. They want control of the election process, which puts them in control of us. We can’t let them be successful.
Trump was all mouth on wind turbines. He repeatedly failed to veto continued PTC legislation.
I don’t know about that, but I would take Trump over Biden right now. How about you?
Like so often regarding Trump, the lie propagates. He did not say that. He said that some people claim this, which is true. It’s the same as the ‘bleach drinking advice’ that he never gave.
I have no love for the man and think he’s a bit of an idiot, but the obvious lies that the media spread about him make me side with him and against the media. To be attacked spuriously so often, he must have been above the target.
“the obvious lies that the media spread about him”
Much the same with me. I sat out 2016 because while very much against Clinton I could NOT stomach voting for Trump. After watching 4 years of BS though, I enthusiastically changed my position in 2020. The media definitely impacted my opinion but not in the way they wanted.
“To be attacked spuriously so often, he must have been above the target.”
And on top of that, the Left never proved one allegation they made against Trump. Trump is the most vetted person in human history, and the Left, after all that trying, can’t lay a glove on him.
Trump may not be the most well-spoken person,for various reasons, but Trump is the most honest man in politics. Provably so.
I saw a report yesterday that says Joe Biden’s ancestors were slave owners. We need to vet Biden as much as we vetted Trump. Biden could not stand the scrutiny.
Wind turbine noise cancer is an induced cerebral malignancy which allows no reasonable discussion of the machines’ inabilty to reduce emissions. This pathology is endemic among mainsteam “environmental” orgs, media, financial and political followers.
Long-term stress can increase the chances of cancer.
As a wise man once said, “Well duh . . .”
Birds including eagles and of course humans are expendable in the era of the climate catastrophe war. Do not cry for these martyrs. They too get their 72 raisins.
So living near airports must also be a health hazard due to noise? Any maybe proximity to highways? I can think of all sorts of man made sources of low frequency noise and we are just now discovering this?
I am sorry, I hate wind turbines, but this sounds really sketchy to me.
“So living near airports must also be a health hazard due to noise?”
NO.
Most modern aircraft are quite quiet, as they have had decades of progress in fuel economy, much larger turbofans and have specific instruction to maintain thrust in certain areas and not others to avoid sensitive areas.
However, if you ever experienced Concorde in its early days (we lived nr Fairford and Brize), or have lots overflying military aircraft with afterburners (like we have now), or experienced the old small size, high speed jets like Trident or some of the older Tupolevs, you wouldn’t come up with dumb criticisms of stuff you know little about.
Noise & noise control is a science. I have a friend in Paris, who’s job is exactly that. Keeping down noise levels in public bars and clubs, because it’s well known exposure to high levels is damaging to hearing.
eg. Just because people don’t smoke in bars and pubs now, doesn’t mean they weren’t damaging their health by passive smoking up to a decade ago.
The article I have read, suggest no living quarters within a range of one mile, from any bird shredder.
Please see strong recommendations by WHO in 2009 and 2018 to control transportation noise exposure due to known cardio-vascular impacts. There’s really nothing new here but for a long deserved accounting of harm by the wind industry.
Let’s see, each 2MW Wind Turbine uses 560lb Neodymium & 31lb Dysprosium. Processing 560lbs of Neodymium creates 1,120,000 lbs of toxic (560lbs radioactive Thorium & Uranium) mine tailings4,480 gallons of radioactive waste water (containing more Thorium & Uranium), 19,600 gallons acidic waste water, & 9,600 Cubic Meters of toxic gases (Florine, Hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, Sulfuric acid). Processing 1 ton of Neodymium produces 666 tons of CO2 equivalent. Each 2MW WT uses 750 M3 of concrete in it’s pad. Manufacture of concrete produces 400lbs of CO2/yd3 of Concrete = 980 yd3 * 400 = 392,000lbs of CO2 = 1,960 tons of CO2. The turbine blades cannot be recycled and must be buried in a landfill somewhere. On top of that people living near the things suffer headaches, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, dizziness, tinnitus, aural pain sleep disturbances, and annoyance and now HRV issues. Yeah, I really think we should be deploying more of these apex aviary killing, pristine wilderness destroying, ‘clean energy’ devices. Sounds like a really good idea.
It’s a simple lookup to learn that infrasound penetrates thru and into structures much more easily than higher frequencies. Closing windows isn’t going to help much if at all w/the lowest frequencies.
WIND TURBINE NOISE ADVERSELY IMPACTS NEARBY PEOPLE AND ANIMALS
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-turbine-noise-adversely-impacts-nearby-people-and-animals-1
Excerpt:
Europe and the US have been building onshore wind turbine plants in rural areas for more than 25 years. Anyone living within about 1.0 mile of such plants would experience the noises year-round, year after year. Those nearby people would be:
– Having decreasing property values.
– Having damage to their health, due to lack of sleep and peace of mind.
– Living with closed windows and doors, due to year-round noises.
– Having exposure to infrasound.
The wind turbine noise problem is worldwide. Due to a lack of worldwide guidelines, various political entities have been developing their own codes for the past 30 years. The World Health Organization is finally addressing the lack of detailed guidelines regarding such noises.
World Health Organization Noise Guidelines: WHO, publishes detailed guidelinesregarding various, everyday noises, such as near highways and airports, within urban communities and in work places. The guidelines serve as input to local noise codes.
In general, wind turbines are located in rural areas. When they had low rated outputs, say about 500 kW in the 1960s and 1970s, they made little audible noise, and the infrasound was weak. However, when rated outputs increased to 1000 kW or greater, the audible and infrasound noises became excessive and complaints were made by nearby people all over the world.
WHO, which has not published any detailed guidelines regarding wind turbine noises, will be releasing environmental noise guidelines for the European region in the near future.
Worldwide guidelines regarding wind turbine noises are needed to protect nearby rural people, such as regarding:
– The maximum outdoor dBA value, how that value is arrived at, such as by averaging over one hour, where that value is measured, such as near a residence, or at the resident property line to enable that resident to continue to enjoy his entire property.
– How to measure, or calculate the outdoor-to-indoor sound attenuation of a residence.
– How much setback is needed, such as one mile to minimize infrasound impacts on nearby residents.
– The maximum dB value of infrasound, how that value is arrived at, where that value is measured.
– How to determine the need for a 5 dB annoyance penalty.
The lack of such guidelines has resulted in various political jurisdictions creating their own codes. That process has been heavily influenced by well-financed, pro-wind interests, which aim to have the least possible regulation to maximize profits.
Comparison of Wind Turbine Codes: Below are some highlights from the noise codes of various political entities to illustrate their diversity:
1) DENMARK: Because Denmark was an early developer of wind turbine power plants, its noise code is more detailed than of most political entities. It has a buffer zone of 4 times total height of a wind turbine, about 4 x 500 = 2,000 ft, about 0.61 km (no exceptions), and it also has the following requirements regarding outdoor and indoor noise:
OUTDOOR
– For dwellings, summer cottages, etc.: 39 dBA (wind speeds of 8 m/s, 18 mph) and 37 dBA (wind speeds of 6 m/s, 13 mph)
– For dwellings in open country: 44 dBA (wind speeds of 8 m/s) and 42 dBA (wind speeds of 6 m/s)
The below regulations describe the methods and time periods over which sounds are to be measured:
– Page 4, par 5.1.1 mentions averaging over various periods. Only the worst average readings of a period are to be considered for compliance.
– Page 4, par 5.1.2 mentions a 5 dB annoyance penalty must be added to the worst average readings for a period for clearly audible tonal and impulse sounds with frequencies greater than 160 Hz, which would apply to wind turbine sounds.
– Page 6, par 5.4 mentions limits for indoor A-weighted low frequency noise 10 – 160 Hz, and G-weighted infrasound 5 – 20 Hz.
“If the perceived noise contains either clearly audible tones, or clearly audible impulses, a 5 dB annoyance penalty shall be added to the measured equivalent sound pressure level” That means, if a measured outdoor reading is 40 dBA (open country, wind speed 6 m/s), and annoyance is present, the reading is increased to 45 dBA, which would not be in compliance with the above-required 42 dBA limit.
In some cases, a proposed wind turbine plant would not be approved, because of the 5 dB annoyance penalties. The noise of wind turbines varies up and down. The annoyance conditions associated with wind turbines occur year-round. The annoyance conditions associated with other noise sources usually occur much less frequently.
NOTE: The 5 dB penalty does not apply to indoor and outdoor low frequency and infrasound noises, i.e., 160 Hz or less.