New Study Says Wind Turbines are Bad For The Health

[scribblet]

I heard this today on interview with Lorrie Goldstein but so far haven't found a link to it. They said this new study which is peer reviewed, confirms that there are health problems associated with living close to these turbines. The report talks about the set back being at 1.4 kms. while Ontario set back is only 550 metres. They also mentioned the Green Energy Act and how it took away the rights of municipalities.

I'm going to keep looking for the report but if anyone can find it and post it, would appreciate it.

[margrace]

People get sick from other things as well that doesn't result in their being banned.

EG the genetically changed wheat for instance. Maybe I could use this argument to make them go back to the product my grandparents ate

[Guest]

People get sick from other things as well that doesn't result in their being banned.

EG the genetically changed wheat for instance. Maybe I could use this argument to make them go back to the product my grandparents ate

What about DDT? Asbestos? Lead in Gasoline?

[G Huxley]

What about smog, arsenic from gas etc.

Edited May 30, 2013 by G Huxley

[Bryan]

There have a been a few studies that have suggested that wind farms cause inner ear damage which can lead to other health issues:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/27/175468025/could-wind-turbines-be-toxic-to-the-ear

[Archanfel]

I am sure there are studies showing kids get sicks in day cares. Let's ban them.

You know, there's a direct link between the sales of ice cream and murder reate. Let's ban ice cream as well.

[Guest]

I am sure there are studies showing kids get sicks in day cares. Let's ban them.

You know, there's a direct link between the sales of ice cream and murder reate. Let's ban ice cream as well.

It's not the murder rate, it's brain freeze. Still should be banned.

[scribblet]

This is a new peer reviewed study, but no one has suggested that turbines be anned. While we are at then, let's ban x-rays, smoke, air water and food.. People want longer set backs, to a minimum of 1.4 kms. Today in Ontario it`s only 550 metres. Wait until they want to put some close to your house and see how you feel. Seems to me the same people who whine about pollution don`t care about adverse health affects when it comes to projects they like and agree with.

[Black Dog]

This is a new peer reviewed study, but no one has suggested that turbines be anned. While we are at then, let's ban x-rays, smoke, air water and food.. People want longer set backs, to a minimum of 1.4 kms. Today in Ontario it`s only 550 metres. Wait until they want to put some close to your house and see how you feel. Seems to me the same people who whine about pollution don`t care about adverse health affects when it comes to projects they like and agree with.

Link? Anything?

In Australia, meanwhile, they have found the neghative health effects of turbines are actually contagious.

Windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth, Australian study finds

[TimG]

All technology can have adverse effects and these must be added to costs when doing a cost benefit analysis.

The problem with wind is there are no benefits since it is basically useless as a power source (expensive, unreliable).

This means the costs (in terms of health effects on people close to the turbines) matters a lot.

If wind actually provided useful amounts of power then it would be a different discussion.

That said, I suspect most of the effects are nocebo effects

(i.e. caused by people believing that there negative effects - there is no physical basis for the effects).

Edited May 30, 2013 by TimG

[Black Dog]

All technology can have adverse effects and these must be added to costs when doing a cost benefit analysis.

The problem with wind is there are no benefits since it is basically useless as a power source (expensive, unreliable).

This means the costs (in terms of health effects on people close to the turbines) matters a lot.

If wind actually provided useful amounts of power then it would be a different discussion.

That said, I suspect most of the effects are nocebo effects (i.e. caused by people believing that there negative effects).

That's not actually true.

[TimG]

That's not actually true.

Yes it is. Wind cannot exist without a 100% backup from conventional power sources. These sources consume more fuel because they are constantly being adjusted to deal with variable wind loads and it would be more cost effective to run these backups at 100% and turn off the wind.

[Archanfel]

Yes it is. Wind cannot exist without a 100% backup from conventional power sources. These sources consume more fuel because they are constantly being adjusted to deal with variable wind loads and it would be more cost effective to run these backups at 100% and turn off the wind.

So what? I never quite understand why people argue about the benefits of a certain product. The market can decide what's best on its own.

Of course, the problem is that we do not have a free market. If the government really cares about pollution, then tax pollution and let the market sort it out. As for the health issue, it's between the company and the land owners. I will be more than happy to have a wind turbine in my very small backyard, as long as they pay me $10,000 a month.

[scribblet]

Link? Anything?

In Australia, meanwhile, they have found the neghative health effects of turbines are actually contagious.

Windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth, Australian study finds

I've seen those sites.. and many others saying there is a link to health problems. I don't have a link, I heard it on an interview with L. Goldstein. I've actually emailed asking for the report.

I did find this but don't know if it's the same one.

http://ontariowindresistance.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/literature-review-2013-association-between-wind-turbine-noise-and-human-distress.pdf

Edited May 30, 2013 by scribblet

[TimG]

Of course, the problem is that we do not have a free market. If the government really cares about pollution, then tax pollution and let the market sort it out.

The problem for wind power advocates is that any politically viable tax on pollution would not be high enough to justify wind on its own merits.

As for the health issue, it's between the company and the land owners. I will be more than happy to have a wind turbine in my very small backyard, as long as they pay me $10,000 a month.

The issue is not you - the issue is your next door neighbors who get nothing but pay all of the costs. For this model to be viable all residents within 500m of a turbine would have to be compensated no matter who owns the land where the wind turbine sits. Edited May 30, 2013 by TimG

[Archanfel]

The problem for wind power advocates is that any politically viable tax on pollution would not be high enough to justify wind on its own merits.

The issue is not you - the issue is your next door neighbors who get nothing but pay all of the costs. For this model to be viable all residents within 500m of a turbine would have to be compensated no matter who owns the land where the wind turbine sits.

That's between them and me, nothing to do with the company. I can buy a wind turbine from Canadian Tire, would Canadian Tire be liable for any damages to my neighbours? Only I am liable.

Maybe I can reach a settlement with them, if not, then the court can decide.

[waldo]

Yes it is. Wind cannot exist without a 100% backup from conventional power sources. These sources consume more fuel because they are constantly being adjusted to deal with variable wind loads and it would be more cost effective to run these backups at 100% and turn off the wind.

nonsense... the same nonsense you keep throwing out... no matter how many times you are schooled on how wind variability is actually managed. How do power companies manage regular day-to-day peak changes, like early morning and late afternoon/early evening... oh my!... "constantly adjusting"!!!

again, as before, you have no clue about spinning/non-spinning reserves... you have no understanding on what grid operators do to handle wind variability - as in relying on the existing most flexible generating sources coupled with wind forecasting and sub-hourly scheduling... notwithstanding wind variability can be smoothed by balancing variability over larger geographic areas.

[waldo]

The problem with wind is there are no benefits since it is basically useless as a power source (expensive, unreliable).

expensive? We could play your standard ignore fossil-fuel subsidies game... or we could just look to the same recent link I threw up - the one from Bloomberg: Unsubsidised renewable energy is now cheaper than electricity from new-build coal- and gas-fired power stations in Australia

The study shows that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of AUD 80/MWh (USD 83), compared to AUD 143/MWh from a new coal plant or AUD 116/MWh from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.

“The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date”, said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “The fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn the economics of power systems on its head,” he said.

[cybercoma]

All of this has been studied and its conclusions are pretty clear. According to the Chief Medical Officer of Health in Ontario:

"ome people living near wind turbines report symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, and sleep disturbance, the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects."

http://health.gov.on.ca/en/common/ministry/publications/reports/wind_turbine/wind_turbine.pdf

I would like to see the methodology of the study in the OP. When we're talking about people's health it's important not to assume that association is causation. There may be other community characteristics that are associated with these things that is not directly related to the turbines. One possible way to control for this is to look at the reported incidents before turbines with the reported incidents after the turbine. Unfortunately, people that live near turbines and believe they cause adverse health effects are going to report more adverse health effects, as well. So simply doing a pre-turbine, post-turbine analysis is insufficient. I'm interested to know how they controlled for this as well or if they accounted for it at all. Peer-reviewed or not, these are important methodological issues that need to be addressed and depending on the type of journal they sent it to, the reviewers may not have been so much concerned with them.

Edited May 30, 2013 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

Crap. I'm caught in the TimG-waldo vortex.

[TimG]

Unfortunately, people that live near turbines and believe they cause adverse health effects are going to report more adverse health effects, as well. So simply doing a pre-turbine, post-turbine analysis is insufficient.

I think it is reasonable to assume that most of the reported effects are 'nocebo effects'.i.e. the belief that wind turbines have bad effects has caused bad effects. It is not clear what controls one could put on a study to distinguish between nocebo effects and real effects. Normally a double blind would be used but it is hard to expose people to wind turbines without them knowing about them.

What we do with this information is based on the benefit society gets from wind turbines which is, in my opinion, zero. If we were talking about a power source that actually generated useful power then we could justify ignoring such complaints.

Edited May 30, 2013 by TimG

[waldo]

What we do with this information is based on the benefit society gets from wind turbines which is, in my opinion, zero. If we were talking about a power source that actually generated useful power then we could justify ignoring such complaints.

you have no credibility in this regard - zero! As before, Germany continues to grow it's overall renewable base - now supplying between 22-25% of all its energy requirement... as it moves aggressively toward its next target: 35% by 2020.

Wind Blows German Power Swings to Five-Year High

Germany is getting more power than ever before from sources dependent on wind and sunshine, pushing short-term price swings to the biggest in five years and boosting volume as utilities increase trading.

The gap between the highest and lowest price over two months for electricity deliverable the next day widened to the most since December 2007 through yesterday, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. German wind output peaked at a record 23,331 megawatts on Jan. 31, enough to supply 46 million homes. That compares with an average of 5,079 megawatts during 2012, data from European Energy Exchange AG on Bloomberg show.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is trying to push the proportion of German power produced by renewable sources to 35 percent by 2020. Solar and wind generation jumped 80 percent over the past three years, damping prices on sunny, gusty days and boosting them when natural gas or coal plants are required to offset shortfalls.

[Archanfel]

If you noticed, it says "average". And that's the problem with wind power, it's not stable. Let's say you are provided with 3 meals a day on average. However, if all those meals came between July and Dec, you would probably be dead by then. You article even mentioned that "natural gas or coal plants are required to offset shortfalls", so you still have to have the capacity on standby.

I am not against wind power, just saying that it has its disadvantages.

[TimG]

You article even mentioned that "natural gas or coal plants are required to offset shortfalls", so you still have to have the capacity on standby.

This is what makes wind power uneconomic. Building capacity and not using it only saves the marginal cost of fuel but even then the savings are reduced because you burn more fuel starting/stopping the generators to compensate for wind power variability.

Poland has taken the step to ban wind power imports from Germany because is was costing Poland too much to deal with the variable flows.

Edited May 30, 2013 by TimG

[scribblet]

Haven't read it yet, here's the link. Thet Liberal gov't cited studies (many fromthe wind industryl) which claimed no adverse health effects from wind turbines. But this report, is a controlled peer reviewed scientific study published in an issue of the periodical Noise and Health actually does link industrial wind turbine noise and vibration to serious health problems.

The study — “Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health” — assessed two wind farm communities in Maine .

http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2012;volume=14;issue=60;spage=237;epage=243;aulast=Nissenbaum