By the time the pediatrician Nina Pierpont settled in upstate New York, she had already built a rather diverse and full career. As the Connecticut native tells it, she studied birds in the Amazon jungle on her way to earning a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology, then enrolled in medical school, completing a degree and practicing among Navajo Indians and Yup’ik Eskimos. Then she and her husband moved to Malone, N.Y., a small town just 11 miles from the Quebec border, where she opened a pediatric practice.
Over the last several years she has reinvented herself again. Upon hearing about a proposal for a nearby wind farm, Pierpont began looking into effects of wind turbines related to her expertise—medicine. She tracked down others who lived near wind projects—two families in England, five in Canada, one in the U.K., one in Italy, another in the U.S. All 38 people had previously complained about health effects they blamed on wind farms. Several had since moved away. When Pierpont interviewed them by phone, they reported symptoms that included headaches, nausea, insomnia, visual blurring, vertigo, and panic attacks.
Pierpont came to believe that the cause was infrasound, a type of low-frequency sound inaudible to humans except at very loud levels (think the opposite of a high-pitched dog whistle). Residents weren’t merely hearing the thrum of turbines, she concluded, they were feeling it as an imperceptible vibration in their bodies. This was disrupting the inner-ear vestibular system—the body’s chief tool for balance and spatial orientation.
“These feed back neurologically onto a person’s sense of position and motion in space, which is in turn connected in multiple ways to brain functions as disparate as spatial memory and anxiety,” Pierpont, 54, writes in a forthcoming book.
Pierpont with her new book (and navigation added by her website).Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFor this collection of symptoms Pierpont coined the term “wind turbine syndrome.” Then she set to work publicizing it. Her website, windturbinesyndrome.com, documents her writing and collects testimonies from others who say they are afflicted by the condition. Her book of the same name is set for publication this month, available only through the website. A series of news articles have repeated her claims, in the Portland Oregonian, USA Today, and as a Sunday feature in the UK Independent.
Through it all, Pierpont does not claim to have definitive proof the syndrome exists. Rather, she says her findings make further research necessary before wind farms can be safely built within two kilometers of homes and schools. Yet out of all the obstacles wind energy faces—the up-front costs, the competition from subsidized fossil fuels, the aesthetic objections—Pierpont’s claim has become one of the least likely and most annoying problems for the industry.
It is unlikely because it is easily debunked and annoying because it keeps spreading anyway. Pierpont’s work has provided ammunition to those opposing wind farms across the country, from New York to Minnesota to Washington state. Wind advocates could not name a project that had failed because of her claims, but they say opponents of projects have latched onto her claims, bringing stacks of her work to local planning officials, who must do the time-consuming work of sorting through the claims.
“The reason it’s a hassle is that opponents—who frankly don’t like looking at wind turbines—grasp on to a lot of things to oppose projects. This happens to be one of them,” said Tim McMahan, a Portland land-use lawyer who focuses on wind-energy developments in the Northwest.
Pierpont did not respond to multiple interview requests and states on her website that she rarely grants media interviews. Her comments to the Independent suggest she’s willing to play the role of persecuted truth-teller: “The wind industry will try to discredit me and disparage me, but I can cope with that. This is not unlike the tobacco industry dismissing health issues from smoking.”
So here’s what’s wrong with wind-turbine syndrome. First, there’s Pierpont’s method. Her study consisted of 38 people from ten families—by most standards too small to yield conclusive results. All of them self-identified as people who were already experiencing health effects; there was no control group.
Further, acousticians who study the issue say Pierpont fundamentally misunderstands the nature of low-frequency sound. Geoff Leventhall, an English acoustician who retired from the University of London and chairs the European Institute of Noise Control Engineering, agrees that turbines create infrasound that cannot be heard. So do driving with an open window, swinging on a swing set, and even jogging—the slight rise and fall of the head create the effect. Leventhall describes infrasound as a common phenomenon that isn’t dangerous except at extremely high levels, such as those produced by spacecraft. Infrasound from wind turbines does not approach that level, said Leventhall, who recently flew to Wisconsin to testify at a hearing for the proposed Glacier Hills Wind Park.
His critique of “wind turbine syndrome” becomes more technical from there. Essentially, he picks apart Pierpont’s claim that bodies absorb infrasound without actually hearing it. At the frequency of infrasound (generally less than 20 Hz), the human body makes plenty of its own noise—the heart pumps, the ribcage expands and contracts. These noises mask whatever turbines might add, Leventhall said. (A very small number of people experience extreme responses to all sorts of sounds, both low and high-frequency, though Leventhall and other experts say this is an unrelated issue.)
“Pierpont has clearly misunderstood much of the acoustic material which she refers to,” he writes in an appraisal of her work he submitted to the Wisconsin project.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) says it doesn’t know how many people live within two kilometers of a turbines—the setback Pierpont recommends. With the growth of wind energy worldwide, the number surely reaches the thousands. Yet it has not led to significant health complaints outside Pierpont’s research.
Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFinally, there’s the peer review issue. Pierpont’s work has not been accepted by any peer reviewed scientific journals, the standard first step in publishing original research. (See a brief post on why peer review matters in science and medicine.) She describes her book as peer-reviewed, a claim the Independent repeats. But the four-person editorial board consists of Pierpont, her husband (the ecumenically named Calvin Luther Martin), and two others—a professor emeritus of literature and an ecologist and psychologist. “This is obviously a self-published book,” notes Grist contributor Gar Lipow.
Given all this, why has the claim stuck around? As books such as Denialism and Climate Cover-Up attest, it’s far easier to raise and spread rumors than to refute them for good. The inaudible nature of infrasound makes it especially difficult to understand.
“[By] describing a condition that you can’t hear, you can’t feel, and you don’t know it exists, but you tell people it can hurt them, you create this sense of a problem that can’t even be detected,” the land-use lawyer McMahan said of wind-turbine syndrome. “You can get people really worried about it because they have no ability to judge for themselves.”
For any development project, running the gauntlet of local-government approval is rarely simple. There is suspicion of projects that are funded by outside investors—the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) effect. And wind farms bring their own challenges, with towers clearing 250 feet, highly visible locations offshore or on ridge tops, and their connection to the politically charged issue of climate change.
And then there are legitimate questions about wind-turbine noise—turbines do create sound after all, from both the gearbox (though this has grown much quieter in newer turbines) and from moving blades. It’s no more harmful than the noise from new highways or airports, but residents of quiet areas don’t react favorably to those things either. Some residents living near turbines find the sound annoying, and this annoyance becomes a health effect when it causes stress.
But annoyance is maddeningly difficult to study—it must be self-reported (it can’t be measured by a machine) and is inherently subjective—one person’s noise is another’s music. A Swedish study in 1967 [PDF] confirmed something we know by experience: your feelings about the source of noise shape whether you find the noise annoying. I react differently to the stereo in my own house than to the music blaring from my neighbor’s party, even if it’s the same song. Those who invest in wind turbines and stand to profit from them are likely to find their sound less disturbing than a neighbor would.
It’s a different issue than the “hidden” sound that concerns Pierpont and her followers. As three University of Massachusetts engineers stress in “Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise” [PDF], the audible swish-swish of turbine blades is not infrasound.
There are good reasons to make this message clear.
“Wind energy generates electricity without air pollution, water pollution, or the carbon emissions that come from traditional sources of energy,” said Jen Banks, a siting specialist at AWEA. “For the sake of human and environmental health, it’s essential that any decisions about wind-energy use are based on sound scientific knowledge.”
The sound issue remains a growing pain for the industry, something it will need to resolve—and communicate effectively—for it to thrive.
Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots
Comments
View as Flat
ericr Posted 6:20 am
16 Nov 2009
http://www.thedailypage.com/media/2009/09/10/586EnvironmentBarryComic.jpg
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JimCummings Posted 8:25 am
16 Nov 2009
Many of those who are bothered by the noise were not and are not opposed to wind farms in their town, or their view. They just want them to be far enough away that the noise is less dominant, especially at night; some say a half mile would be livable, others say there are turbines over half mile that would still be troublesome, and wish for a mile. In my ongoing work on this issue at the Acoustic Ecology Institute (see http://AEInews.org), it appears that while a majority of people who hear turbines are not especially bothered by them, a significant minority (25-40%) are bothered, often with serious sleep disruption. (this sort of variation in sensitivity to noise within a population is well-known and has long been studied and acknowledged) The problems seem to be quite pronounced within a half mile, and to decline as setbacks increase beyond that, with very few problems at a mile. We will need to make a social choice about how close to build them to homes, based on how willing we are to disrupt neighbors' lives. I would think that in the US, there are plenty of sites where wind farms can be built far enough from homes to minimize noise issues, yet close enough to the grid to be economically viable.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 6:33 pm
18 Nov 2009
Were you or are you involved in gathering or identifying the information which is presented in the good doctor's book?
From your statement you seem aware of people who are complaining but are motivated not by any animus toward wind, but something else. Did you interview them? Why? Did they know to come to you for some reason?
I find that topic very interesting the more I think about it.
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JimCummings Posted 6:48 pm
18 Nov 2009
Also, in many of the press reports people clearly state that they were in favor of the wind farms, but again were taken aback by the noise once they were rolling. There are plenty of cases in which opposition is clearly driven by visual impacts, but many others where the problem really is primarily acoustic. The problem right now is that any town contemplating a wind farm is beset by people afraid of how terrible they'll be.
An interesting thing to me is that many wind farms come on line each year, but only a few end up generating significant complaints; my guess is the others are farther from people, but I have not had the time to try to dig in and research this. Someone should try to see if there is any fundamental difference in design or setbacks or placement in relation to homes that distinguishes the wind farms that truly do end up driving people out of their homes.
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Earthgal Posted 8:37 am
16 Nov 2009
I had that experience when a nearby farmer decided to install a new grain drying system that had fans running 24/7 all fall and into the winter. At first I thought I was hearing things. No one else seemed to notice. I even called the police. Eventually I learned what it was. The sound was worse in certain places farther away (like my house) than even next door to the fans due to wind, trees, and the various things that impact how sound travels. The town came out and measured the sound level, which was less than what the noise ordinance could deal with. The problem was low-frequency sound that I, apparently, am more sensitive to than many others. I could hear it even with the windows closed and if I wanted to sleep with the window open I had to wear earplugs. I could no longer sit in my living room and enjoy the peace and quiet. And forget about going outside on a clear fall night to soak in the quiet and the stars. What made it even worse was the stress and frustration and anger. I started to have headaches. I didn't sleep that well. Even people at work noticed my mood and energy had changed. And there was nothing I could do about it except sell my home and move.
I did complain to the farmer. The next year they put baffles around the fans, which helped only a little. The following year they apparently decided the cost of electricity to dry the grain was too much given the return on the grain (this was the year oil went through the roof) and no more sound.
So I don't have experience with windfarms, but I can imagine they could be a real problem. This definately is something that must be considered when siting the turbines. It's not something that should be laughed at or ignored. People who are bothered by it, probably really are. Which also has me wondering, what about the wildlife? What about critters, esp. birds, who depend on their calls being heard or whose habits are hindered due to the sound or frequency of the noise, even if we humans can't hear it, or decide it's worth it given the benefits (to us)? Do people ever think about this aspect? And even though I know we need to develop fossil-free energy alternatives, and I certainly support this, we need to think about and try and mitigate the always-present unintended consequences. After all, these are what usually come up to bite us after the fact, right?
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amazingdrx Posted 9:09 am
17 Nov 2009
Microphones pick up the noise which is then sent through an electronic processor into a sound system that produces canceling sound waves. With this application you could have a small noise free zone in your home or yard. It could maybe be plugged into a boom box so you could move it around, but to cancel the noise at the source a larger system right at the source would be needed.
It might be worthwhile to experiment with the idea of sending canceling sound waves right through the core of the wind machine blades using them as "speakers".
BTW, that grain drying could have been wind powered directly with a tall "chimney" tower with a silent vertical rotor generator on top that would drive a ducted fan (silent) inside the tower. When the grain was dry or the wind was strong enough to supply excess power, the farmer could sell kwhs back to the utility.
Now there's a great ag/wind power combination. It would make a huge utility bill into a check from the utility to the farmer. Solar concentrating PV cogeneration with the extra heat going to heat grain storage/drying area would produce a lot of excess electricty.
Agriculture and renewable energy are better together, the conservation and cogeneration and backup for the grid from farm waste biogas digestion and organic fertilizer prevent huge GHG, but also remove it from the air and sequester it in valuable soil. The kind of soil that yields more food and fiber with no chemical addition.
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JimCummings Posted 11:17 am
17 Nov 2009
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JimCummings Posted 11:17 am
17 Nov 2009
What studies are out there on wind farms suggest that (unsurprisingly) some species are more sensitive than others: for example, a recent UK study of 12 species of birds found that about half showed decreased numbers in the immediate vicinity of operating turbines, while the others were not affected. The apparent avoidance was clear out to 500 meters, with the effect apparently diminishing to negligible at about 800m. This is similar to the range within which audible noise tends to bother a significant proportion of human neighbors, and the range at which roads and oil and gas installations that make noise can have an effect on wildlife.
Many people living in wind farms report sudden reduction in seeing deer and birds in the woods right around their homes. Again, this may be fairly localized, but it affects quality of life for people who enjoy living with animals nearby.
The National Park Service natural sounds office has been doing innovative research in recent years on the effects of moderate background noise on wildlife. It was recently profiled on BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8305000/8305320.stm
The key thing they're finding is obvious once you think about it: both prey and predator animals rely on hearing things at the very limits of audibility. Owls and coyote need to hear the quiet rustle of mice in the grass; mice and deer need to hear wingbeats or footsteps of predators as early as possible. Even small increases in background noise (from roads or turbines) exact relatively high costs in the energy budget of animals: predators have to expend more energy to find enough food, while prey need to be hyper-vigilant, which increases their energy output. Subtle but profound effects from not much noise.
Modern hundred-meter or more turbines do move slower than smaller turbines in RPM, but they are still moving fast because they sweep such a large diameter, way over a hundred miles an hour at their tips, and the huge blades do create a lot of noise (largely wind off the back of the blades): their source levels are over 100dB, which is reduced to around 50dB at around 1000 feet, and 40dB at around a half mile or so. (there is always a lot of variability in sound transmission/loss, depending on topography, atmospheric conditions, etc., so you should take these numbers as rough, as with any noise predictions by others). The point here is that even 40dB is louder than natural ambient, especially at night in rural areas, and there will be some effect on wildlife (and people) whenever the turbines are the loudest component in the local soundscape.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 11:51 am
17 Nov 2009
No doubt there are going to be some changes by adopting renewable wind energy, but, of course no one will notice the 6 to 8 covered acres per megawatt capacity that solar panels require. Elk and birds can crawl under them for shade. By the way, since the US used 101 quadrillion BTUs in 2008, how many renewable energy projects will we have to build to make a 90% reduction?
Oh, let's just forget it and use coal, what do you say?
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JimCummings Posted 3:40 pm
17 Nov 2009
Yeah, there is definitely a wide variation in responses to noise (both among species and individuals of a species), and as I noted, many species are not bothered at all. I was actually trying to get across the sense that any displacement IS rather localized; in nearly all cases, not a biologically significant impact I'm sure. The animals that move away are, by doing so, avoiding the masking problems the NPS folks study. I was simply responding to the previous question with some information on what the impacts are likely to be. The animals that stay either find the area unchanged, or perhaps even more suitable (some bird studies have shown that certain species increase nesting in noisy areas; the thought is that key predators tend to avoid that zone).
I and many of the others who raise these issue don't do so in order to stop wind farm development; if you read my Special Report on the issue http://bit.ly/3dOsnY , you'll see that my main concern is that if this current generation of building is too aggressive about pushing for minimal setbacks, there will be a generation of complaints (which as we already can see too easily morph into misinformation and fear) that hobble the next generation of development that we do so clearly need. We do need to make social choices about all this – and to do so, we need to be looking as clearly as we can at what the tradeoffs are. Is it really such an extreme position to suggest that we do our best to keep turbines a half mile or more from homes? Or to suggest that we target this generation of wind development into areas where we COULD stay a mile from homes, to essentially eliminate the noise problems yet stay close enough to the grid to make it feasible? The humans who are more sensitive than others don't have the freedom to move a thousand yards to a quieter spot....
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Daniel Coffey Posted 4:35 pm
17 Nov 2009
Jim, as much as I am concerned about impacts on species, I am a lot more concerned that we need to do some things quickly. We can play at this like we have all the time in the world, study it and find out that we just don't really know, or we can react to what we know is a looming problem, cut to the chase and shift strategies. The fine environmental science of stopology has run its course, developed a host of disciples, and has formalized methodologies for spending time and money to plumb the inner workings of the natural world.
However, self-appointed protectors of wildlife would be well advised to look at the downside consequences of delay which lasts too long. Imagine two bug tussling over a treat when a big foot squashes them flat - game over. We know there are going to be some environmental effects from wind farms, but we also know that if this game gets played out too long we might encounter runaway. If that happens, all bets are off.
Take a look at the Arctic Ice aging studies for this year and the last 25 years, and tell me how confident you feel when the age of Arctic ice is 1 year or less and all the old stuff is gone. I think it is time to shift to high gear in physically solving the problem and in so doing save all the habitat, not just a little here and there. Its a much better way to solve the problem than to study and then discover we have too little time to make a difference.
I assume from your comments that you have toured wind farms and gotten up close to the turbines. If you have, you know how little sound there is from turbine blades compared to the prevailing wind whipping in your ears. There really is no comparison, and its a academic canard to assert there is lots of noise. Wind whistling past a building corner has the same characteristics for the most part - especially in windy places where most people don't actually want to live.
Take a look at the ice aging study reconstruction for the last 25 years. Play this video and drag the time bar to 21:30 minutes to see the video of the thick, older arctic ice melting over the past 25 years:
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/10/15/full-show-october-15-2009/7801/
People have got to cut to the chase and start reducing carbon output. It can be done, but not if we nitpick the alternatives to death. By the way, my interviews tell me that regular people are not in the least happy with delay tactics when it comes to deploying renewable energy.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:19 am
16 Nov 2009
The amount of power collected varies with the square of the diameter of a wind turbine (2 times the size 4 times the power), and it varies with the cube of wind speed (2 times the wind speed 8 times the power) and larger machines reach up higher in the air to tap much higher speed, steadier wind.
That means that a huge 1000 ft diameter machine replaces many times the number of smaller wind turbines. And these 1000 ft machines need over a mile between installations in the direction of prevailing winds (the rule of thumb is 7 times the diameter of the wind rotor).
There is many times the wind power we need in remote areas of the great plains and far enough offshore to be nearly invisible and inaudible. With a national HVDC power grid that 3 to 5 cent per kwh electricty can be circulated to shut down coal and eventually nuclear power.
How does the noise from nuclear and coal power plants effect people within 2 km? How about the other effects of coal and nuclear power? How big is the footprint of radioactive leaks, mercury in the water (pregnant women and children are advised not to eat fish anymore, because of mercury from coal power), and the GHG climate disaster looming over the entire planet?
Bigger than a 2 km setback?
Sound and sight issues for distributed wind employing smaller, faster moving, noisier machines can be addressed with innovative design features like vertical axis (gets rid of the "thump") and imitation plastic owl feathering along blades. Machines can be constructed with clear plastic and padded to prevent fatal bird collisions.
Distributed wind is a tiny part of the whole wind resource, the big coal killing wind power will be built in remote regions with slow moving huge wind machines that are much quieter and more bird friendly.
Rooftop solar cogeneration (electricty and heat), ground source heating/cooling, and biogas grid backup are the big distributed local renewable energy sources. No noise or anoyance issues with these.
In 40 years or so ambient temperature superconduction and nanotechnology should make these large wind machines obsolete as very high efficiency solar power, transmission, and storage drop the price of electricty below the cost of maintaing the old huge wind machines. Then they will be recycled, using renewable energy.
We need wind over the next few decades if we are going to leave a human friendly climate to the upcoming generations. Keep up the lame denier/delayer talking points based on "research" like this and the coal industry will keep on removing mountaintops and devestasting the biosphere. What are the health effects of that scenario?
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Dave from Canada Posted 4:21 pm
16 Nov 2009
And it's not science-based advocacy; it's speculation-based advocacy.
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ericr Posted 5:37 pm
16 Nov 2009
In contrast, her critics all work for the wind industry -- no point of view there?
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Daniel Coffey Posted 11:20 am
18 Nov 2009
You say her critics work for the wind industry. Oh, your credible in that statement. Where do you get that bit of info?
I don't find her suggestions facially very credible, and certainly not a sufficiently good reason to not deploy non-carbon energy sources in the face of global warming, and I don't work for the wind industry!
If you want to study the medical effects of infrasound from windmills, be my guest, crack open your check book and have at it, but there are some seriously big challenges ahead, and we better do something worthwhile before its too late. Delay is not really an option.
I am concerned that we are playing Russian roulette with climate change, and we need to do something about it soon. Wind is a very good way to accomplish that end.
What's your basis for objecting to rapidly responding to global warming? Do you find Climate Change is not important enough of an issue to be concerned?
Or are you just making it up as you go along when it comes to who is employed by the "wind industry?"
Personally, I find your personal focus and many offered "facts" indicate a very pro-coal, anti-wind perspective. Do you work for the coal industry?
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ericr Posted 12:06 pm
18 Nov 2009
As for the urgency of climate change, first, that is not the issue here. You can't dismiss legitimate concerns such as the frequently attested health effect of wind turbine noise by simply shutting your ears and shouting "climate change". Second, if you want to steamroller all local concerns, you need very strong evidence that "Wind is a very good way to accomplish that end" of combatting climate change -- that is, in the cost-benefit analysis, the benefit has to be awfully large to trump the many costs of such industrial development.
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Dave from Canada Posted 9:44 pm
16 Nov 2009
And no (2), not all of her critics work for the wind industry.
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ericr Posted 6:00 am
17 Nov 2009
As for critics, I should have specified those who hope to dismiss her findings (or go ahead and do so well before the science is in -- i.e., they do exactly what they accuse Pierpont of doing). Criticism is of course central to the scientific process. Reporting of symptoms that appear to be related to a common cause is the essential first step. All of the critics (deniers) cited in this piece work for the wind industry.
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Dave from Canada Posted 8:23 am
17 Nov 2009
It hasn't been peer reviewed.
And people have been pointing that out for quite some time.
So why hasn't someone put out peer-reviewed work on this?
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Daniel Coffey Posted 7:42 am
17 Nov 2009
Note also that in normal wind turbine settings - where is makes sense to install the turbines to make electricity - the wind is blowing very quickly. As one who has actually toured a wind farm, you quickly understand that what you are hearing is not turbines but loud wind in your ears, causing you to tear up and blink a great deal. That must be a symptom of some malady like "blinking syndrome" which returns each time you go where the wind is blowing fast enough to produce power. It must be the turbines which create the blinking, don't you think? We must study this because simple logic is not a substitute for empirical medical studies of blinking effects due to the presence of wind turbines.
A third study should include a warning about large losses of fluid from the eyes due to effects associated with the presence of wind turbines - or is it that the turbines are there because of the wind? Hmmmm, that's a tough one for epidemiologists to solve. Post hoc ergo propter hoc?
Gosh, unless you work for the "wind industry" you could not actually know anything or have an educated opinion about the self-published work of a great and wise doctor. By the way, where did she study medicine, epidemiology, and specialize in the inner-ear maladies which seem to possess those who are moving in and out of proximity with the wind mills? Oh, and why would she be fearful of interviews if she really wants to spread the word about a dangerous health condition
Maybe we should add an inner-ear study to every wind turbine installation, after all we have bird studies, bat studies, wildlife studies, transmission studies, engineering studies, meteorological studies, and a host of other time consuming invitations to intellectual enlightenment, so why not something that requires lots of doctors examines and interviews?
Oh, and by the way, after we spend, say, five years studying inner ears and can't find anything definitive, consider the CO2 that could have been avoided and coal which would not have been burned because of those wind turbines.
Consider: 3000 MW of wind power displaces 1 billion pounds of CO2 each month of operation. So how many months would you all like to study inner ear problems? Sixty, 100, 200, just pick a number and then calculate the carbon dioxide added which could have been avoided, but for the delay due to the important, nay vital, study of inner ears. Oh, and besides, we're doing all those other studies, so what's one more just to be safe?
Let's face it, we just can't be too careful when it comes to scary inner-ear situations.
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chix96 Posted 8:01 am
17 Nov 2009
P.S. She may very well be batshit crazy, but I'm decrying this lousy, thinly-veiled op ed as a poor foundation for facilitating meaningful conversation about clean energy.
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Dave from Canada Posted 8:17 am
17 Nov 2009
It speaks volumes.
I don't think anyone on Grist would object to testing her hypothesis. From what I've seen, people on Grist have been saying that the very lack of testing of that hypothesis is a problem.
There are huge vested interests (far bigger than the wind energy firms) that no doubt agree with her conclusions. And these firms (e.g. Exxon) have never shied away from putting studies out in the public realm. I suspect if there were any causal connection, there would be a ton of science out there pointing it out.
So the fact that there are no credible, peer-reviewed scientific studies on this topic also speaks volumes.
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nmveit Posted 8:20 am
17 Nov 2009
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Daniel Coffey Posted 8:29 am
17 Nov 2009
Best,
Dan
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J4zonian Posted 9:54 am
17 Nov 2009
Undetectable but damaging “noise� You can’t hear it, you can’t feel it, and you can’t prove it exists or that it causes harm at the levels detectable, but it can hurt you. The idea creates this sense of a problem that can’t even be detected… Sound familiar? Sounds like radiation; sounds like BPA and phthalates and mercury and sounds like physical and psychological problems caused by a thousand aspects of industrial life. It also sounds like it might be projection.
We need to investigate fully, perform such a huge, exhaustive, thorough and transparent study on this that there can be no question by rational people. (There will always be paranoid people and people willing to lie for money; proving them to be irrational goes a long way.) Then we need to do the same with the provably absurd notions of windmill bird dangers, black solar panels and the economics and technical feasibility of conservation, wind, solar and organics. We can’t let the nuclear, tobacco, and other industries be our model; we have to pursue radical democracy and let all voices be heard—and listened to. We must patiently and lovingly educate, not shut down or shout down objections but bring them out and answer them in both scientific and emotional/psychological realms. If there any problems—and there are always problems with technology and with doing things—then we need to be up front about them, admit they exist and say that these technologies will save far far more than they injure. And we need to show the math as we do it.
Wind, solar, efficiency. Faster, cheaper, safer. More ecological, more democratical. Better in every way that counts.
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Mike_G Posted 4:49 pm
17 Nov 2009
I also don't think it needs a huge long term study. It sounds pretty reproducible. With assistance from a few willing people who are susceptible it should be fairly straightforward to determine the specific frequencies and amplitudes which are causing people problems.
That will determine proper setbacks and allow appropriate countermeasures to be engineered. They may also find some blade designs which avoid the problem. I'm curious if the new whale inspired tubercle design blades help.
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JimCummings Posted 6:41 pm
17 Nov 2009
There are plenty of places in the US where they can build good big wind farms a reasonable distance from homes, and close enough to the grid. We've got to focus on that as the first step, rather than in-filling in relatively densely populated farmland and ridgetops above farmland.
Daniel, I do get the need to act now in the ways we can. It would be useful to know how much of US wind generating capacity currently comes from turbines less than a mile from non-participating residents. My guess is, not much. Let's continue to build replicating the models that are working without triggering heartbreaking dislocation and sleep disturbance in a significant minority of neighbors. Most wind farms are more remote, and trigger no complaints. There's also the option of shutting the ones near homes down at night, when wind is relatively moderate and demand relatively low anyway; not a huge proportion of the revenue comes in these times.
It's true that endless studies won't solve the problem, and even likely that CO2 used instead has even bigger and more widespread health impacts; my stance is not based on cost/benefits or even "health effects", but on a simple sense that we should not be plopping our societal solutions down on top of people's rural homes without being more clear and more honest about the impacts on them. If they can't sleep, that's a problem that can't be swept under the rug, or made fun of. BTW, the most problematic noise issues occur at night when the ground air is still and quiet (and if there is some ground wind, people are shielded from wind in ears by their houses), but the turbines are turning and making noise. The reason they keep building them higher is the well-known fact that wind is stronger the higher you go; the real problems occur when it's quiet at the ground, but there is wind aloft.
As for wildlife impacts, there will be very few areas where that's a deal-breaker. Most wide-open areas have plenty of room for the sensitive species to move a half mile or so, and I for one won't make a fuss over that.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 8:05 pm
17 Nov 2009
You said: "There's also the option of shutting the ones near homes down at night, when wind is relatively moderate and demand relatively low anyway; not a huge proportion of the revenue comes in these times."
No disrespect intended, but may I politely suggest that you don't seem to know about the wind energy business, at least not based on that statement. Wind energy production can be much higher at night, depending on location, and that is the basis for a number of storage strategies which are being kicked around - pluggable hybrids charging at night. It is true that demand is lower, but wind speed and quality may not be. Different parts of the country experience wind variability differently.
Also, you state: "Let's continue to build replicating the models that are working without triggering heartbreaking dislocation and sleep disturbance in a significant minority of neighbors." Where does that notion come from? I'm all for doing what we know, and fast. But, "heartbreaking dislocation"? Oh, please, let's be realistic. Significant minority? Even the author's study only found 35 people to interview and document - and they were spread all over the world. You're simply perpetuating a myth which the petite friends of coal would hope the public would buy in order to slow down non-fossil fuel competition by slowing down wind power deployment.
During one of my interviews of a wind farm operator, I sat in a building immediately underneath and less than 60 feet from the base of a 2 MW wind turbine with 14 mph wind blowing. The room had windows in it and I could barely hear the blades rotating in the air. And I listened very closely because of all the "noise" stories I'd heard and wanted to understand. I also stood under the turbine. I have watched numerous videos on Youtube from all over with people videotaping the "noise" - or virtual lack thereof. More often than not, the noise is wind on the microphone even when standing under the blade. A mile? At two hundred yards you must strain to hear anything - I mean strain! The whole point is IT'S WINDY, that's why they're there.
You refer to slow wind events at night and say "the most problematic noise issues occur at night when the ground air is still and quiet (and if there is some ground wind..." Am I missing something? Normally turbines do not rotate in low wind conditions - and for good reason.
Turbines in low wind are idle because almost no power is produced and it wears unnecessarily on the machinery to simply let them rotate. When the wind is blowing adequately to make power, the turbines are not that easy to hear - I have tried and its very difficult to hear them over the prevailing wind noise.
Moreover, if the ground air is "still" it is very unlikely that the wind is blowing at commercially important levels at altitude. Conceptually possible, but highly unlikely given the nature of wind.
We need to keep the discussion realistic about what the risks are and are not. Otherwise, the coal people can sell anything - any silly rumor - they want and we spend lots of time and money rehashing the old canards.
As for the fuss over sensitive species - you may not make a fuss, but the awful truth is that environmentalists are raising every objection in the world to block wind projects, and species issues are at the top of the list for interminable study. I have nothing against studies, but we have to gauge them against the risk we run by not getting going on this little climate thing that's taking place. George Bush and friends tied up renewable energy for 8 years because of some reason or another, let's not add another 8 years beating dead issues - unless they are really, really important and meaningful.
People do not take water quality samples of every pale of water when they're trying to put out barn fire. We might want to think about that a bit. We have only three or four alternatives to fossil fuels, and wind is top of the list for making clean, renewable, rapidly deployable energy - a source of about half of the GHG problem. Other big parts are transportation related.
If we had other practical solutions, I'd be for them. But we have what have and we need to use it fast. We need to stop play Russian Roulette and start acting like the barn's on fire. Rumor has it, it is!
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ericr Posted 6:17 am
18 Nov 2009
As to the experience at 14 mph, that's just over 6 m/s, which is just above where most large wind turbines start turning. The theoretical power curve for a GE 1.5-MW model puts its production rate at that wind speed at only 300 kW. Needless to say, at such slow speeds the machine is much quieter than it is in the full-power windspeed range.
It is also a well known fact that the quietest place around is right under the machine. The noise is generated outward, and its greatest effect doesn't hit the ground for quite a ways out.
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Steve Erickson Posted 10:10 pm
17 Nov 2009
I think the most annoying thing about your childish petulant sarcasm is that this is precisely the sort of situation that should be addressable by a good epidemiological study to determine (among other things):
1) Is there a problem?
2) If so, what are its apparent symptoms?
3) What are the key criteria associated with the symptoms (distance, turbine make, etc.)?
4) What proportion of the study population experience symptoms?
6) What are possible solutions - technology alterations or social justice (such as buying the affected out)?
But obviously, because you're not affected, no one can be affected.
You remind me of every Spray Bo' and "my technology will save us" hubris peddler that I've ever heard. Of course spraying DDT all over the place can't possibly be injurious because the people who spray it say so, and since they spray it, they're the experts. The people who are concerned are obviously just a bunch of NIMBYs or worse, Birdwatchers!
What more can you say? Those NIMBYs say they care about birds - or even "species" as I read someone recently writing. And they can't really care about "species," even if that were a reasonable thing to care about, which any right thinking technologist knows they're not. Its obviously a smokescreen for a more nefarious end, like creating socialist environmental facism, or stopping wind power, something like that. Who the hell would ever care about something as unimportant as "species," its downright subversive. And no one in they're right mind would care whether people are possibly hurt by a wonderful technology.
Daniel. If the corporado PR flacks didn't have you to point at as an example of how those damn "environmentalists" hate people, they'd have to invent you.
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:37 pm
17 Nov 2009
I suspect they have been done, and that their wealthy backers buried them because they didn't show what they wanted.
It's not like this sort of thing hasn't been done before (e.g. Big Tobacco).
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Daniel Coffey Posted 10:50 am
18 Nov 2009
I'm glad someone had the courage to say it; yes, no doubt, in Area 51 they have hidden all the really good wind turbines and have made sure that the noisy ones are out doing the work of alien overlords by causing people to curl over and lose control of themselves on command. Or is it all a huge conspiracy which the Dutch wind masters have loosed upon happy, unsuspecting coal-burning communities all across the nation.
By all means, the tobacco industry is the model for wind power manufacturers, seeking to make sure people are so healthy they become giddy on the extra oxygen and simply can't control their urges to run and play in an unpolluted sky without acid rain and free of mercury pollution from coal fire. Why, if this conspiracy keeps up, people are going to simply explode with unnatural happiness. Now that is a secret weapon worthy of Area 51!!
Wow, and it was so utterly hidden from us all until you pointed out that wind turbines are really a plot .... Oh, yeah, what's the plot to accomplish? Oh, yes, to make people have a quality of life which is low carbon and low pollution and sustainable. We definitely can't have that take place. What would we complain about on the super-green, energy-free internet?
Please post the secret conspiracy memo to which you refer, cause we are dying to see it. Please tell me its not merely because you "suspect" that it is a plot, I mean you must have some shred of proof or maybe a scintilla of evidence - you couldn't just be making this silliness up, could you?
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Dave from Canada Posted 11:16 am
18 Nov 2009
I suspect that the fossil fuel sector has funded epidemiological studies on so-called wind turbine syndrome, and found that there are no impacts, and has buried that research.
It's pretty much common knowledge that Big Tobacco did research about the health impacts of tobacco, and buried it. That's not conspiracy theory; it's a matter of record.
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ericr Posted 11:47 am
18 Nov 2009
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Daniel Coffey Posted 11:50 am
18 Nov 2009
After all, this is the center of "gloom and doom with a sense of humor." That's what Grist uses as the motto. Who am I to fight it with calm, rational, considered thoughts or carefully researched and reasoned exposition?
On a more serious note, sorry, I thought it was clear that I am having some sarcastic fun with the absurdity of this entire situation. Too subtle?
Ok, my basic point, and to some extent probably yours as well, is that we need to take some practical steps to head off a very big problem before its get any bigger. To do that we are going to do some triage, but hopefully it will be wise triage, and on the other side of this crisis we will come out better off, even if not entirely whole.
No one is more worried about species and all the rest of natural world than am I. But the best way to protect the things we cherish is by doing what needs to be done, not just hoping that the perfect solution will show up someday. When someday comes, we'll have more choices. Right now, we have few choices and little time. We spent some golden years with George Bush, let's not waste any more.
Recall Aron Ralston, the hiker in Utah's Blue John Canyon who cut his arm off to save his life. That's making the best of a bad situation. He survived. I don't want us to collectively be forced into that situation.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 7:50 am
18 Nov 2009
Gosh, thanks for setting me straight. Your insight is invaluable. So, let me guess, you don't really think that climate change is real, dangerous, or something we should respond to. Just keep the coal fires burning?
Your stalwart support of the coal industry and fight against nasty ol' wind power is really quite interesting.
You're the kinda guy I like to have in charge of an emergency room or chief of a fire department where you can sit back and take your time deciding what to do. "Yawn, what should we do today? Video games, anyone?"
Or better yet, you're in a fire fight with the enemy. "Hmmm, there are bullets whizzing by my head." What is the trajectory of those bullets? Are they lead or depleted uranium or steel core or full metal jacket or hunting rounds? "Anybody got any ideas of studies we can do?"
Just imagine how good you'd feel at the end of every day knowing that you'd studied those emergencies and debated them and even declared them emergencies, but at the end of the day, it was the studies that really made the difference, not the nurses, sutures, water, transfusions, medicine, etc. Oh, and by not using them, you avoided all the side effects of medical treatment. No triage necessary.
And by the way, do not under any circumstance let reality and common sense interfere with what really matters.
So what's your answer to the current climate emergency? Let me guess.
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ericr Posted 8:40 am
18 Nov 2009
http://kirbymtn.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-coal-for-less-electricity-due-to.html
As a diffuse, intermittent, variable, and nondispatchable source, wind turbines are unlikely to have much effect on carbon emissions.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 9:33 am
18 Nov 2009
Hmmm, take a look at the 5.9% reduction in US CO2 emissions and 10% reduction in CO2 from coal in the US from 2008 to 2009, of which a goodly part is due to shifting energy production methods. Oh, but that's only here in the US according the US EIA, so by all means, use the British model.
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ericr Posted 10:32 am
18 Nov 2009
Receipts of Coal Delivered for the Electric Power Industry -- Electric Power Annual, Energy Information Association, October 22, 2007
2002: 869,929,000 tons
2003: 949,191,000
2004: 965,057,000
2005: 986,213,000
2006: 1,043,681,000
Direct Use and Retail Sales of Electricity, Total Electric Industry -- Electric Power Annual, Energy Information Association, October 22, 2007
2002: 3,631,650,307 MWh
2003: 3,662,029,012
2004: 3,715,949,485
2005: 3,810,984,044
2006: 3,816,845,452
Coal delivered per electricity used (ratio of above figures)
2002: 0.2395410 ton/MWh
2003: 0.2591981
2004: 0.2597067
2005: 0.2587817
2006: 0.2734407
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Daniel Coffey Posted 11:04 am
18 Nov 2009
And do you actually have a rational reason for believing that wind farms cause more coal to be burned. I mean, do the laws of supply and demand, physics, common sense, just cease when you introduce wind farms. Are wind turbines really just coal fired and we don't know it. Each one has a little pipeline with coal slurry that leads to it?
By the way, there is a new book coming out on Feed In Tariffs and their use in Europe which would rather strenuously argue that you are just a little off the mark, but what the heck, let's make sure we convince people that use of wind causes more coal to be burned.
Can I assume that solar panels are also going to cause a severe uptick in coal usage when they are more fully deployed.
I'm all for full disclosure, but sometimes you just got to say: hmmm, what's going on here?
By the way, I fully understand that due to grid stability issues, much has been made of the need for back-up power generating capacity, but those who are deploying wind power are not doing it to increase coal usage.
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ericr Posted 11:33 am
18 Nov 2009
It is not unexpected that addition of a highly variable "negative demand" source such as wind increases inefficiencies in the grid, many of which cause greater fuel consumption and emissions per kWh generated. Whether that only reduces wind's theoretical benefit or complete cancels it (or even causes wind to augment the problem) has yet to be determined.
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ericr Posted 11:42 am
18 Nov 2009
Receipts of Coal Delivered for the Electric Power Industry, 2007: 1,016,236,000 tons
Direct Use and Retail Sales of Electricity, Total Electric Industry, 2007: 3,923,814,234 MWh
Coal delivered per electricity used, 2007: 0.258992 tons/MWh
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Daniel Coffey Posted 12:05 pm
18 Nov 2009
"Receipts of Coal Delivered for the Electric Power Industry, 2007: 1,016,236,000 tons
Direct Use and Retail Sales of Electricity, Total Electric Industry, 2007: 3,923,814,234 MWh
Coal delivered per electricity used, 2007: 0.258992 tons/MWh"
It seems that the ratio for 2007 - to six digits - is smaller that in 2006. Does that support your thesis? It does not appear so.
How about the plain fact that CO2 emissions have dropped 344 million metric tons from 2008 to 2009, of which 21% is attributed to a change in the power generation mix? That's a real number, real tons of CO2, and real results.
By the way, you must be reading from a combined report, because the monthly numbers for coal usage are out. Take a look at the EIA and their current analysis.
Anyway, drops in coal usage is a good thing, unless you're in the coal business, then it's fighting time!
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ericr Posted 12:27 pm
18 Nov 2009
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Steve Erickson Posted 12:13 pm
18 Nov 2009
Obviously the real motivation of those (shudder) Birdwatchers who wanted DDT banned was to see little african babies die of Malaria. And obviously any suggestion that a technology that is beginning to be widely deployed might have some negative impacts that weren't foreseen (especially by boosters of that technology) couldn't possibly be correct. When has a newly widely deployed technology ever had unforeseen negative impacts? I'm sure you can't think of a single example, can you. Better not to look; that way there's no danger of actually finding out, one way or the other. After all, its not as if we got into this mess by leaping before looking. So, lets do it some more!
Daniel, I don't have a clue what you actually do, but if its at all involved with convincing anyone that Climate Change is real and really bad, I can only hope that you are kept far away from other sentient beings because with friends like you who needs enemies.
I don't know if large industrial wind turbines and wind farms effect some people via emitting sound below the threshold of normal hearing, but some impacts on wildlife (those damn "species") are easily foreseeable (habitat fragmentation, direct habitat destruction), while others are unexpected unpleasant surprises (exploding bat lungs, anyone).
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Daniel Coffey Posted 12:40 pm
18 Nov 2009
Now, you need a wee bit of electricity world-wide, about 10,000,000 MW of non-carbon installed capacity to avoid climate change's worst and supply something decent to those who are alive and get a say in the matter, too.
What's your choice? - no peeking at the answers in the back of the book.
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Steve Erickson Posted 6:31 pm
18 Nov 2009
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-16-green-state/
Daniel:
Maybe you could design a way to harness the energy from the wind when you blow your strawmen over.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 6:39 pm
18 Nov 2009
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JimCummings Posted 2:51 pm
18 Nov 2009
The night time noise issues near some (SOME) wind farms are indeed real. When you meet and talk with the folks being affected you can easily see that they are not wild anti-wind yahoos who don't think twice about global warming, but rather decent rural humans whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the noise from turbines in the 1000-3500 foot range from their homes. It's not as simple as Mike G suggests (like motion sickness): the key impact is chronic sleep disruption, which ripples into other symptoms. Until any of us go and live inside a wind farm for a month, we really don't have the grounds on which minimize the reports coming from decent, honest, hardworking people who ARE living there. Showing up near a turbine and not hearing anything alarming tells you a lot about that place and time, but nothing about other places and times, and certainly does not offer any insight into the various wind and atmospheric conditions that interact to affect sound creation and propagation patterns.
Perhaps it's my overreach to be posting comments here that relate to audible noise rather than the genuinely controversial questions about low-frequency noise, vestibular effects, and all the rest triggered by Pierpont's work. Yet Daniel and others do seem to be falling prey to dismissing audible noise impacts as they react to the much murkier Pierpont angle.
Daniel: quite right that some areas can have high wind at night. As Eric points out, and as could have been more clear in my previous comment, the issue is often that the wind at hub height is just above cut-in speed, while at ground level it is very still (rural ambient noise can easily be under 30db); in this situations, the noise of the turbine, even going slowly, can easily be 10-15dB above the background, with modulation (gets louder and softer in the course of each second). These are especially problematic for annoyance issues and sleep disruption; and, it is these threshold situations in which they could be shut down without sacrificing all that much generating capacity/revenue.
All this discussion spurred me to update my 30p Special Report on wind turbine noise issues; see link at
http://AEInews.org
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Mike_G Posted 4:25 pm
18 Nov 2009
I agree with the point others have made that addressing this issue does not deserve as high a priority as some problems with current power generation and indeed transportation. It's probably much healthier to live next to a wind turbine than, say a bus station or coal plant. It's also probably a lot quieter than living near an airport or train tracks.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 6:21 pm
18 Nov 2009
I have been peripherally involved in epidemiology study efforts with respect to toxic and hazardous waste chemicals. How would you design a medical study of the effects of wind turbine noise on sensitive individuals? How would you isolate it from chemical exposure to say, farm chemicals, which might cause similar symptoms? Same question for OTC drug usage? Has anyone else done such a study anywhere in the US?
Someone earlier noted that it was the "uncompensated" who had the most symptoms. Does that seem accurate in any way, or is it genuinely a medical condition separate from a unrequited sense of entitlement or displacement? Sometimes people tolerate that which it pays them to tolerate, and I am curious if you have found that effect in your efforts and travels to examine the varied sound characteristics of different wind turbines?
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Earthgal Posted 4:54 pm
18 Nov 2009
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JimCummings Posted 5:28 pm
18 Nov 2009
That said, turbine noise isn't 24/7--it comes and goes, sometimes it's masked by ground wind in your ears or trees, sometimes it's fairly innocuously soft, sometimes it's the loudest thing at night, sometimes there is whistling or thumping (the noises vary a lot by all accounts of neighbors who deal with it), sometimes it sets the tin roof of your workshop to rattling. It CAN happen any time of day, but it comes and goes. In some ways, that may be better, but the variation itself makes it more annoying than a steady hum of an industrial plant.
Last note to Earthgal: wind farms don't need to be way out in the middle of nowhere to avoid noise issues ("uninhabited areas")--just somewhere one side or the other of a mile or so will reduce noise problems to near nil--very few people disturbed, and far less often. Believe me, when you're around those wind farms, a mile doesn't seem so far; you'll get to enjoy the elegance, and the grid will be within reach. I was amazed as I drove toward two different Wisconsin farmland wind farms: they're easily visible from 7 or even 10 miles; when I felt like I was really close, it was still 2 or 3 miles til I got to them. The folks there who wish for a larger setback would still be looking at dozens of turbines; it's not about not wanting to see them, they're just wishing not to hear them so often.
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Daniel Coffey Posted 6:23 pm
18 Nov 2009
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JimCummings Posted 6:39 pm
18 Nov 2009
Shoot me an email via my profile and we can talk more details outside of comments...my expertise is as an editor (reading and talking and culling and getting clear on how the various perspectives relate, and from there creating some big picture context), rather than as an engineer, acoustician, or researcher. So i can't really speak to research design issues.
And yes, to some likely significant degree, those who rent their land are less apt to end up complaining (though there are many cases where people end up regretting the lease and some of these do speak out)--and indeed lease payments can make all the difference for working farmers and ranchers to stay on the land. Some wind farm developers pay neighbors an annual fee as well, which is actually a constructive step, acknowledging that there will be impacts. For many, these fees DO make up for occasional disturbance. For others who are more sensitive to noise, they say no payment would be enough.
I look forward to hearing from you off-the-board here,
Jim
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thollandpe Posted 5:41 am
19 Nov 2009
And speaking of that, I live off a secondary road with 50 mph traffic. That noise is intermittent and unpredictable, and even has a strong low-frequency component (especially when the milk tanker goes by, 3 or 4 times a day). How's that significantly different than a wind turbine? Besides louder and affecting WAY more people . . .
Oh, and some yahoo just started a two-cycle leaf blower, argh.
I wish the doctor luck in finding the cause of these people's ills, but the wind machines seem a very unlikely suspect. She'd better be looking for other causes.
A note to Eric R, do you really expect to pin the varying coal ton per kWh ratio on the relatively tiny wind component to the US grid? It's absurd. Don't forget about the variable Btu per ton energy value of coal and the changing share of natural gas generation, two much stronger factors.
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ericr Posted 6:26 am
19 Nov 2009
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Ward in the Woods Posted 6:47 pm
22 Nov 2009
help. She most graciously replied, and posted an informative and kind
answer. We live about 3,000' from a (natural) gas compressor station,
and suffer the LFN almost 24/7. The LFN has a radius of 5 miles, there
are 130 in our county, so there is much overlapping. Some people do not
'hear' it, some feel the vibration, some more sensitive do both. VAD
vibro acoustic disease causes dramatic health changes.The main one is
thickening of pericardial sac,as this tenses up and slows blood flow.
This dicovered when the U.S. Navy began ship to shore shelling on
Vieques Island. Only one end of the island was populated, the other used
for testing. Heart specialist Roberto Torres Agular,found higher rates
of heart disease, cancer and asthma, in these people. People need more
first-hand information,to determine acceptable distances, from both
noise sources. In 1982 the EPA gave authority to the states to enact
their own noise laws, very few have done so.There are abatement solu-
tions, however that may affect industry profit,
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Matt Petryni Posted 7:17 pm
22 Nov 2009
What is frustrating about the political nature of the climate change debate is that it's hard to find reasonable people who can acknowledge that there is no perfect solution to any problem. Or who can acknowledge that fact without making it into some kind of political ammunition to further their broader agenda. So we get defensive to observations like this and really, really shouldn't. I can easily believe Pierpont might have some reasonable insight. We won't know until we research further.
But when we're just trying to make arguments that win out for wind power or coal power or whatever we "identify" with, we lose our ability to appreciate a larger context. I mean, the truth is that it's not like this impact is any worse than the negative health impacts of a nearby coal power plant. Acknowledging that fact still doesn't mean we should ignore or dismiss the impact that a wind farm might have.
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Ward in the Woods Posted 7:59 pm
22 Nov 2009
Believe me when I say green can't come fast enough.Here in Freestone
County, Texas we have the dirtiest air anywhere Big Brown coal mine is
less than 15 miles from us, and NRG just south of us in Leon County.
130 compressor stations, thousands of gas wells,just need responsibility.
Do things the right way,without harming people,soil, water,and wildlife.
BTW saw no mention of the flicker problem with wind turbines. That
would drive me nuts! Sounds like a lot of job possibilites to me. go
green get it right ...and hurry.
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