Wind Farms : A clean fuel or a health hazard.

So now wind farms have been up and running for a while some people are reporting serious health issues amoungst other things.

ie : sleep disturbances, headaches, heartbeat rhythm disturbances, even strokes, etc.

Proximity issues are a biggy and resuming of land by govermental bodies with little or no consideration of the publics concerns.

Communities are being divided by this, there are those who don't care about the human costs due to payments of up to $12.000 per turbine per year.

WOW makes for some big bucks if you got the room to put in dozens. ie: farmers who give up on growing and erect these things on their land instead.

So what you think. Is it clean energy or is it bad business.

sciencebasedmedicine.org...>health

The UK has been going crazy for these over the last decade.

They kept me in employment for a while.

I am yet to see hard evidence of health implications to humans.

They are inefficient though. And still require power stations burn coal on standby.

Maybe in 30 years the governments of the world will be paying subsidies for companies to remove these things.

I don't know about all that, actually didn't even know.

Usually, anything health related and wind turbines, I look at birds, poor suckers 😞

a reply to: Arnie123

Yes it seems that birds are the only documented actual deaths due to flying into them but considering the massive amount of human compaints you would think medical investigation would be more aggressive, sounds like the usual case of big business coverups.
I was hoping someone here at ats would have personal interactions with these turbines on a long term bases to forward some facts of their impacts on health.
Surely all these health reports can't be wrong.
I watched a documentary the other night where a bloke was really saying he's going crazy due to these things, he said he has to drive his car far away from home regularly just to get some reprieve.

a reply to: and14263

So your not in agreeance with their instalation obviously, why?
Is it just efficiency or have you formed other views.

a reply to: ALSTA

Wind farm's should never have been built on land (Solar farm's and solar furnaces in arid areas are fine since they have negligible impact), there is more than enough ample room at sea, mix them with wave power generation and wind turbines as anchors a minimum of 20 miles out from the coast and you have a win-win scenario the only downside being a severe reduction in coastal wave power resulting in weakened coastal erosion (great for those with cliff side homes) and a lot of very bored surfers whom will cry over the not so gnarly wave action.

These facility's would also be ideal places for ocean based fish farm's and controlled marine ecology's causing danger only to any sea bird's that would try to use the sites for nesting and resting.

a reply to: ALSTA

I'm failing to see how an oversized propeller would cause these health "effects"

Proximity issues are a biggy and resuming of land by govermental bodies with little or no consideration of the publics concerns. 

I don't understand what you're saying in this paragraph.

Sounds dubious to me. I don't see how a wind turbine is going to cause a stroke. Maybe someone could explain exactly why they believe this and what it's supposed to be doing that causes "health problems"?

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: ALSTA

Wind farm's should never have been built on land (Solar farm's and solar furnaces in arid areas are fine since they have negligible impact), there is more than enough ample room at sea, mix them with wave power generation and wind turbines as anchors a minimum of 20 miles out from the coast and you have a win-win scenario the only downside being a severe reduction in coastal wave power resulting in weakened coastal erosion (great for those with cliff side homes) and a lot of very bored surfers whom will cry over the not so gnarly wave action.

These facility's would also be ideal places for ocean based fish farm's and controlled marine ecology's causing danger only to any sea bird's that would try to use the sites for nesting and resting.

Thats pritty much how i look at it, i got a sibling doing a uni dissertation on feasability/impact so thought I'd pick ats brainstrust for some thoughts/impacts.
Great work.

a reply to: ALSTA

Short of being hit by one of the blades, in which case you would need to be rather tall, how are they a health hazard?

They are one of the cleanest sources of energy we have produced the only problem lies with storing the energy they produce.

Anyone that does not like wind turbines should look in the other direction or simply shut the hell up really. LoL

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Constant noise, magnetic oscillation's and also visual impact on people whom formerly may have had open scenic views and now have a fair amount of semi industrial activity in the area.
As for noise they vary greatly and the noise of turbine's is oddly directional?.

a reply to: LABTECH767

What about traffic and radio waves or wifi, and those are deemed just fine and safe enough.

As to the visual impact they have on people, maybe old moany bastards like Trump and his ilk, but let's face it they will be dead soon enough.

Plenty of other architectural travesties on our horizon far worse than wind turbines.

Michigan's Thumb area has about 2500 and the most vocal critics are people who don't live there and people that don't have enough property to have one on. Each one is on a 40 acre plot but only takes 4 acres out of production with the base and access road. Some farmers have 20-30 of them and like you said good income every month.

I know a guy with a cell tower and he gets $5000 a month and free service. Originally they wanted to pay him $500 a month and phone service for 2 years. They were close to signing and he changed the lease to 2 years like his phone plan. A year later he hit a gold mine when a private contractor agreed to his terms built a huge tower and leases out space on the tower to all kinds of services.

The issue may be because there's never just 1, always multiple turbines. The sound oscillations are received by the ear at different times resulting in phasing issues. These may also produce harmonics outside our range of hearing but not of perception.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Put it this way i would rather live next to a wind farm than a nuclear reactor or coal/gas fired power plant any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays.

The problem with wind turbines is that they do have an impact on the natural world and on industrialisation of the countryside.

The best solution is to cluster them out at sea, and away from areas which support large sea bird colonies and bird migrations. In that way they will do good and not have a negative impact.

a reply to: ALSTA

Unfortunately I've never been able to find exact facts and statistics to let me form opinion on:

(Efficiency)
Longevity
Impact to environment/coal on standby
Impact to environment with regards to massive oil required for manufacture, install and maintenance

I put efficiency in brackets because in my reply above I say they are not efficient... I fall foul here and cannot back that up but I do understand it takes a lot of turbines to power a town. I also look outside now and see lots of white giants standing still, their arms are not waving - there is no wind!

In the UK the bandwagon got rolling because the Government offered millions in subsidies for companies involved in manufacture. This has skewed figures and efficiency reports. Nobody will say they are bad just in case another set of subsidies rolls along. Siemens alone bagged >£20mill (no source but I visited their works and know a few people on the Goivernment subsidy board - or did do).

I don't know if I agree with them - they aren't top of my list of pet hates.

They did however give birth to my avatar!!

a reply to: paraphi

Suppose everything has an impact to some degree.

The best solution is to place them where the wind is greatest i suppose, offshore is an ok choice, combined with wave power generators places like the UK could make a killing from such energy production.

Seems to me through the impact they have on our environment is negligible compared to other forms of power generation.

I live a couple of miles from a nuke plant and it's not an issue other than crazies from all over trying to get in to screw things up.

You don't read about them in the news because the police don't publish it when they arrest people and the news doesn't publish it.

a reply to: watchitburn

Proximity to dwellings, government taking back land by force to install them, no different to forced take back of land for highways etc, a lady i know of was advised she would be loosing x amount of acres with the nearest turbine 100m from her house. It was built 47m from her house causing all manner of issues not to mention extremely low compensation.

Then theres electromagnetic interferences for telecommunications. ie phone not working properly and the concerns of the public to be able to call police or ambulance in emergencys etc.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...>articles
www.wind-energy-the-facts.org...