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General: Are wind farms saving or killing us?

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    • CommentAuthorjiminyrock
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2012
     
    Posted By: Brianwilson We surely need to recognise and react to the impact of known hazards rather than speculate on totally unsupported possible future health impact claims.


    All very well... ...but, for example, this sort of approach would permit the use of a substance like asbestos until the evidence emerges for its harm.. ..again it takes many years for it to cause terminal diseases like mesothelioma, and years for the corresponding evidence to convince us of that fact. Such toxicity that emerges over time, and that is caused by old or cumulative chronic exposure by its very nature takes a long time to accrue.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2012
     
    This is an interesting take on this type of debate:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqmyw
  3.  
    "Aileen Jackson, a diabetic since the age of 19, found her blood glucose levels rocketing - forcing her to take more insulin and causing her to develop a cataract, she says"

    That picture shows what looks to me to be an old Proven 6kW turbine and my estimate from the picture is that is between 100 and 200m distance. A turbine of such a small size would not produce "infrasound". I would be very surprised if the noise from it can be heard at all, ever, at this distance (unless there is something technically wrong with it, e.g. freewheeling often in high winds due to G59 relay tripping out or suchlike).

    How can an article like this possibly compare a turbine of this scale with a 1.5 megawatt machine?
    It is so ridiculously far the other way that it makes any serious discussion of the issue impossible.

    That woman may have had a similar reaction to a conservatory that she didn't want her neighbour to build.
    Some neighbours are like this, ruins their life if you do anything at all.
    Maybe we should ban conservatories? (or 'tories for short)
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2012
     
    I'd go for an outright ban on 'tories every day of the week.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2012 edited
     
    Stress alone can increase blood glucose levels..

    http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=47115

    I'm not convinced small turbines can cause health problems but jury still out on the large ones.
  6.  
    Isn't the jury still out on eggs, chicken, phones, airtight houses? You name it it has a health risk. It just makes a joke of all the medical evidence we keep seeing every day,
    Gusty.
    • CommentAuthorjms452
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: jiminyrockAll very well... ...but, for example, this sort of approach would permit the use of a substance like asbestos until the evidence emerges for its harm.. ..again it takes many years for it to cause terminal diseases like mesothelioma, and years for the corresponding evidence to convince us of that fact. Such toxicity that emerges over time, and that is caused by old or cumulative chronic exposure by its very nature takes a long time to accrue.


    Well given the number of people killed by burning fossil fuels (particulates mainly as climate change is hard to put numbers on) the example seems more like continuing to use asbestos because we are worried about some peripheral issues with alternatives (that exceptionally rarely kill anyone).

    http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/The_Toll_from_Coal.pdf

    I continue to be amazed that people rarely compare the environmental impact between technologies and instead compare technologies to an idyllic panacea (i.e. no power generation needed).

    Big engineering projects impact people and the environment - shock horror :cry:
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: jms452Big engineering projects impact people and the environment - shock horror

    I suppose that we should ask people what they want and then see if it is achievable rather than rely on planners, councils, people with other vested interests etc.
    Was chatting to someone and he was very good at saying what he did not like, i.e. small town housing, building in the countryside, lack of community and how it was all big businesses fault (as if they wanted all those unsold 1 bed city-centre flats) or the council, but he also did not want the countryside ruined. I pointed to a field, just one, and pointed out that it could easily house 20,000 people and apart from needing a new road it would not affect the area any. We have huge amounts of land but little imagination other than to cram people into smaller and smaller places and build new ghettos.

    I think we should compare technologies against coal generation as that is currently our most sustainable as a nation, then see if we can do better.
  9.  
    Jms 452-In response to your quote “I continue to be amazed that people rarely compare the environmental impact between technologies and instead compare technologies to an idyllic panacea (i.e. no power generation needed)” and your ref to particulate pollution.
    One disturbing comparison is wind versus gas or biomass. Wind zero particulates per Gj of energy, N.G. powerplant .1g/Gj ( Wikipedia data) and a current biomass proposal in Scotland details 1,015g/Gj (10,000 times higher than equivalent gas), applicant for biomass plant states hope for these biomass plants to be replicated across Scotland to replace fossil fuel. Application details PM pollution 150mg/ cubic metre with 6,771 cubic metres per Gj. Compare 6771 cubic metres of air pollution per Gj against the 272 stated for gas. Particulates are rated the most hazardous air pollutant by WHO with no established minimum safe level so priority should surely be to embrace the technologies producing least PM per unit of energy .
    Just spotted two very large offshore wind turbine bases being transported North along Yorkshire Coast ,do folk consider offshore wind creates problems?
  10.  
    In my opinion the sooner people realise that the days of cheap energy are going then better off we will be. If we want to have control over our supply then we must use differnet generating methods. The UK has a massive resource from wind, wave, tidal, hydro, PV etc and we expoit very little of it at the moment. We, as a nation need to get a grip and realise that demand will not drop if anyone is at all realistic. The way forward is to become greener and harness every bit we can. With population and industry demanding more power we are up against it. The oil field and gas field will not provide energy for all the emerging economies and our own so we need to look at new technology to help our situation. Energy independence will also come along with it I hope. Wind must play its part. Not all love it but it helps the situation. Out of interest, how many that oppose wind have a better suggestion that we can use today?
    Gusty. :confused:
    • CommentAuthorjms452
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2012
     
    Posted By: Brianwilson(10,000 times higher than equivalent gas)


    Gas is pretty 'clean' in terms of particulates but I must admit that while I don't agree with all your biomass statements the recent threads highlighting particulates do highlight that biomass is a resource to be used sparingly rather than a business as usual. Personally I think that if renewables start to take a significant share of generation we will need gas for at least a good few decades until energy storage catches up.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2012
     
    http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/2012/many-were-in-favour-of-the-windfarm-until-they-had-to-live-with-it-australia/?var=wts

    Selected quotes:

    "Many of these people were in favour of the wind farm until they had to live with it."

    "In July 2011, after the Waterloo wind farm had been operating for about eight months, an Adelaide University survey sent to 75 households within 5km of the Waterloo wind farm had 48 respondents, an extremely high response rate. Seventy per cent were moderately to severely affected by the wind turbine noise."

    "Four households who lived between 3-4.5km from the turbines have had to leave their home in order to get enough sleep. Two of these have bought houses in other towns. Two other households who cannot afford to buy another home are living in a shed and in a caravan. Other families remain sleep deprived and sick in their own homes, waiting for the EPA to act."
  13.  
    Noise :
    Police and other emergency services zooming past my house throughout the night and various other cars on the A4, occasional road rage row for entainment. Constant planes (usually 10 ish in view) flying over head til 11 pm , Great western train line 2 streets away , M4 1/2 mile away , constant drone. Mars factory and SSE biomass plant 1/2 mile away constant drone.
    The Joys of suburban life , just takes a while to get use to it :bigsmile:
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2012
     
    Seagull are pretty aggregating, as is the clinking of sail boat rigging James.

    I agree with Gusty and when I talk to people that like business as usual they seem to highly recommend Nuclear and Gas. A few talk of Tidal Barrages (I point out that we can easily save 8% of our energy demand, but that is not the point) and a few others talk of Wave devices (I point out that there are none working anywhere, well almost). Hot Rocks raises its head quite often in conversation (there is a large gap between theory and practicality).
    PV offers some possibility, but even if we could could cover every roof in the UK with it that would only be about 4% of our land area (assume urbanisation is 8% and 50% is covered in buildings, so that would be 10,000 km^2 ish).
    There was a recent article in the IET (formally the IEEE, the people that really run the world) called 'King Coal'. There is still a lot of life in the dirty old stuff, but I think we are destined for natural gas to supply up to about 60-70% of our electrical generation in the next few decades unless nuclear gets a boost (call it a subsidy if you like) and that could supply 90% of our base load, as it should be doing.
    The other way to sort the problems of electrical energy out are to either ration (some people like this idea and call it cap and trade, TEQs or 'Ding Ding I am on the bus') or to just push the price up and let individuals decide the best course for themselves (my preferred choice). None of them will be like today though.
    Price of Brent Crude dropped $4 a barrel in an unexpected manner on Monday, Saudi Arabia are now talking of releasing more crude to 'stabilise the world energy price'. I don't understand it either:confused:
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: jamesingramNoise :
    Police and other emergency services zooming past my house throughout the night and various other cars on the A4, occasional road rage row for entainment. Constant planes (usually 10 ish in view) flying over head til 11 pm , Great western train line 2 streets away , M4 1/2 mile away , constant drone. Mars factory and SSE biomass plant 1/2 mile away constant drone.
    The Joys of suburban life , just takes a while to get use to it:bigsmile:" alt=":bigsmile:" src="http:///forum114/extensions/Vanillacons/smilies/standard/bigsmile.gif" >


    How do you get on with the thump thump from a neighbours HiFi? Is that more annoying than the traffic?
    • CommentAuthorcrusoe
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2012
     
    Steamy: Thought you said you could see where this was going.....:tongue:

    jamesingram: Come on James, it's well known that a Mars a day helps you.... :bigsmile:

    I have no axe to grind with turbines, just want them to be safe and not affect quality of life or health. The landscape is a different matter. As gusty says, what other options do the anti-wind lot offer outside fossil and nuclear, which is a fossil-in-waiting itself methinks?
    • CommentAuthorjamesingram
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: CWattersHow do you get on with the thump thump from a neighbours HiFi? Is that more annoying than the traffic?

    I just turn mine up a bit louder ( sound clash styley ) :bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012 edited
     
    just want them to be safe and not affect quality of life or health


    How safe? totally safe? fairly safe? safer than X? Define your criteria please. Not affect quality of life or health at all? or only a bit? How much is a bit? Given that they almost certainly don't _increase_ safety (directly), nor improve quality of life (if nearby) and they don't have 'no effect at all', they almost certainly reduce safety and quilty of life, but only a tiny bit. Is that OK with you? Seems to me that your criteria are useless as stated.

    Steamy 'only 10,000km2'. That's a billion kWh per year (or a million MWh) if my sums are right. The UK currently uses 344 million MWh of leccy/yr. Hmm, so every roof in the country would get us to 0.3% PV generation? That seems a bit low.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    My mental arithmetic is dreadful as you all know.
    10,000 km^2 x 1,000,000 m^2 = 1x10^10 m^2
    Solar is about 950 kWh.m^-2.year^-1
    PV efficiency is about 0.1
    9.5x10^11 kWh.year^-1

    UK electrical use in 2009 was 352 TWh (3.52x10^11 kWh)
  20.  
    Posted By: SteamyTeaMy mental arithmetic is dreadful as you all know.
    10,000 km^2 x 1,000,000 m^2 = 1x10^10 m^2
    Solar is about 950 kWh.m^-2.year^-1
    PV efficiency is about 0.1
    9.5x10^11 kWh.year^-1

    UK electrical use in 2009 was 352 TWh (3.52x10^11 kWh)


    Concentrated Solar PV efficiency is well over 0.3 but flat panels still dominate the market
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    Concentrated solar is not really made for city centres or the UK climate even though.
    • CommentAuthorRobL
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    David Mackay(link below) talks about covering south facing roofs with solar panels, and he worked out :
    "Let’s give every person 10 m2 of expensive (20%-efficient) solar panels and cover all south-facing roofs. These will deliver 5 kWh per day per person."

    I reckon thats 1.2*10^11 KWh, or 33% of the UK electricity demand. Seems a lot more optimisitic.

    http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c6/page_39.shtml
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    Let's work it backwards:
    Posted By: SteamyTeaUK electrical use in 2009 was 352 TWh

    Each W of PV installed will produce about 800 Wh/year if installed in a reasonable location. For 25 million or so households in Britain we'd therefore need 352e12 / 800 / 25e6 = 17.6 kW of PV. At 15% efficiency that'd cover 117.33 m².

    Domestic roofs won't do it though they'll make a very useful contribution. Commercial roofs and other land area would help a lot.

    Of course, we really need to increase our electrical (and direct solar thermal) consumption a lot - it should be replacing fossil fuel use where ever practical.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    That would be about 4000 km^2 then at 10% efficiency (3000 km^2 at 15%) just from housing.

    I agree that we should be electrifying, as does the IET (formally the IEE, but they would say that).
    • CommentAuthorcrusoe
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    Do you have a gold standard on safeness then wookey? Enlighten me, do. If not, I'll stick with my simple wish for safety.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    There are standards for testing this kind of stuff. One involves administering a dosage that is fatal to 50% of the test population (how they establish that in the first place I hate to think) They then up or down the dosage on a new batch of 'volunteers' until they get to a does where it would kill all or none (statistically significant as some may survive the high doses and other may die for other reasons. This is repeated in universities and labs all over the world so that they know the study is valid and rigorous.
    So that is how it is done and how we learn, better than just saying 'I don't like it and don't believe it', or even worse accepting the outliers as the norm, the medical profession has been very guilty of this as they tend to initially do small scale tests, remember that genetic experiment that killed a couple of people and seriously maimed a few other a while back.

    That is why I had a bit of a set to with Joiner about wind turbine noise and if it is really a real problem then it should be affecting any group that is tested in the same way, and that research seems to be lacking. More than willing to change my viewpoint when I have seen a well designed and repeatable experiment that shows evidence to the support the problem. But until then it is, as far as I am concerned, in the realms of 'work in progress'.
    • CommentAuthorSeret
    • CommentTimeSep 20th 2012
     
    Posted By: crusoeDo you have a gold standard on safeness then wookey? Enlighten me, do. If not, I'll stick with my simple wish for safety.


    This is a whole field: risk.

    One rule of thumb is that anything that causes less than 1:100,000 deaths in the public and 1:10,000 deaths in workers is generally ok, with 1:1,000,000 considered good enough in all cases. The guiding principle is ALARP: As Low As Reasonably Practicable. This acknowledges that zero risk isn't possible, take a big enough sample and you'll get a surprising number of people who've died from putting their trousers on.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
     
    Ok so it's only one Eagle but it took two-three weeks to die after flying into wind turbine.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au//news/health-science/wedge-tailed-eagle-died-after-flying-into-wind-turbine/story-e6frg8y6-1226445130017

    Wedge-tailed eagle died after flying into wind turbine

    by: Graham Lloyd, Environment editor
    From:The Australian
    August 08, 201212:00AM

    A DEAD wedge-tailed eagle found at the Waterloo wind farm in South Australia had starved to death over two weeks after being struck by a wind turbine blade, a report has found.

    The incident prompted calls for better monitoring of birds of prey around wind turbines and the introduction of new technology to avoid future deaths.

    The juvenile male wedge-tailed eagle was found about 180m from the base of the northern-most wind turbine tower at Waterloo with a badly broken wing in April.

    A post-mortem examination by the University of Adelaide found the fracture occurred two to three weeks prior to the time of death.

    Continues..
  29.  
    How many are killed by cars etc? I do not see the point at all. A shame yes, but living on the planet with machinery that moves quickly will kill certain anaimals or birds at times. Nothing new at all. Please do not think that turbines chop up loads of birds as they do not. 13 years in the industry and I have seen 1 buzzard dead near a turbine.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeSep 21st 2012
     
    I have had two buzzards hit my car in 3 years, not saying they were to blame or I was, just that in two years I have had collisions with buzzards. They make you jump when it happens.

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