Another cost of wind towers
Laura David and Jack Kelleher had to leave their family farm at Gowlane North, Donoughmore, Cork, four years ago after a shuddering, flickery 10-turbine wind farm began operating a bit more than 700 metres from their home.
They suffered from “nosebleeds, ear aches, skin rashes, swollen and painful hands, loss of power in their limbs, sleep disturbance, and headaches.” Naturally, they moved into a hotel, and then found a new home eight miles away, and took it to the High Court.
Family in Cork win a €225k payout:
by Ann O’Loughlin, IrishTimes
Two brothers and a sister from the same family who claimed they suffered illness as a result of noise, vibrations and shadow flicker from a Cork windfarm have settled their High Court actions for a total of €225,000.
The settlements which were without an admission of liability were approved by Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds and occurred after mediation.
The defendants had denied all the claims they had been allegedly negligent resulting in the siblings becoming ill. They also denied that noise, shadow flicker and vibration from the windfarm had intruded onto the family’s farm.
The rest of the family have other claims still outstanding.
If industrial infrasound has this effect on people what does it do to the endangered Red Deer, Squirrels, or Pine Martens of Ireland?
We’re waiting for the Green screams of protest outside wind farm developments in 3…2…1… or does no Greenie care because it’s not about homeless furry critters, and never has been — it’s just about impressing their friends at dinner parties? And right now, apparently nothing impresses friends at dinner more than acting as a blind marketing agent for multinational renewable corporations.
If wind turbine operators must pay out people within a 1km radius (or more), and if turbines aren’t too good for the cows, sheep, deer, whales, or bats either, then these charges are just another hidden cost of wind power. Wind power consumes more land, and more legal funds.
Since wind towers threaten electricity prices, all electricity grids should have a 1km exclusion zone to keep wind turbines out too.
h/t Jim Simpson
A simple Google search will find decades of research in several countries on the use of infrasound as a non-lethal weapon.
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Don’t forget that wind turbines are bat and bird shredders
Again,something greenies don’t want to hear or recognise
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So it appears that in effect govt has driven people from thier homes by allowing the land to be “colonized” by subsidized wind towers…
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It proves beyond any doubt governments do not care about looking after the well being of the people, and instead they have a keen interest in looking after their careers by pretending they care about the people. There are more features in common between politicians and charlatans than most people think. It’s much like the reasoning behind Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Film-makers make use of it very often, such the Matrix; and so do politicians albeit using different means to blur belief and knowledge. Controlling what knowledge people are given goes a long way to making the masses believe anything governments or film-makers want them to believe.
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Yeah…look at the fiefdom being established in victoriastan….
But to be fair, the govt did appear to withold key information about the true state of things to ensure it maintained control at all times. It also allows the govt to jerk people around on a leash that can be pulled tight at any time on the flimsiest of justifications so as to choke off freedoms will Brown Pol arrests preganant women again for thought crimes…..
Covid Macht Frei…..
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Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive
When nuclear power we perceive
Can make fascism pack and leave
When soviet propagandists grieve
That their sharknados none perceive
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There was never a genuine reason to move away from proper power stations such as coal, gas, nuclear or properly engineered hydro.
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Both major parties feed the masses with a false narrative to convince us that the reason to move away from such power generation systems is to reduce our emissions. Then one needs to ask what is the reason for reducing our emissions? Only one of the major parties will admit what that reason is; namely to solve the mythical problem of man-made catastrophic climate change. The other major party admits nothing other than to abide by some useless Paris Agreement. See the tricks both play? They either believe in their own lies or obfuscate. Not sure which is worse but undoubtedly both are bad. The tragedy keeps rolling on though as voters put one or the other in power with full authority to complete their undeclared mission to destroy our nation.
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That is it in a nutshell.
We already knew about photo-volteic material and wind power in the nineteenth century and decided that neither would provide reliable baseload energy transmission to demand without power outages. The greens are hurting and crippling us slowly but surely with their insane beliefs and blinkered vision which answers none of the serious problems we have. And yet the mass media still perpetuate their lies and delusions.
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A very moving 6 min video about the horrors of living near wind subsidy farms.
https://youtu.be/zr3z_7iQ35s
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At my time of viewing 84 thumbs up and 47 thumbs down.
Maybe the thumbs down is because it is just depressing and truly sad.
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The presentation could have been better organised – far too repetitive. But the message is clear.
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Tragic: a violation of so many aspects of our trust.
Perhaps the saddest thing was watching the camera pass the huge field of dead windmills that had been left to rot.
Probably this is the complex with 14,000 towers that were just abandoned when they stopped working.
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Maybe its the perfect practical space for those aspiring demolition powder monkeys…do TAFE still run demo courses?
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Noisy, land – greedy, destructive and unproductive giants!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_Gargantua.jpg
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Windfarms: * We’re gonna need a bigger footprint of chopped down trees to build ’em.
* classic movie reference, Jaws.
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‘ … shadow flicker …’
There is a PhD in that alone.
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‘Shadow flicker is the effect of the sun (low on the horizon) shining through the rotating blades of a wind turbine, casting a moving shadow. It will be perceived as a “flicker” due to the rotating blades repeatedly casting the shadow.’
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Yes. That flicker can lead to dangerous seizures: a similar perpetrator of such damage is the rolling flicker in poker machines.
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And with strobe lighting in nightclubs etc.
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It is unethical and immoral to use such environmentally and economically destructive forms of energy production (if you could call it that) as windmills.
Apart from everything else, the visual pollution of these monstrosities everywhere is appalling.
Only those people like greens and similar environmental and economic vandals should use it and full pay for it, including the damage it causes.
Smart electricity meters can allocate and sell only dirty, destructive windmill power to people who demand it and the rest of us can use clean and low impact power such as coal, gas, nuclear and properly engineered hydro power.
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Still waiting to hear about the settlement from the “Baldhills”(?) wind/subsidy farm in Victoriastan, last I heard a judge found in favour of the residents and the company involved ordered to find an agreeable solution with residents .
Was talk from some about it being shuttered after 5pm till 9 am the next day but unsure of compensation for damages caused .
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Shutting down overnight; the devious solution that hides the real problem. They never give up.
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It has been known for a very long time that atmospheric “pulsing” or physical shaking as experienced by heavy machinery operators is damaging to human health.
Our bodies have a background control system in the ANS which, unsurprisingly, seems to be quite happy to operate normally under the natural pulsing present in the bloodstream.
While variable the average heart rate can be put at say 70 bpm and the body has no problems accepting the variations down to 40 and up to 180 bpm.
Our skin is the largest organ in the body: it receives and processes the Windmill pulsing along with intrusion of pressure override into the lungs.
The windmill “pulsing” overrides the heart beat which is trying to control the ANS and, surprise surprise, people get very unwell. The ANS detects the Windmill pulsing and adapts to it with damaging effect.
This fact has been cleverly “hidden” in the West where insurance companies proliferate: it would be a financial massacre for workers compensation to deal with all the heart problems from “vibration” issues that exist.
Driving heavy machinery, maybe operating jackhammer and other industrial settings would be big issues for employers.
At the moment they get a free run along with windmills just so long as they can misdirect the “science” by treating the problem as Noise.
The whole thing is scandalous. Big money speaks, and politicians don’t need interpreters to get the message.
VLF pulsing is Not Noise.
Just what is the “pulse rate” of a windmill.
Politicians don’t have our best interests in mind.
KK
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KinkyKeith
October 19, 2015 at 7:53 pm
I have been aware of the Very Low Frequency problem for almost 20 years now.
VLF is NOT noise as many greenflies would have us believe; it is pulsing which penetrates the heart/lung system and leads to serious health issues.
The only research done on this is at NASA in relation to inter space travel where there is continuous LF vibration on long trips
and, wait for it, Iron Curtain Countries.
You can’t get a grant to study this widespread industrial health issue in the west because if it became public
the drivers of heavy trucks and trains to start with, would be looking for compensation for heart lung problems and general VLF associated issues.
Then there are the wind-farms !!!!!!!!
No health issues there ; we’re GREEN and untouchable?
KK
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Many years ago I read of a riot control device called the Dynamic Dysentery Device whereby high-power, low frequency sound would be directed in the rioters direction and cause the urgent need of dunnies.
In these toilet paper shortage days, this could be even more effective.
I’m not surprised that heterodyning of sound from multiple wind towers could cause bodily disruptions.
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The DDD otherwise known as the Crap Cannon.
Apparently load noises in audible range have proven more effective at controlling crowds.
Then there is this US military developed E-M wave generator that is very effective but I do not know if it has been put to use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmuyLIrSjxI
There could be unintended consequences.
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Was talking to a farm owner who has 2 wind turbines on his property. The turbines form part of a larger wind power generation facility (WGF) (hate the term wind farms) established about 15 years ago. He now leases his farm to a neighbour and occasionally will stay in the remaining farm house. He now mostly resides ” in town”. The reason? He couldn’t live in the old farmhouse because of the noise etc from the 2 wind turbines on his property. When the wind blows from the south west it was the worst. Hence, he had to buy the extra residence to live in. He receives about $8k per year per turbine from the Wind company. There is a great divide between those landowners who have many wind turbines and those that don’t have many or none at all. All have to live in the same community and it can create great resentment. Effectively the wind company bribe the community because they hope the most beneficial receivers of the turbine rent money hold sway over those that don’t. There’s also the sponsorship of the local footy club, school, fire brigade etc. I’ll wager the Kellehers of Gowlane North, Donoughmore, Cork were not residents who benefited from turbine rent money. In reality they should and indeed all those residing within a certain radius of the majority of a WGF should receive turbine rent money almost equivalent to the main landowner beneficiaries.
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Video from US or Canada about wind subsidy farm shadow flicker.
The people who made this video were driven away from their home.
https://youtu.be/14okAlCY5fI
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Here’s the noise from one windmill on the Toora wind subsidy farm in Victoriastan. Obviously the most annoying infraspund is not captured.
https://youtu.be/eujRIOjVge0
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Infrasound is the frequencies of sound at or below the range of human hearing. The cutoff is normally considered to be 20 Hz but the problems may extend somewhat above 20 Hz. That infrasound can cause damage to internal organs has been know to some degree since early research in the 1960s.
That frequent infrasound exposure causes unusual tissue growth in certain common protein structures common to many tissues in the body, observable, verifiable, and repeatable, has been know for perhaps more than two decades. First discovered in autopsies, then biopsies, diagnosis eventually became possible by several less intrusive means in living humans and animals.
These tissue changes occur in many parts of the body, including heart, lungs, trachea, inner ears, and brain. They modify how the organs work. Most are debilitating and often eventually fatal. The cause is not widely recognized because there are no unique symptoms; the tissue changes are not obvious without particular attention to fine structure. As with hearing loss from overly high sound levels, deterioration is gradual and often permanent if exposure goes on long enough.
The tissue changes are consistently reproducible under laboratory conditions (animal experiments, obviously). They occur under 8 hour days, five days per week, (i.e. intermittent) exposure corresponding to normal factory work schedules. They progress faster under more frequent exposure. Infrasound can not be protected against with earplugs or stone walls. Infrasound from an outside source is often considerably more intense inside buildings than immediately outside because of structural resonances (which is sometimes also true of audible low frequency sounds).
Birth defects and still births are common in some animals, uncertain but indicated in humans. Overall, this seems to be hard, repeatable science. I have come across no information, or even hints that any scientist has found conflicting results, yet most investigations of possible problems seem to be done in complete ignorance of published studies, concentrating on more touchy-feely aspects (how do you FEEL about living near wind turbines?) rather than the induced physical changes. Essentially all legal standards for determining sound pollution or noise disturbances are based on the Fletcher-Munson hearing curves developed a century ago and do not even detect the presence of the low frequencies that do the damage.
Wind turbines came under investigation from this aspect only recently. Previous work on the medical results of infrasound exposure was from studies of other industrial infrasound sources. The wind turbine results are alarming considering how common wind farms are becoming in some areas and how near to dwellings they are often being built. Some of the relevant parameters have been roughed out but there is much that needs to be determined about the extent of the wind turbine problem. The particular infrasound signature of wind turbines has been measured as much as 20 Km from the source but at just what intensity level the problem may become insignificant has not been determined, as far as I know.
earlier work on infrasound
https://www.intechopen.com/books/acoustics-of-materials/acoustics-and-biological-structures
wind turbines infrasound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCZ3OyklrE
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Silicon Chip published an infrasound detector project.
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2013/March/Infrasound+Detector+For+Low+Frequency+Measurements?res=nonflash
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Here are some further links to infrasound issues:
Resonant frequencies of human body parts.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/human-body-resonant-frequencies.501607/
Micro-seismicity — the new health risk to humans from wind turbines. Ground-borne vibrations travel very long distances from a turbine base and are then amplified by buildings acting like the sound box on a guitar.
• the micro-seismicity creates higher levels of noise inside a house than that of the airborne noise radiated by a wind turbine and
• bedrock being in low depths underneath the soil has an additional contribution to the generated acoustic noise by the induced micro-seismicity.
• micro-seismic waves impact the measurements of seismological centres that were even 15 km away from a wind turbine farm and that the “larger disturbances occurred at a frequency range of 5-10 Hz”.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/05/31/new-study-sees-new-health-risk-to-humans-from-wind-turbines-micro-seismicity/
Finnish Study Finds Wind Turbine Infrasound Unsafe For Residents Living Within 15 Km
https://stopthesethings.com/2019/02/01/home-wreckers-finnish-study-finds-wind-turbine-infrasound-unsafe-for-residents-living-within-15-km/
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Taller towers than ever before,
In great numbers are seen more and more,
Like brute beasts they stand,
As a blight on the land,
Of Erin’s green shamrock shore.
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Ruairi raises a good point where this is mentioned:
For all the years I have been doing this, and raising the point that wind plants have a certain life span. That use by date when I started doing all this was 25 years, and it is now quite apparent that some of those wind plants are only lasting 12 to 15 years.
On a number of occasions I have brought this up, the response has been that there is no problem at all with that. Just put a new generator on top of the tower.
Across the years the technology has improved and now even larger generators can be used, and the larger ones here in Australia are between 3MW and 3.6MW, with earlier wind turbines only in the range around 1.5MW.
However, as that technology for generator size ‘on top of the pole’ has improved, they require a larger driving force, hence larger and much longer blades, and from that, taller towers and stronger towers capable of supporting that now much increased weight.
Challicum Hills wind plant opened in 2003 with 1.5MW generators has a hub height 68 metres.
Cherry Tree Wind Plant opened in 2020 with 3.6MW generators has a hub height of 91 metres (almost 30 stories high) and the blade length is 68 metres, the same as the hub height at Challicum Hills.
So now, it’s NOT a case of dropping in a new generator, because the existing tower was specifically designed only for the generator size and weight for that supporting tower. So, when that time expiry date arrives and the generator is ‘clapped out’, they can only replace a generator the same size (in MW) and weight as the existing one. That would be uneconomical as the cost would be similar to a new plant anyway, and with a much smaller generator, hence total plant output is so much lower than a new plant with larger MW generators.
So, as the existing plant reaches ‘clapped out’, it’s now a matter of totally dismantling the plant and constructing a whole new plant if it is to be replaced.
Also, the larger the tower, the bigger the generator, the longer the blades, the higher the tip speed, the lower the overall upper wind limit for automatic shutoff, now becoming so evident with large drops in power across the ‘fleet’ of wind plants.
The image at this link shows part of the evolution of wind towers, and how the height has grown.
Tony.
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Hi Jo, here’s a report about wind farm induced chronic stress in badgers. If in badgers then I would imagine it would be the same for any other poor animals unfortunate enough to live near these monstrosities.
WIND TURBINES CAUSE CHRONIC STRESS IN BADGERS (MELESMELES) IN GREAT BRITAIN
https://docs.wind-watch.org/Agnew-wind-turbine-stress-badgers.pdf
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I find it remarkable but not surprising that those who falsely profess to “care for environment” such as green types don’t have a word to say about the appalling visual pollution of wind subsidy farms. In some places like Europe it’s almost impossible to get beyond visual range of these civilisation-destroying monstrosities.
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This presentation by Dr Mariana Alves-Pereria in 2017 on the subject of wind turbine infrasound impact is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu8z7dyQA9Y
And this article: http://notrickszone.com/2018/10/24/heart-jamming-wind-turbines-new-medical-research-confirms-infrasound-negatively-impacts-heart-health/
Also this study by Peter Mitchell in Australia: https://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/wind-turbine-noise-simple-statement-facts-australian-experience/
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The first presentation is the same as AndyHce’s last link.
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In regard to infrasound detection, there is an English version of a German video by an organization investigating deleterious wind turbine health effects (unfortunately there are too many Youtube videos for me to find any particular one again). The German government has long claimed there is no infrasound pollution because they have a wide spread detection system, installed during the cold war, to monitor infrasound that they believed would be produced by Soviet nuclear bomb tests. It does not detect wind turbines.
This organization figured out why, and how to properly measure wind turbine infrasound. As the blades go by the tower supporting the generator, air is compressed between the spinning blade and the tower. As the blade moves on a sudden, very energetic sonic boom, at infrasound frequencies, is produced – over and over and over as long as the wind provides the energy.
They found the boom is, at least in some cases, detectable at 20 km. Of course that leaves many questions unanswered, such as what intensity is harmful, how long an exposure is harmful, and other considerations, However, if the tissue changes described by Dr Mariana Alves-Pereria can be independently verified, which sound likely from her lecture, this would seem a very sound basis for anyone fighting against wind turbines. With such hard evidence of damage it would seem difficult for corporate attorneys to convince juries that the damages are just emotionally biased complaints. The liabilities could be too great for either corporations or governments to ignore.
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Looks like noise is not the only issue with the latest mechanical failure of a Vesta windmill in Victoriastan which is the second failure of this brand in the state .
https://reneweconomy.com.au/dundonnell-wind-farm-stops-production-after-blade-falls-off-turbine-15865/?fbclid=IwAR0ytrNQdkPGOFQAl5z1m4po0aTTVH807ShPIuUflJrCExKcDwO1NoVJq-A
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Heavy weather coming to Victoria. Senior meteorologist Kevin Parkyn says a low pressure system could intensify overnight Wednesday. “We call it cyclone genesis” says Parkyn. Spare me.
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Whenever someone clicks on this website, it causes microcosmic vibrations that cause my ill health. Where do I sue?
I have to disagree with this one. But hey it’s a free country. Opportunistic nonsense in my opinion. They’re ugly, but ugly is not unhealthy. Just look at a gas plant or oil refinery.
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Plenty of evidence of infra sound and its effects on human health , Bald hills in Victoriastan is another example of a community winning a court battle against the big renewable subsidy farmers and I’m sure more examples are out there other that the one in the topic of the thread .
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I’ve been lurking here for a long time without commenting, but here I can add to the information. About a year ago I put up an article by Dr. Donald Deever about the infrasound problem. His full report (linked to in my article) was retracted by the publisher, since the implications were pretty serious. See https://revolution-green.com/wind-turbine-noise-health-issues/ . I had a couple of other articles from Donald around a year earlier, at https://revolution-green.com/wind-change-renewable-energy-industry/ and https://revolution-green.com/nevada-proposition-6/ if you’re interested. Initially he was only really worried about the cost and the environmental damage, but later found out about the health implications.
Only a few people are going to be investigating the health implications, and they won’t be financed by anyone with a commercial interest in the wind industry unless they are going to show that there isn’t a problem. It’s said that 97% of scientists agree with the people who make the grants available….
This appears to me to be one of those fields where because different people will vary in their sizes and will thus respond badly only to specific frequencies, it’s going to be hard to get evidence one way or the other except with very large studies. Health issues will in any case have a lot of confounding causes, or even no apparent causes, so we’re likely to get some personal tales of woe with no real smoking gun.
However, a Finnish study in 2016 found that health effects spread to 15km from the wind turbine. Measurements of various medical parameters in Sweden in 2002 found specific changes. A Danish mink farm found they had a lot of miscarriages and still births in 2014 after a windfarm was installed less than 400m away. These and other examples are covered at greater depth in Donald’s article. Enough evidence to make a “dig here” seem worthwhile, even if there’s not yet anything that’s absolutely conclusive.
If it wasn’t for the subsidies and tax breaks, no business would be putting up new wind turbines. There are locations where they are a logical thing to do, where the grid isn’t available and you would otherwise run on the backup generators, but you’re still going to need those backup generators either way (or go without power now and again). However, we do need to consider environmental damage and the effects on the wildlife – it’s not just birds who suffer.
Funny thing is that I don’t consider them as a blot on the landscape, but instead somewhat elegant. It’s only the weight of the evidence against them that’s mounting up that has made me change my mind as regards the advisability of actually installing more. Of course, the increasing electricity bill has something to do with that, too….
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Thanks Simon,
A very interesting story indeed, which I haven’t read in full yet. Very interesting.
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Then there are the offshore wind turbines.
What effect are they having on sea life, apart from supplementing the diet with migrating birds?
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Simon Derricutt writes: “ it’s going to be hard to get evidence one way or the other”
I think this is going to be a tough issue, somewhat like the Roundup chemical Glyphosate. Regarding that, I’ve used this herbicide since 1978. It was first marketed two years earlier. (Sometimes none, other years 10 or more gallons). Yet others claim illness from its use. Could be, I guess; we are all different.
Now, use Google Earth (or similar) and go here:
41.120685, -84.758672
Pin will be on a residence, and another to the upper right. To the lower right corner is a wind tower, 500 m. from these houses.
[Ref found in link from robert rosicka’s #23 comment above, about a broken tower in Ohio.] blade failure
Go here: 47.126940, -120.681808
Two houses and multiple wind towers to the west and north.
We live 17 km. from this site and there has been nothing in the local news of complaints.
Further, we are friends with a person that has worked as a tour guide at a local wind facility. While she does not live there, she has been on site of 8 or so hours per day during the tourist season. It is 200 m. to the nearest tower.
Here are the coordinates of her place of work:
47.012610, -120.201255
Bottom line: I’m a skeptic. I’m very much on the fence about this issue.
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“ it’s going to be hard to get evidence one way or the other except with very large studies.”
If the tissue changes reported by Dr Mariana Alves-Pereria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCZ3OyklrE
exist, and, as reported, can be consistently produced under controlled conditions, and, as she also reports, can now be observed in humans without extensive invasive procedures, then it would seem that the reasonable first step would be to verify (or falsify) those claims by looking for these tissue changes in people who complain of ill effects. This does not mean that some problems could not exist before such tissue growths occur (e.g. disturbed sleep) but demonstrating abnormalities of a specific sort in lung, heart, or other body parts makes a very objective case, not dependent on statistics or psychological insights.
The next step might have to be a showing that the abnormal tissue growth interferes with proper organ function but her lecture seems to indicate there is already plenty of evidence for that.
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