Comments on: An Alarming Side Effect of Wind Energy That We Have All Overlooked

By: Rucio

Rucio — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:58:50 +0000

The dizziness, nausea, and increased migraines appear to be caused by low-frequency noise from the turbines, not the flicker. This is an increasingly documented effect, sometimes called “wind turbine syndrome”. Or such health effects may simply be the consequence of disrupted sleep from the turbine noise, which is often much louder at night.

By: Mark Rahm

Mark Rahm — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:16:47 +0000

A woman who opposes the construction of a wind farm in our county says her reasons are based on “well documented facts” that she has “several pages of”. One of her arguments is that they cause “dizziness, nausea, and increased migraines.” My response to her would be “don’t watch the blades turning, maybe that won’t happen.” The people in favor of it, and the local media, don’t give much time to hear her side of it, and most are in favor of bringing jobs to the area with this project.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:52:55 +0000

OMG, Thank you, I can not stop laughing and such stupidity. Thank god we don’t have quite such stupid fools here in Australia.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:47:38 +0000

Without wishing to give credence to any of this scaremongering, the point made by the man at Eoin O’Callaghan’s talk might have had point about the tides and their effect on the moon. Well, at least there might have been a tiny grain of truth behind it. The subject was discussed on the Material World on Radio 4 yesterday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qyyb) – as I remember the argument, the frictional energy loss of the tides on earth leads to a loss of rotational inertia of the moon and it is therefore edging slowly away from the us (measurements from laser ranging back this theory). The drift away is only a few nanometres a day though so we’ve probably got larger issues to worry about!

By: eartheart

eartheart — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:39:02 +0000

I reckon i can trump this story.

I went to see Conservative MP Peter Lilley to ask about why more money was spent on nuclear than windfarms. He said that windfarms were a lot more dangerous than nuclear. I had expected him to have a reason but I had to say this one caught me a bit cold. I asked him to explain his reasoning. His argument was that there would have to be windfarms all around the coast and the blades would brake off and hit people on beaches – presumably chopping of their legs and arms. The casualty rate would be huge.

Good to know we have such creative thinkers in our government to be!

By: Terrence Reed

Terrence Reed — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:47:17 +0000

While there are benefits to Wind Energy, every silver lining has a cloud. I am sure that Henry Ford would be right in saying that a few hundred cars will have no effect on the Earth’s climate. Everything has an effect. Energy does not come out of thin air, it has to come from some force and as such when we tap the energy of that source we in some way, inperceptibly as it may be, effect that source. We have thrown caution to the wind for too long. We should look good and hard before we jump into Wind, Solar, Ethanol, Nuclear, Fission, or any type of Power. What is most important is that we conserve as much energy as possible. No matter the source, energy costs the Earth.

By: Vidar Kristiansen

Vidar Kristiansen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:14:55 +0000

@Robin Chalmers

You wrote:”One guy told me that oil was not a non-renewable resource because after we had used up all the present supplies, the earth would make new deposits. I suggested to him that if his idea was true, it would take hundreds of millions of years and the source of the new oil would be the bodies of all the animals in the world including us.”

Actually there are people who believe some very weird ideas regarding this issue of exactly how the earth is supposed to make this “new deposit”. Some of them even deny that oil is a fossil fuel in the first place. Just have a look at this page for instance: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html

By: Syn Diesel

Syn Diesel — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:04:25 +0000

Ha. That comment reminds me of the comment thread that grew over at the Amazon.com page listing a container of uranium for sale.

By: rucio

rucio — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:26:22 +0000

The cited paper analyzes the results of 7 other data sets as well, from around the world: “Studies that have analyzed wind speed data from terrestrial anemometers have generally found declines over the last 30-50 years.”

By: Andrew Clarke

Andrew Clarke — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:48:00 +0000

We need to be careful using data from the US for a selected period as a reflection of global trends. The same way that increasing intensity of rainstorms causing flooding in the UK are no reflection of increased drought and desertification in sub saharan Africa. Wind speeds are increasing globally, hence the term global warming. One area particularly, the UK will see average wind speeds increasing over the next 50-80yrs by between 12-18% in winter with more modest increases in summer. Please refer to the UKCIP09 projects for some excellent peer reviewed scientific evidence of this.

By: rucio

rucio — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:15:17 +0000

Actually, Andrew, it is thought that global warming is more generally slowing the wind:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/study-us-winds-are-slowing/

And yes, the meteorological radar can be recalibrated to account for wind facilities. NOAA is already doing so. The point was to show that large wind turbines do indeed create an atmospheric effect downwind.

By: Andrew Clarke

Andrew Clarke — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:43:54 +0000

What a sorry state we are in! There is an awful lot of shockingly bad misinformation spread around by those trying to prevent wind power. Its notable that those protesting against decentralised local community renewable energy are predominantly pro centralised big power and nuclear! Unfortunately plenty of people seem all to keen to latch onto it and be gently befuddled by their stories.

What we are also seemingly missing is that as energy is trapped in our atmosphere due to global warming wind speeds are increasing. The amount of energy we remove by increasing use of wind turbines is minimal compared to what we have already inavertently added. Wind Turbines should be viewed as a method of removing excess energy from environments, perhaps even protecting properties and farming down wind of them!

Andrew

The apparent appearance of thunderstorm like images on weather radar downstream of wind turbines is due to the rapidly reduced wind speed. Weather radar or LiDar relies on measurements of particles in the atmosphere to detect how fast the wind is moving. In a super cell or thunderstorm cloud the predominant movement is vertically with less side to side movement of wind. Weather radar if incorrectly calibrated to vertical movement will detect this sudden drop in lateral sideways windspeed downstream of turbines and relate it too something similar to a thunderstorm i.e. reduced sideways movement. Luckily we have knowledgeable meteorologist who see these phenomena as a source of mild distraction as they have moved to 3D interpretation of the scanning LiDar and can clearly see the difference.

It would be mildy amusing if it where not so destructive as the anti wind brigade whip it up into another fairy story disaster scenario!

By: rucio

rucio — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:44:02 +0000

It’s unfortunate that the quoted comment descended into absurdity (perhaps deliberately), because the initial premise is valid: There is a consequence of removing energy from the wind. It would take an awful lot of turbines to make a global or even regional change, but locally already, areas downwind of wind energy facilities look like thunderstorms on weather radar. For example:

Wisconsin: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/49986352.html

New York: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090706/NEWS02/90705022/-1/NEWS05
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090624/NEWS03/306249964

Maine: http://www.wind-watch.org/news/?p=27040

By: Rosemary

Rosemary — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:59:44 +0000

Yes Roger, one wonders whether the medieval Dutch had the same problems from their neighbours when they wanted to put up windmills to grind their grain… nasty ugly things…:)

By: Roger from Solar Power Facts

Roger from Solar Power Facts — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:54:24 +0000

Oh really, we all know people only object to wind farms because they spoil the view. But I’d rather have a spoiled view than no view at all, and I quite like the look of them.