Attack on industrial wind puffed with false peer review claims 46

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1. 

   Tasermons Partner Posted 4:09 pm
   03 Aug 2009

   If it can only be ordered from her website, and not from Amazon or other sites, I doubt it would recieve much very widespread circulation.

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2. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 4:26 pm
   03 Aug 2009

   But it is getting press coverage.

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3. 

   bigcitylib Posted 9:59 am
   04 Aug 2009

   Thanks, I had simply assumed the newspaper accounts to be accurate.  Who is Dr Christopher Hanning?  He is quoted in the Telegraph as supporting Pierpont's work.  What are his creds like?

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4. 

   ericr Posted 10:47 am
   04 Aug 2009

   “Pierpont’s work has been widely disputed in peer-reviewed publications.“Really? Please provide references.

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5. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 1:55 pm
   04 Aug 2009

   EricR - references on peer reviewed rebuttals:“Infrasound from Wind Turbines – Fact, Fiction or Deception?” by Geoff Leventhall in Vol.
   34 No.2 (2006) of the peer-reviewed journal Canadian Acoustics“Electricity generation and health” in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet. The paper
   concludes that “Forms of renewable energy generation are still in the early phases of their
   technological development, but most seem to be associated with few adverse effects on health”
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17876910Also - non-peer reviewed but still worth considering“Wind Turbine Facilities Noise Issues” by Dr. Ramani Ramakrishnan for the Ontario
   Ministry of the Environme“Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise”, A White Paper by Dr. Anthony Rodgers at the University of
   Massachusetts at Amherst.“Research into Aerodynamic Modulation of Wind Turbine Noise”, University of Salford,
   UK, July 2007 “Health impact of wind turbines” , prepared by the Municipality of Chatham-Kent Health &
   Family Services Public Health Unit. comprehensive review of available literatureEnergy, sustainable development and health, World Health Organisation, June 2004.  

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   1. 

      ericr Posted 2:55 pm
      04 Aug 2009

      The Lancet paper is by economists, and the Canadian Acoustics paper is by an acoustician. Neither of them appears to refute Dr. Pierpont's work.As for Dr. Hanning, the following is from his own examination of the issue, "Sleep disturbance and wind turbine noise":My name is Dr Christopher Hanning, Honorary Consultant in Sleep
      Disorders Medicine to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust,
      based at Leicester General Hospital, having retired in September 2007 as
      Consultant in Sleep Disorders Medicine. In 1969, I obtained a First class
      Honours BSc in Physiology and, in 1972, qualified in medicine, MB, BS,
      MRCP, LRCP from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School. After initial
      training in anaesthesia, I became a Fellow of the Royal College of
      Anaesthetists by examination in 1976 and was awarded a doctorate from
      the University of Leicester in 1996. I was appointed Senior Lecturer in
      Anaesthesia and Honorary Consultant Anaesthetist to Leicester General
      Hospital in 1981. In 1996, I was appointed Consultant Anaesthetist with a
      special interest in Sleep Medicine to Leicester General Hospital and
      Honorary Senior Lecturer to the University of Leicester.My interest in sleep and its disorders began nearly 30 years ago and has
      grown ever since. I founded and ran the Leicester Sleep Disorders Service,
      one of the longest standing and largest services in the country, until
      retirement. The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust named the
      Sleep Laboratory after me as a mark of its esteem. I was a founder member
      and President of the British Sleep Society and its honorary secretary for four
      years and have written and lectured extensively on sleep and its disorders
      and continue an active research programme. My expertise in this field has
      been accepted by the civil, criminal and family courts. I chair the Advisory
      panel of the SOMNIA study, a major project investigating sleep quality in the
      elderly, and sit on Advisory panels for several companies with interests in
      sleep medicine.

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6. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 1:55 pm
   04 Aug 2009

   EricR - references on peer reviewed rebuttals:“Infrasound from Wind Turbines – Fact, Fiction or Deception?” by Geoff Leventhall in Vol.
   34 No.2 (2006) of the peer-reviewed journal Canadian Acoustics“Electricity generation and health” in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet. The paper
   concludes that “Forms of renewable energy generation are still in the early phases of their
   technological development, but most seem to be associated with few adverse effects on health”
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17876910Also - non-peer reviewed but still worth considering“Wind Turbine Facilities Noise Issues” by Dr. Ramani Ramakrishnan for the Ontario
   Ministry of the Environme“Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise”, A White Paper by Dr. Anthony Rodgers at the University of
   Massachusetts at Amherst.“Research into Aerodynamic Modulation of Wind Turbine Noise”, University of Salford,
   UK, July 2007 “Health impact of wind turbines” , prepared by the Municipality of Chatham-Kent Health &
   Family Services Public Health Unit. comprehensive review of available literatureEnergy, sustainable development and health, World Health Organisation, June 2004.  

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7. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 1:59 pm
   04 Aug 2009

   Big City Lib: mainly confining my remarks to the false claim of peer review.  That does not, of course settle the argument. At some point I hope  to gather some comments on substantive points from experts on both sides of the issue.  I will note that wind is deeply unpopular among conservatives in the U.K. Opposing wind energy is an important plank for the Tories there. A lot rich rural conservatives hate looking at wind generators and in addition it has become a tribal identifier there .  The Telegraph is a Tory paper. Which does not address your substantive question, and I'm afraid I simply can't.

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   1. 

      bigcitylib Posted 4:25 pm
      04 Aug 2009

      Gar,Thank you.  I sense BS.  This guy has at the very  least gone emeritus a long time ago.  Be interesting if he's associated with any astroturf groups.  Are any of the degrees mentioned below post-grad?" MB, BS,  MRCP, LRCP from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School." Guy looks like he administered anaesthtics.Up here in Ontario, Canada, we're fighting NIMBYISM backed up by "studies" done by (if I remember correctly) a retired dentist.  But the anti wind groups are all fairly well organized.  I'm beginning to wonder how they're all hooked into the larger denialist scheme.

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      1. 

         ericr Posted 6:19 pm
         04 Aug 2009

         By "denialist" I assume you mean of anthropogenic climate change. What does that have to do with recognizing that industrial wind turbines have adverse impacts? Can one not accept both the fact of anthropogenic climate change and the fact that industrial wind turbines have adverse impacts? One does not preclude the other.

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8. 

   ericr Posted 3:07 pm
   04 Aug 2009

   By the way, I completely agree that the claim of "peer review" should not be made when those reviews are self-selected. Nonetheless, they are very positive reviews and notices from apparently highly qualified experts in the fields involved.

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9. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 4:28 pm
   04 Aug 2009

   I'm going to do something I intended not to - to deal with the substance of her argument a little bit. I have not spent enough time to really be confident, but her methodlogy really looks shaky. Apparently the supporting data are derived from a total of 38 people. 38 people in ten families who were self-selected in response to a public call asking for people who were having health problems adjacent to wind farms. That self-selection is itself somewhat problematic in a study trying to establish the existence of a syndrome (as opposed to testing a treatment).  Worse she had no control group. The right way to do such a study would be as follows. The hypothesis is that closer than 2 kilometers is definitely a problem zone. Outside 3.2 Kilometers is definitely a safe zone. (In between is uncertain.) So there is set of symptoms hypothesized to constitute wind turbine syndrome. Survey extensively people living in the danger zone for those symptoms. Survey extensively people living outside it. (Ignore for the moment people in the uncertain zone. That can be tested later if a problem is found.)  Gather  tons of demographic information for each person surveyed. Compare both total population, and every demographic you can think of: age, ethicity, gender, lifestyle, type of work - anything that can affect health. Match each demograhic inside the danger zone with the same demographic outside.  See if the results vary. 

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   1. 

      ericr Posted 6:11 pm
      04 Aug 2009

      That's exactly what Pierpont and other physicians say needs to be done.

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10. 

    Dave from Canada Posted 9:45 pm
    04 Aug 2009

    Sounds like BS.  Thanks for outing part of it Gar.  I'm sure more will be outed.BTW I'd love to see a study examining whether there is any correlation between locations of "Turbine Fever" and locations where there are expensive properties with nice views.  ;-)

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11. 

    B0V1A0 Posted 7:33 pm
    09 Aug 2009

    Anyone who is would like to think for themselves on this issue should take a look at Pierpont's website www.windturbine.comThere are excerpts from the book which explain why she did the research, what the research consists of, her conclusions and next steps.  She would like a full epidemiological study done on what she calls "wind turbine syndrome".  Who's going to pay for it?  The wind industry?  Her limited case history study was done on her own dime...she's not paid by the wind industry or the nuclear industry to come up with this stuff.The argument that her work isn't peer reviewed is pretty much the same argument that the wind industry uses to discredit her work.  Like the Independent said in their editorial, it's time for a disinterested third party to take a look at the issue from a medical perspective and come up with conclusions the public can trust...a refreshing change from the pro-renewable energy people.There's too much anecdotal evidence that not all people can live close to turbines for Pierpont's research to be dismissed out of hand as the wind industry and Gar Lipow do.  When someone plans an industrial wind energy generating facility within 0-3 km of YOUR home, you'll probably start to look at what's out there from the other side.

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    1. 

       Dave from Canada Posted 8:57 pm
       09 Aug 2009

       Good grief, her work is basically speculation.If there was anything to it, the fossil fuel industry (which regularly funds "studies" that support sales of their product) would have funded hundreds of peer reviewed studies.Given that, the fact that there is no solid science supporting her views essentially proves they are bunk.

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       1. 

          ericr Posted 6:36 am
          10 Aug 2009

          The study is in fact solid science, which I suppose is why wind energy promoters are so upset, even addled.Other doctors have reported the same thing. As mentioned by B0V1A0, it takes money to prepare and execute a proper case-control or epidemiological study. And in fact, the University of Michigan and Michigan State are jointly planning such a study, as is the College of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.

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12. 

    Dave from Canada Posted 9:26 am
    10 Aug 2009

    Eric R: "The study is in fact solid science".Sorry, but what study is solid science?� Can you provide a link?� This is a claim that proponents of Turbine Fever keep making, and so far I haven't seen a single peer reviewed scientific study published in a respected journal.Can you please provide it?

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13. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 9:36 am
    10 Aug 2009

    If peer review is so unimportant, then why the falsely claim to be peer reviewed when you are not?

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14. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 9:36 am
    10 Aug 2009

    Edited, because this is the second copy of a double post.

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15. 

    ericr Posted 10:49 am
    10 Aug 2009

    It is a case series and the most thorough examination of these symptoms claims yet. But it is still an early effort that most importantly provides the basis for further work (as is being planned in Michigan and Ontario). Meanwhile, you'll have to read and judge for yourself.As I mentioned before, I agree that she should not have called the several favorable reviews and notices "peer reviews", since that term implies a neutral jury (although that is not always the case) rather than self-selected responses. Those responses, however, call them what you will, from several respected experts in relevant fields attest to the solid science of the work.There will probably be reviews in medical journals when the book is actually in print.

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16. 

    JimCummings Posted 11:10 am
    10 Aug 2009

    It is important to remember that Pierpont is doing ONLY a case series, which is designed to see if there are common symptoms that can later be assessed more thoroughly.  Her report does take the first step of identifying (via post-hoc self-reporting, admittedly a weakness) a set of symptoms that began with the noise exposure, and ended when these people moved away.  She DID pick people highly affected (nearly all abandoned their homes), but this is how you zero in on the patterns that may indicate a particular response to a health stressor (in this case, moderate noise).  She is quick to affirm that these symptoms are not common, even near wind farms.  However, as widely noted, her study was not designed to determine how common they are, or the degree of dose-response (ie how much more common as noise increases).  Her work is just the very preliminary first step.  in that sense, it is indeed being run with more aggressively than may be warranted by some anti-wind activists.  But it is not, on its face, hogwash.Hanning's recent report on sleep disturbance is well-documented, and worth reading.  His main point is that many of the symptoms noted by Pierpont and others can be caused by sleep disturbance short of awakening, known in the field as "arousal."  He's no slouch: his school hospital named their sleep lab after him.The key is not placing turbines too close to homes.  From my ongoing coverage of this issue at the Acoustic Ecology Institute, it seems clear that there is an increasing number of folks between a half mile and mile from turbines who are having problems with audible noise disrupting their sleep.  I suspect this is a key to many of the issues, and it won't be solved until the industry accepts the need to not push so close to homes (1000-1500 feet is a common setback).  I've seen lots of complaints at ranges of somewhat over a half mile, and virtually none from folks over a mile away....so there's the sweet spot to aim for.  Far enough to minimize noise, close enough to not have economic issues with getting to transmission lines.  Of course, wind direction affects how far the sound travels, so in some situations, it is likely easy enough to build closer.  Another key factor is that folks in rural areas have come to expect a more absolute level of quiet than those living near highways or airports, to which turbine noise is sometimes compared; this different expectation is not unreasonable, as these people have chosen to not live in the hubbub of urban life.   For more detail see http://AcousticEcology.org/srwind.html and http://AEInews.org 

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17. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 12:01 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    Eric R: "Those responses, however, call them what you will, from several
    respected experts in relevant fields attest to the solid science of the
    work."I'm sorry, but an extended blurb, however respected the source does not vouch that a work is solid science. Especially since all these respected sources went along with the pretense that what they were engaging is peer review.  It may be solid science or not, but this type of shennaigan is NOT evidence of solid science, and might be taken as the opposite. I'm not dismissing her work on this basis (though it makes me more skeptical). I'm refusing to accept it as evidence of the solidity of her work.EricR: "There will probably be reviews in medical journals when the book is actually in print."I'm sure there will be. They still won't be "peer reviews". EricR: "It is a case series and the most thorough examination of these symptoms
    claims yet. But it is still an early effort that most importantly
    provides the basis for further work (as is being planned in Michigan
    and Ontario).Except she is not just presenting it as a basis for further work. Follow the links to various articles and  you will find repeated claims that this study "definitely" establishes the existence of Wind Turbine Syndrome. Again, even as a preliminary study, it looks weak. Mabye she could not have done a complete control group, but for not much more than the money she already spent she could have gotten some grad students from the social psychology department and bought some blocks of phone time to get some preliminary results comparing the prevalence of such symptoms inside and outside the "danger zone". But of course if you think that the existence of a syndrome has "definitely" been established, you are not interested trying to find out whehter it exists or no. 

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18. 

    ericr Posted 12:43 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    You say: "Except she is not just presenting it as a basis for further work." But in the abstract, Pierpont writes, "Further research is needed to prove causes and physiologic mechanisms, establish prevalence, and to explore effects in special populations, including children." and the first of her "Suggestions for further research" is "Epidemiologic studies comparing populations exposed and not exposed to wind turbines with regard to the prevalence of specific symptoms, such as tinnitus and balance complaints."You might also be interested in the "Limitations of the study" section, which acknowledges: interview-only method, limited medical records, participant memory limitations or distortions, minimization or exaggeration of effects, English speakers only, small case series sample, and lmited duration of follow-up.

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19. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 12:48 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    You miss the work the word "just" is doing in the sentence you try to rebut. The point is that she considers the syndrome as "definitely" established. She wants refinement, but in interviews she shows no doubt that wind turbines are the cause.

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20. 

    ericr Posted 1:18 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    Why would she doubt it? She and other physicians have seen the same complaints arise after wind turbines begin operating, the symptoms are relieved when the people leave the area, and they resume when they return. It couldn't be more obvious. Why would you doubt it?

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21. 

    Dave from Canada Posted 1:19 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    I'm not sure I would focus too much on Pierpont, and the lack of serious science coming from her. Taking the broader view of the topic, a key point is that not only has she not produced serious science on Turbine Fever, but moreover nobody else has either.Normally, there needs to be a large body of serious scientific work completed before an hypothesis is accepted.  Think about the thousands of studies on anthropogenic climate change, the hundreds of serious scientists specializing in  that area, their consensus statements, etc.Turbine Fever has none of this.  

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    1. 

       bigcitylib Posted 1:33 pm
       10 Aug 2009

       "Why would she doubt it? She and other physicians have seen the same complaints arise after wind turbines begin operating, the symptoms are relieved when the people leave the area, and they resume when they return. It couldn't be more obvious. Why would you doubt it?"Because people who oppose something for whatever reason will make up any silly excuse in justification? 

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22. 

    JimCummings Posted 1:48 pm
    10 Aug 2009

    Yes, it's best not to get too caught up on Pierpont, or even the existence of a discrete "syndrome." Much of what she's identified could be simply sleep-deprivation-related stress. Still, her subjects (and others) have been driven to the point of abandoning their homes; it's hard to believe the cause is purely hypocondria. But even there, what I (or any of us) "believe" is not the point. Just as potential wind farm neighbors are taking her work far too absolutely, so too may others use her work as a reason to discount any and all reports of noise problems around wind farms. Unfortunately, reports of annoyance (or, for that matter, of "no problem") virtually never include the key piece of information: whether the report is from a home upwind or downwind of the wind farm. It is very clear that it is a small proportion of neighbors who experience severe annoyance. A number of studies have done a decent job of breaking down the numbers, but of course the bottom line will be whether we accept setbacks that lead to problems for "only" 35% of neighbors (ballpark for 1000 foot setbacks), or "only" 5% (probable at setbacks move out to 3500 feet or more). Do we want to avoid issues, or minimize them? As with all social choices, these decisions will involve many trade-offs to balance, and are (apparently!) likely to remain contentious.

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23. 

    J4zonian Posted 8:25 am
    13 Aug 2009

    Besides the obvious point that people might just be lying about their symptoms because they oppose wind, it's entirely possile they're suffering from psychosomatic symptoms. I also am curious about the correlation of expensive houses with nice views (and political affiliation and source of employment and income) with these symptoms, but ferreting out conscious from unconscious causes is much harder. While in the end why seems to matter less than whether, fixing the problem demands knowing the cause.

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    1. 

       ericr Posted 9:24 am
       13 Aug 2009

       Most people complaining of health effects (or just noise annoyance) were not in fact opposed to the projects. And they were assured by the developers that noise (let alone ill health) would not be a problem, typically with the canard that the wind noise itself would mask the turbine's noise (not that turbine noise is significant enough to need masking, mind you!). Furthermore, it seems a little extreme to abandon your home, as most of the families Pierpont studied did, just because you're against industrial wind energy. Blaming the victim is a desperate ploy. It is more likely that people come to oppose industrial wind energy because of its adverse impacts, not the other way around (i.e., "making up" adverse impacts because they oppose wind -- an absurd contention).As more people experience the actual impacts of industrial wind energy development, the bloom is fading.

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       1. 

          Dave from Canada Posted 12:41 pm
          13 Aug 2009

          Yes, I'm sure nobody opposes wind energy per se -- except perhaps for the fossil fuel corporations and their shills and ideological hangers-on.But also there are a lot of NIMBYs who don't want their million dollar views affected.  And I wouldn't put it past some of them to claim illness. And some of them might even develop psychosomatic symptoms. And others of them will throw money to those willing to sell themselves on the victims circuit.  Which money of course would join with the fossil fuel industries' money. And of course the ideological hangers-on would help magnify any claims of illness.Uh... so actually there probably are people who oppose wind energy per se - a whole industry of them seems to be sprouting up.  There is money to be made...

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       2. 

          ericr Posted 2:43 pm
          13 Aug 2009

          I would worry more about how the money to be made in wind energy promotion colors people's perceptions.

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24. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 1:23 pm
    14 Aug 2009

    I would worry about both. However I don't think the case that industrial wind is harmful has been made. Opponents of industrial wind often make the comparsion to tobacco companies. However if you look at in, even in the fifties there was peer reviewed research showing that tobacco was harmful.  And a lot of the "testimony" in favor of tobacco was non-peer reviewed. It is wind opponents whose research style is comparable to that of the tobacco companies. 
    I'm going to make a guess as to what is at the heart of wind opposition. All energy sources (and for that matter energy savings methods) have social costs.  But while fossil fuels hurt everyone in invisible ways, the visible effects (towns destroyed, miners killed, waters contaminated) mainly effect poor and working people. Whereas when you put up wind generators rich and middle class people have to look at them.  So there is this emotional rage agains having to suffer any inconvenience in order to facilitate energy production, whereas coal and so forth feels *emotionally* cost free, even though the actual social costs are much higher. The visible costs of fossil fuels fall on other people and the invisible costs are, well, invisible. So Robert Kennedy Jr. opposed wind generators miles offshore where they would be visible as something about the size of a pinky fingernail from the Kennedy family Martha's vineyard.  At that distance there could have been no  sound or transmitted vibration.  There were claimed environmental effects, but every environmental study proved otherwise, including studies intially supported by wind opponents (but rejected when they came to conclusions they did not like).    And meantime you have an asthma epidemic among poor children in Boston because of continued coal burning.
    That is what is really behind this. Rich and middle class people don't want to look and wind turbines. They don't put it this way, but fundamentally they prefer poor people continue being killed by coal. And they will use any bullshit excuse to oppose them. And (as happened with the oppostion to offshore wind in Mass.)  the fossil fuel industry will be happy to put money into supporting their opposition.

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    1. 

       ericr Posted 4:20 pm
       14 Aug 2009

       Only Pierpont raised the comparison to tobacco (and it's telling that you ignore the parallel of which side has the financial interest and which side has the physicians working for them), and only some (not all, as there are many "regular" people who recognize the threats to birds etc.) opposition to Cape Wind fits this weird model of yours. Just like your effort to dismiss all noise concerns because of one exaggerated claim of peer review, it all seems not just strained but rather desperate.Garret Keizer wrote in Harper's Magazine a couple years ago, describing the more typical situation:'Apparently, this place that has never had much use to the larger world
       beyond that of hosting a new prison or a solid-waste dump turns out to
       be an ideal location for an industrial “wind farm,” ideal mostly
       because the people are too few and too poor to offer much in the way of
       resistance. So far only one of the towns affected has “volunteered” —
       in much the same way and for most of the same reasons as our children
       volunteer for service in Iraq — to be the site of what might be
       described as a vast environmentalist grotto of 400-foot-high spinning
       “crosses” before which the state’s green progressives will be able to
       genuflect and receive absolution before zooming back to their
       prodigiously wired lives.'Furthermore, you posit a false choice, that rejection of wind is an endorsement of coal, when in fact, the evidence from Europe is that coal continues as ever despite massive amounts of wind power. If your concern is really for poor asthmatics, then the solution is to limit coal emissions much as was done to limit acid rain. Building wind turbines is a non sequitur.

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25. 

    Gar Lipow Posted 10:27 pm
    25 Aug 2009

    Because eliminating coal does not require any alternatives? There seems to be a standard of purity applied to coal replacements that never gets applied to coal itself? Wind  - too ugly and you have people claiming it gives them  headaches. Solar - too much water (never mind that even the worst solar plants use one quarter of the water required to make the same electricity from coal or nuclear).  CFL bulbs - too much mercury (and never mind that buring coal puts more mercury into the environment than CFL).  We use CFL and insulation and so forth, and I have not heard anyone complaining that it does not shut down any coal plants. Ultimately we are going to have to do a lot of something to replace coal. And since there is no  BTU bunny, no kilowatt fairy, whatever we replace it with will have (horror of horrors) some environmental impact greater than zero. So keep on blowing up mountaintops, and burning coal, because the replacements have environmental impacts one one hundredth that of coal, and that is not good enough.

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    1. 

       ericr Posted 7:02 am
       26 Aug 2009

       It is simply a question of costs vs. benefits. The benefits of wind energy have proven to be quite negligible. And its costs and impacts are far from negligible. 

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26. 

    WindWorksNW Posted 12:45 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    Gar has rightly outed some seriously faulty science. Dr. Pierpont's "research" focused on 38 people from 10 families. Those families are from all around the world - 5 countries, to be specific: Italy, Canada, the UK, Ireland & the US. The location, topography, and specifics of the wind farms are all different. People were acting as their own control groups (before the wind turbines were present, and after)...Not exactly iron-clad research methods, to say the least.
    
    WindWorks! Northwest, a pro-wind, anti-NIMBY group has created a satirical production of Dr. Pierpont explaining her methodology. It is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Check it out at http://wwnw.org!

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    1. 

       ericr Posted 2:36 pm
       10 Nov 2009

       Windworks Northwest is a prime example of astroturf. Its chairman is Robert Kahn, whose company managed the permitting process of the Stateline Wind Project for Florida Power & Light in 2000-2002. Its film urging the erection of more turbines in Kittitas County ("Chasing a Legacy") features James Walker but does not disclose that he is vice chairman of the board of Enxco, the wind developer on behalf of whose project the film was made (and whose parent is Electricité de France).
       
       Windworks' executive director is Todd Myers, director of the Washington Policy Center, whose Center for the Environment "focuses on free-market solutions to environmental issues". He was described in a February 1, 2009, Heartland Institute article, "Wind Farms Trump Local Land-Use Laws, Washington Governor, Court Decide", as being "skeptical of the promised benefits of wind power". Rather, as a fierce advocate of individual property rights, he is quoted in that article saying "I hope the supreme court will apply the same logic when it comes to other permits and not just wind farms".
       
       These are not neutral or objective observers but thoroughly vested interests. And it doesn't seem to be about wind at all.

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27. 

    JimCummings Posted 1:55 pm
    10 Nov 2009

    Just heard the radio dramatization...as is often the case when dealing with complex science that we laypeople are not fully up on, it can be bizarre. But mainly what i heard was Pierpont trying to explain the difference between a Case Series (where you BY DEFINITION focus only on people who are reporting similar symptoms in different locations) and an epidemiological study of a larger population, which answers the important question of how common the problem is, and hopefully some dose-response correlation. Science-speak CAN sound funny, that's for sure! You have to be obsessively specific in how you define your terms and explain things. That's basically what I heard. And again, as noted above, the self-as-control is part of how case studies reveal changes IN THEIR PARTICULAR SUBJECTS. In this case, all but one family moved out of their homes: pretty drastic response if it's all a ruse by them. I do agree with EricR that Pierpont created a firestorm by calling her process "peer review", but the folks who've read it (including those funny-named specialists from the radio bit) do generally seem impressed enough to think it warrants the next steps of study.
    
    I've recently begun digging deeper into various surveys of people around wind farms, and it appears that the real issue is that somewhere around 25% of the population is simply more sensitive to sound than most. My whole focus is audible noise, not low frequency health impacts. It's not uncommon for about half the folks near wind farms to hear them and not be bothered, and a quarter to be driven crazy. This individual variability in sensitivity to noise is well-known in the field of acoustics and perception. They say they'd be OK if they were not quite so close (and as EricR said many welcomed the wind farms, so it's not a visual aversion in most cases)...This all leads us to the social choice before us: is it OK to seriously disrupt 15-25% of nearby neighbors, and drive 5% perhaps out of their homes, in order to maximize turbine density? Or, do we want to be more conservative with siting (somewhere in the half mile or mile range), and cause some annoyance in 5-10% of the neighbors, but likely very few serious impacts? Wind turbine developers can also use downwind placement from homes to minimize noise, and maximize turbine site locations. See some of these studies, which clearly shatter the black-or-white myths on both sides of this debate, at http://AEInews.org

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    1. 

       WindWorksNW Posted 2:07 pm
       10 Nov 2009

       Thanks for your input, Jim. Glad you listened to our piece, but did you also look at the expert testimonies that refuted her research methods? (http://wwnw.org/index.php?pg=lcl&cat=Elsewhere) They make some great points. Case study or not, her research doesn't hold up.

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          JimCummings Posted 2:39 pm
          10 Nov 2009

          watching the video now too. well done! so far, the Windhorse farm looks like it's plenty far from folks. that's the key.... There really should be plenty of places that are far enough from homes (half mile at least, more if possible) and close enough to the grid to make it work. I totally agree that visual impact should not drive the local decision (except maybe in places with some sort of specific unique visual resource/appeal). Surely these rolling hills are ripe for wind farms.

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          JimCummings Posted 2:49 pm
          10 Nov 2009

          And yes, many LF researchers are dubious about Pierpont's reliance on infrasound as a likely trigger for WTS. It really could be "just" serious sleep disruption. Or there may be a vestibular reaction to something (perhaps even lower-intensity LF than previously observed, but maybe something else specific, like a particular pulse pattern); vestibular/balance/inner ear folks seem to be the medical folks who are most curious about Pierpont's book. The "why" is for now totally speculative on all sides. And even Pierpont affirms it's rare. that's one reason I'm focusing more on audible noise: it's far easier to get our heads around. BTW, in a recent engineering journal that had a good piece on all this, Leventhall, a key LF researcher/Pierpont critic on your list, had this to say: �The wind developers are going to rubbish her book, and quite rightly so, but what must be accepted � and developers don�t want to accept this � is that yes, people are disturbed,� he says. �If people are consistently disturbed, and their sleep is consistently disturbed, then they will develop some very �unclever� stress symptoms. That will lead to stress-related illness.� I blogged about this article last week; here's the direct link to the piece: http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0917/quiet-revolution-0917.cfm

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          ericr Posted 3:31 pm
          10 Nov 2009

          Yes, Jim -- UK sleep expert Chris Hanning has written (on behalf of a group fighting a development) that the symptoms of "wind turbine syndrome" can all be caused by sleep disruption. Furthermore, Dutch researchers ("Visual and acoustic impact of wind turbine farms on residents", van den Berg et al.) have found that wind turbine noise is "disturbing" at levels around 20 dB lower than other noises (traffic, trains, planes, etc.) On the other hand, acousticians working with groups fighting developments have documented a substantial low-frequency component of wind turbine noise, which penetrates through walls and windows (and may even be louder but certainly never quieter at night) much more than higher-frequency noise. The lower component of the sound spectrum is not usually considered in noise regulations or modeling. Its effect on human (and animal) health is itself an emerging field of research.

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          JimCummings Posted 3:42 pm
          10 Nov 2009

          Eric,
          In addition to resonance effects in structures, another tricky aspect of LF noise is that the wavelengths are so long (hundreds to thousands of feet) that unpredictable constructive interference can create relatively small "hot spots" of increased amplitude. Also, individual variation in perception of LF noise is even more extreme than for audible noise; hence, those being troubled may well be "outliers" of the human perceptual population. If so, again we come back to the social question noted above.
          
          Still, we all need to be careful to not extrapolate well-studied physiological effects of LF noise in factories and such to much lower exposures near wind farms.

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          ericr Posted 3:52 pm
          10 Nov 2009

          True, which is why these undeniable effects need more study, not derision. And developers should exercise caution concerning rather than disregard and mockery of possible consequences.

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