Old technology now though Ted, surely? So the "continuous whine" complaint wouldn't be an issue with the modern machines, especially the models without gearboxes. Domestic machines have come on by leaps and bounds - always excepting Proven, of course. Wonder how long it'll be before the list gets longer though?

Alison Davies (chair of the Potect Powys Conservation Group) is addressing a meeting of the local protest group next week.

2007 technology, yes. But the owner is trying to convince prospective purchasers that the machine is identical to the current Evance R9000 (Evance used to be Iskra). It would need to be to benefit from the MCS accreditation of the Evance.

It doesn't have a gearbox.

I still think onshore wind has a part to play. At a million pound per MW it is approx a third of the cost of offshore. Obviously offshore maintenance and fault repars are also very difficult and expensive. The days of cheap energy are going and turbines are very cost effective. After installation there is no further energy cost. The energy returns are very favourable when compared to most technologies. Other people may have a different view though,
Gusty.

And the value of the lost production of a factory when it can't operate because the wind isn't blowing, or is blowing too much? Or the cost to the consumer in paying the turbine operators to close down?

As other people have pointed out, back-up is needed for those occasions, potentially to the tune of 100% of that missing wind capacity. That's what security of supply actually means. Wishful thinking doesn't keep industry working, nor does it keep the lights on.

The wind lobby claim that wind will REPLACE conventional FF and nuclear generation, not complement it! The intention is to CLOSE conventional power stations. Planned nuclear facilities represent a fraction of existing generating capacity.

I was looking at the Natural England site and they give the figures from CPRE that cause so much anger and frustration at the indifference of the pro-wind lobby to the destruction of the country...

Wind farms need lots of land:

- onshore wind: roughly 2 W/m2
- conventional power stations: roughly 1000 W/m2
- 12GW needs 120,000 hectares of wind turbines

...in fact it's not even indifference, indifference would imply awareness. Instead there is a ferocious determination to spread onshore wind farms wherever the wind blows regardless of their impact on either landscape or people, passing the onus (with the complicity of the government) to those affected to take the time and the cost to challenge what the wind farm lobby claim as their imprescriptable right to milk the system for all they can get. The wind farm developers just shrug and move on to the next campaign. Job done for the investors.

And I'm talking about multi-turbine installations that will go on taking fabulous amounts of money off the tax-/bill-payer long after the costs of installation have been repaid. In other words, these are financial investments, not righteous contributions to saving the planet.

Generating my own! But the question need not arise because the alternatives are out there and have been for some time, just that irrational fear has stopped the further deployment of known, proven technology (regardless of its widespread use elsewhere without major incident when sensibly sited) and stifled the development of related technologies.

And much of Cornwall has been an industrial site for centuries, which is why I prefer Pembrokeshire!

I think the quoted 2W/m² is quite misleading as it must be using the full footprint of a wind farm and cannot be taking into account the fact that 99% of the land area is still available for the pre-existing agricultural use.

We all have differing opinions but we all use electricity, therefore we are all equally responsible. If household usage hadn't increased so dramatically over the last 20 years we wouldn't need to worry.
Gas - we'll soon have to import that in liquid form from the Gulf.
Oil - seems we do the above already.
Coal - got plenty but Maggie shut the mines.
Nuclear - expensive and not figured what to do with the waste.
Tidal - too expensive.
Solar - it's raining.
Wind - plenty of that but might spoil the landscape - a landscape that the vast majority never see because they are too busy shopping or watching telly.
Solution = each household allowed 3500kWHrs per year and when it's gone it's gone. Job done.

The debate keeps swerving towards domestic concerns, whereas my overriding concern is for industry/commerce and the security of a CONSISTENT supply.

I'm quite prepared for the world as envisaged by John Michael Greer in his thought-provoking book 'The Long Descent', but that means the end of the industrialised world as we know it.

As for nuclear waste, advances in its reprocessing mean that it isn't as great a problem as it once threatened to be, and remember it's dangerous to humans, not to flora and fauna. The French seem to be leading the field in the new reprocessing technologies. Nuclear waste is just another bogeyman trotted out to scare the children. If we'd matched France in our development and use of the process we wouldn't be in the parlous state we're in now. The only reason the future of anyone's children is at risk is because the parents were scared witless by the remnants of CND. And we might have stood a better chance of hanging on to our characteristic English landscapes and the magnificent unspoilt panoramas of Scotland and Wales.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Joiner</cite>As for nuclear waste, advances in its reprocessing mean that it isn't as great a problem as it once threatened to be, and remember it's dangerous to humans, not to flora and fauna. The French seem to be leading the field in the new reprocessing technologies. Nuclear waste is just another bogeyman trotted out to scare the children. If we'd matched France in our development and use of the process we wouldn't be in the parlous state we're in now. The only reason the future of anyone's children is at risk is because the parents were scared witless by the remnants of CND. And we might have stood a better chance of hanging on to our characteristic English landscapes and the magnificent unspoilt panoramas of Scotland and Wales.</blockquote>

True. Few people seem to realise how little waste is generated by a nuclear power plant. A typical 1000MW plant would take around 6 years to fill up a single Olympic size swimming pool with intermediate and high level waste. For comparison, a coal fired power station of 1000MW would fill between 250 and 350 Olympic size pools with waste each year.

Ah, but if you did they wouldn't build a very high wall!

I suppose that's why we have to put radon barriers in most new builds -point taken

...and stress from having to contend with all the incoming Londoners and the seasonal migration of the hordes descending on the place for the peace and quiet of quaint fishing villages...

I note concern is being expressed at possible damage to marine life caused by offshore turbine noise emissions. How does noise enter the water? Can it produce greater impact than vessel prop noise?
Would consider it a fallacy but also note two whales have recently beached just to the North of a large turbine array off the UK East coast.

British Medical Journal acknowledges health impacts of wind farms

Roger Helmer MEP

The prestigious British Medical Journal has just published an editorial dealing with the health impacts of wind farms, implicitly criticising the authorised noise levels in the UK as too high, and calling for further research. The piece is entitled “Wind Turbine noise seems to affect health adversely and an independent review of the evidence is needed” As a very brief summary, it says that “The evidence for adequate sleep as a prerequisite for human health is overwhelming. Shortly after wind turbines began to be erected close to housing, complaints emerged of adverse effects on health. Sleep disturbance was the main complaint. A large body of evidence now exists to suggest that wind turbines disturb sleep and impair health at distances and external noise levels that are permitted in most jurisdictions. When seeking to generate renewable energy through wind, governments must ensure that the public will not suffer harm from additional ambient noise.” Amen to that.

Sadly the whole paper cannot be accessed via the BMJ web-site with subscribing to the magazine, and copyright prevents me from publishing it here in full [see copy from http://betterplan.squarespace.com/ below]. But it strongly supports the arguments made by wind farm objectors (and ignored by government Inspectors) for years: that the health impacts of wind farms on local communities are real, and a matter for concern, and that the effects may extend beyond even the 2km range that has been adopted by some local authorities in planning guidance. It also argues that the noise limits in current UK legislation, and especially the government’s ETSU-R-97, may be set too high. It calls, quite rightly, for an independent review of the evidence so that the public can be reassured, and so that planners and legislators have data they can rely on.

I am delighted that a publication as authoritative as the BMJ has made this point. It would not publish such comments lightly. I am doubly pleased that a co-author of the paper was my friend and neighbour Dr. Chris Hanning, a highly reputed specialist in sleep disorders who worked for years at the Leicester General Hospital. Dr. Hanning advised the local wind farm protest group.

There is a serious issue here, which affects the lives of more and more families and communities as wind farm planning applications break out like a rash over England’s green and pleasant land (and over the moors of Scotland). There are powerful technical and economic arguments against wind farms, but it’s also time for the government to look seriously at the health impacts.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

British Medical Journal: Wind Turbine Noise

Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 01:28PM

Note: The British Medical Journal is an international peer reviewed journal of medicine.

Wind turbine noise seems to affect health adversely and an independent review of evidence is needed

SOURCE: British Medical Journal, www.bmj.com

March 8, 2012

Authors: Christopher D Hanning, honorary consultant in sleep medicine, Sleep Disorders Service, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester LE5 4PW, UK

Alun Evans, professor emeritus, Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University of Belfast, Institute of Clinical Science B, Belfast, UK

The evidence for adequate sleep as a prerequisite for human health, particularly child health, is overwhelming. Governments have recently paid much attention to the effects of environmental noise on sleep duration and quality, and to how to reduce such noise.1 However, governments have also imposed noise from industrial wind turbines on large swathes of peaceful countryside.

The impact of road, rail, and aircraft noise on sleep and daytime functioning (sleepiness and cognitive function) is well established.1 Shortly after wind turbines began to be erected close to housing, complaints emerged of adverse effects on health. Sleep disturbance was the main complaint.2 Such reports have been dismissed as being subjective and anecdotal, but experts contend that the quantity, consistency, and ubiquity of the complaints constitute epidemiological evidence of a strong link between wind turbine noise, ill health, and disruption of sleep.3

The noise emitted by a typical onshore 2.5 MW wind turbine has two main components. A dynamo mounted on an 80 m tower is driven through a gear train by blades as long as 45 m, and this generates both gear train noise and aerodynamic noise as the blades pass through the air, causing vortices to be shed from the edges. Wind constantly changes its velocity and direction, which means that the inflowing airstream is rarely stable. In addition, wind velocity increases with height (wind shear), especially at night, and there may be inflow turbulence from nearby structures—in particular, other turbines. This results in an impulsive noise, which is variously described as “swishing” and “thumping,” and which is much more annoying than other sources of environmental noise and is poorly masked by ambient noise.4 5

Permitted external noise levels and setback distances vary between countries. UK guidance, ETSU-R-97, published in 1997 and not reviewed since, permits a night time noise level of 42 dBA, or 5 dBA above ambient noise level, whichever is the greater. This means that turbines must be set back by a minimum distance of 350-500 m, depending on the terrain and the turbines, from human habitation.

The aerodynamic noise generated by wind turbines has a large low frequency and infrasound component that is attenuated less with distance than higher frequency noise. Current noise measurement techniques and metrics tend to obscure the contribution of impulsive low frequency noise and infrasound.6 A laboratory study has shown that low frequency noise is considerably more annoying than higher frequency noise and is harmful to health—it can cause nausea, headaches, disturbed sleep, and cognitive and psychological impairment.7 A cochlear mechanism has been proposed that outlines how infrasound, previously disregarded because it is below the auditory threshold, could affect humans and contribute to adverse effects.8

Sixteen per cent of surveyed respondents who lived where calculated outdoor turbine noise exposures exceeded 35 dB LAeq (LAeq, the constant sound level that, in a given time period, would convey the same sound energy as the actual time varying sound level, weighted to approximate the response of the human ear) reported disturbed sleep.4 A questionnaire survey concluded that turbine noise was more annoying at night, and that interrupted sleep and difficulty in returning to sleep increased with calculated noise level.9 Even at the lowest noise levels, 20% of respondents reported disturbed sleep at least one night a month. In a meta-analysis of three European datasets (n=1764),10 sleep disturbance clearly increased with higher calculated noise levels in two of the three studies.

In a survey of people residing in the vicinity of two US wind farms, those living within 375-1400 m reported worse sleep and more daytime sleepiness, in addition to having lower summary scores on the mental component of the short form 36 health survey than those who lived 3-6.6 km from a turbine. Modelled dose-response curves of both sleep and health scores against distance from nearest turbine were significantly related after controlling for sex, age, and household clustering, with a sharp increase in effects between 1 km and 2 km.11 A New Zealand survey showed lower health related quality of life, especially sleep disturbance, in people who lived less than 2 km from turbines.12

A large body of evidence now exists to suggest that wind turbines disturb sleep and impair health at distances and external noise levels that are permitted in most jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom. Sleep disturbance may be a particular problem in children,1 and it may have important implications for public health. When seeking to generate renewable energy through wind, governments must ensure that the public will not suffer harm from additional ambient noise. Robust independent research into the health effects of existing wind farms is long overdue, as is an independent review of existing evidence and guidance on acceptable noise levels.

Notes

Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e1527

Footnotes

§ Competing interests: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; CDH has given expert evidence on the effects of wind turbine noise on sleep and health at wind farm planning inquiries in the UK and Canada but has derived no personal benefit; he is a member of the board of the Society for Wind Vigilance; AE has written letters of objection on health grounds to wind farm planning applications in Ireland.

§ Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

References

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WHO. Burden of disease from environmental noise. 2011. www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/136466/e94888.pdf.
2. ↵
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Van den Berg G, Pedersen E, Bouma J, Bakker R. Project WINDFARMperception. Visual and acoustic impact of wind turbine farms on residents. FP6-2005-Science-and-Society-20. Specific support action project no 044628, 2008. www.rug.nl/wewi/deWetenschapswinkels/natuurkunde/publicaties/WFp-final-1.pdf.
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Pedersen E. Effects of wind turbine noise on humans. Proceedings of the Third International Meeting on Wind Turbine Noise, Aalborg Denmark 17-19 June 2009.www.confweb.org/wtn2009/.
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Nissenbaum M, Aramini J, Hanning C. Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines: a preliminary report. Proceedings of 10th International Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem (ICBEN), 2011, London, UK. Curran Associates, 2011.
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Shepherd D, McBride D, Welch D, Dirks K, Hill E. Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health related quality of life. Noise Health2011;13:333-9.
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Christopher D Hanning, honorary consultant in sleep medicine 1,
Alun Evans, professor emeritus 2
1 Sleep Disorders Service, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester LE5 4PW, UK
2 Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University of Belfast, Institute of Clinical Science B, Belfast, UK

Article originally appeared on Better Plan: The Trouble With Industrial Wind Farms in Wisconsin (http://betterplan.squarespace.com/). See website for complete article licensing information.

And impeccably peer-reviewed, too, so that will hopefully stop the carping from the NIMBYs who are quite happy to see onshore wind in other people's backyard.