Are Wind Turbines Hazardous to Your Health?

Do you get it inside or outside the house those the sound propogate through the house?

When the first phone lines were being erected way back when some were saying it would suck your very soul into the lines. Maybe it did.

It has.

Low frequency vibrations are, especially when incessant, harmful to health. Cities themselves vibrate, so people living in apartment buildings in cities are exposed. Highways vibrate. People living next to highways are exposed. Calling this "wind turbine syndrome" exposes, but might miss the target of a larger issue, since "constant noise" or "constant vibration" are the more accurate culprits causing symptoms. Proper vibrational and acoustic shielding of domestic areas is therefore indicated. Good work keeping us safe, Dainis W. Michel

Lets compare apples & apples, and oranges & oranges:

What would be the safe (acceptable) distance to live from the wind turbine (field?)

VS.

The safe (recommended) distance to live from high voltage (or higher phase) power lines (and/or substations) ?

OR

nuclear reactors?

Something somewhat similar is going on in my hometown. A company wants to put in underground flywheels to generate electricity (not for the town itself). They said that it would generate a hum of the noise-level of a truck stop. Reading this blog entry makes me agree that that wouldn't be healthy to live next to, either!

The vibration and noise level of "civilized" areas can be mocked, but I run a website dedicated to helping people heal from and deal with tinnitus. Tinnitus is a very difficult condition and it can drive people to suicide. Isn't there an easy invention that could cancel out the vibrations from the turbines? Can't we just find and use optimal geographic areas for this kind of power generation? Rocky mountain sides, for example?

Prpellers can be designed to limit the noise impulses. "T" type propeller tip ends will go a long way toward noise abatement since most of the noise at the tip is caused by relative circulation. The remainder is because the air is lighter at the top and heavier at the bottom.

Personally I think this is another example of how you can't make every group happy any of the time. Also I would argue that the basis of her argument is only based on ten families which is not a reasonable sample size for such a broad statement.

Yes, I will accept that low frequency sound waves may cause some people discomfort and may be considered "unhealthy" but I would argue that many things most of us deal with on a day-to-day basis could do the same. Unless evidence can be shown that these sounds adversely effect a measurable section of the population I would say that the benefits outweigh the risks.

GA from me!

well said , on all points

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I've emailed Dr. Pierpont and invited her to join our discussion.

"Unless evidence can be shown that these sounds adversely effect a measurable section of the population..." Just blast yourself with LF for a while. Hitler used low frequencies to manipulate crowds. It was outlawed at rock concerts (used to excite people), because people started fighting, hurting, and shooting each other. It's scientifically unsound to have industry argue for selling because "damage" can't be proven, because, then, logically, neither can safety.

Any cost/benifit analisys will always run smack up against the NIMBY crowd. Of course the best place for them is off shore. We don't want them up here in the Catskills and that's easy to understand. There's a great place for them off of Cape Fear, NC, but it would spoil the view of all those container ships, dredges, and tanker ships. Cape Cod has a similar area, but there it goes against the grain of the reactionary element. If we finaly perfect tidal turbines the "Free the Fish" crowd will get into the act as well.

Go figure.

Now, you just may be onto something here!

I used to be very intelligent! Then I invested in a wind generator speculation project that was going to sell electricity back to the utility for profit. Then came the maintenance, repairs, infrastructure improvements and the fact that I live 125 miles away and have to hire someone to work on this thing every time it went into a fault mode. We setup a phone dialer and a modem (20 yrs ago) and the stupid thing was calling all hours of the day and night even with every little grid fault. Then one of the tip brakes stuck and set up a vibration that created stress cracks in the tower, and the gearbox problems, and the keyway, and the twisted cables and the...

Now I humbly realize my true level of intelligence. I can truly say Wind Turbine Syndrome is responsible for my stupidity.

So what this small portion of society wants us to do is go back to the Stone Age and be hunter gathers. Just gathers don't want to offend the animal activists.

The burning of fossil fuels causes air pollution.

The generation of electricity with wind generators causes noise pollution.

In most of the world there is technology in use that if studied would have some type of health effect.

Where are the guys that study the effects of looking at a computer monitor?

My eyes hurt some times and my sight is poor.

Let just out law it all and save mankind !!!

Yeah right good luck with that.

If these people with all their studies of harmful technology would spend some of their energy on a solution then just complaining. Then they would really be contributing to society.

Even the stone age man soon learned to get out of the way of a rolling rock.

I understand your cynicism.

Aside from my bad experience with a wind generator, here's another view. This is the Buffalo Ridge in southwest Minnesota before and after wind generators.

It was a beautiful and serene place - I grew up there. It was 60 miles of natural rolling prairie. Because of it's relatively higher elevation the average daily wind speed is higher than most plains. This became attractive to the wind energy enthusiasts.

Now it's about as attractive as an auto salvage yard and instead of listening to birds and rustling grasses, all you hear is the "WHOOP, WHOOP,WHOOP, WHOOP" of the blades. Personally, I believe a nuclear power plant is better looking, quieter and produces more megawatts in a smaller footprint, and I would prefer one in MY back yard.

From my bad experience with wind generators, I understand why my utility company charges more for a block of wind generated electricity than standard rates. It is the most expensive form of electricity generation we know. The only people I know that are making money off wind energy are the manufacturers, installers and maintenance personnel.

It's kind of like the corn ethanol hype before it crashed.

HI.

"WHOOP, WHOOP,WHOOP, WHOOP" is good music you should dance with this tune .

Those pictures don't look like the same location. Did the wind enthusiasts fill-in the valley on the left side of the 'before' picture to make the skyline flat in the second picture? If so, why?

Also, I really don't think the second picture is ugly at all. I think your hatred of wind power is probably distorting your aesthetic evaluation.

It also looks as if you had to wait until dusk to photograph so the structures would show up in the picture..... seems like a stretch my easily-aesthetically-offended friend.

The real problem here is that these things make fish fly. You should see how many red herrings there are flopping around them.

I wonder how many trees were on that ridge before the farmers cut them down?

How about a photo taken from the same location as the pre-windfarm one, with the same field of view?

The only way I can reconcile the two shots shown is to assume that the second is taken from much closer to the ridge (or taken using a zoom lens).

Assuming the ridge on the skyline is the same one, I don't think the generators would be resolvable in the first shot (using the trees to scale).

see this is what happens when we all fear the future you could have had nuke power but every one was afraid so now we burn coal and oil and choke to death on fumes and have noisy wind farms, like when the environmentalist ran adds to use a rag instead of paper towels then we all started getting sick from the bacteria on the rags,, most time fear of something Will cause us to make worse decisions before we weigh all the info

This small portion of society is a large percentage people who are effected directly these windfarms.

Opposing or questioning them does not make one stupid or in the dark ages.

My childhood home was sold and my family moved away from them. I personally know more than a few people who complain about the noise and are moving.

Some of the only people who are directly affected and don't complain are the large farmers who are compensated for the intrusion. The other huge body of supporters are people who will never be directly affected by them. If people who question windfarms are dark aged cavemen, then the rest of you are nothing more than sheep.

It is radical change of life for a few and you should consider that. My friends and family are good and intelligent people.

The following portion is off topic, but something that wasn't considered in the E.I.S.

In this region, the deer have been dealt a huge blow because of the windfarms and their construction. With all the new roads and thousands of contractors out in these sites, the deer that they have been watching all year long have been killed and tagged in a short time after the season opened. One farmer who is a avid hunter complained after not seeing a single legal buck. He went to the company that he signed his contract with, only to find out that he is not permitted to hunt on his own land--Not really that big of deal since there aren't any left anyway. Ha

These contractors aren't permitted to carry firearms or hunt either, but it happens. What's the answer? Elevate the cost of these windfarms even more by requiring security and or game wardens?

One thing you are right about is, "Even cavemen learned to get out of the way of a rolling rock"--But not before they learned to roll them. Now that is a good line! K T

dont fear the sweeper

You can add me to the NIMBY crowd. I've done the reading. I've done the discussing. I've been to the meetings. Large scale wind mills suck!

Start quoting facts to the corporate reps and they can't get past their pre-written responses.

It's all about $$$$$. You would think we would have learned this by now.

Here's a site I always post with talk of wind-power:

http://www.windenergy-the-truth.com/

Great site, Bricktop. I like this statement on its main page, too.

"Apart from being rational, the arguments used in a debate should also be underpinned by numbers."

Can I get an "Amen"?

I can certainly understand the noise levels and vibration these give off, plus as AgeIQ demonstrated us B4 and after pics, it is clear that they do not add anything to the landscape. Coupled with all of the maintenance and the % of output that actually gets on the grid.

I agree, Nuclear is the best way to go and it can be done safely as long as it doesn't go to the lowest bidder and the parts are not substandard. There is no reason we can not make an air cooled Nuclear reactor that can be built in a short amount of time with very high MW. One problem I do see however is the infrastructure. And this goes with any and all power generation. The lines must be in the ground.

I doubt we will ever see it happen. So the money grub greedy ---------- will have their way and .... You all know the rest of the story.

You people can't be serious about nuclear power!

Here in Australia (origin energy) we are focusing on Solar Panels - Anybody heard of those ?

Almost no maintenance, for every household, no vibration/noise, no "baggage of negative side-effects" !

THAT is the future of energy - not coal or nuclear - get serious you guys/gals.

The problem - like that of cars that run on water - is that too many people stand to loose money/jobs etc for there to be a concensus for widespread introduction.

"Almost no maintenance, for every household, no vibration/noise, no "baggage of negative side-effects" !"

So do you think that no one here ever got that thought, and researched it? I live in New England, 50% of the time it's cloudy, and it really likes to snow...alot. I've done a cost study and I'd be throwing them away before they payed for themselves. And if you think shoveling a meter of snow off them is "no maintenance", you've never shoveled snow. I live on the edge of a wood, on the water. I heat my house with wood, because that's the most cost effective way. I like where I live.

For you make a blanket statement like that, is, well, just plain silly.

ps you stated: "like that of cars that run on water"

Please tell me of such cars.

I've heard that wood is 'carbon neutral', whatever that means.

Ive also heard it's the fuel that heats you several times over. Once when you cut it. Once when you split it. Once when you stack it, etc, etc.

That's why I use hydro-powered electricity from my local utility. It is harder to split those electrons though.

I realise its not sunny everywhere, but the infrastructure for power to be transfered across the same continent (in your case -from the states of Florida to California etc is already there.

Just google water powered car and you'll find a lot of info. You can find specs online too, along with some compelling arguments like: "please don't believe this, just build it and see." Never tried it myself though. Would love to run the numbers on coating car panels with a solar coating, possibly even buying the chinese solar windows I heard about, and seeing how many miles per day I could drive with a solar powered electric car. Haven't put that one together yet either...it would be fun though! What's up with that solar paint anyway...but now I am getting off topic... Yes, wind turbines are hazardous to health. And it's not whining, if you are sick, or your life is negatively impacted by technology. It would be better if industry were more considerate about its footprint, but it isn't. So that leaves us to figure out good ways to apply our $$ to sustainable technologies. This is a very nice discussion, and I am glad I joined. Thanks everyone. Cheers! Dainis

10 families!!!! she based her 'findings' on only 10 families!!! you can't be certain of anything with a sample that small. Being able to select such a small number to be sampled from such a large population, suggests her report would be more accurately labeled as 'her arrangement' rather than 'her findings'

Very poor methodology. Certainly more than 10 families are available. If the problem is so specific that only 10 families are effected significantly then the problem is far too small to be concerned with.

Why not write about something with life and death consequences for everyone... DHMO

thanks for the link! interesting reading.

DHMO.... and yet another reason to go live the the woods.... very far away.

The thing that struck me about the "10 families" bit was - how were they selected?

Maybe an appeal in the local rag, along the lines of: "Any families living near the new wind farm having any health problems? Contact me, and I'll tell the world about your sad predicament. Free dinner! You may even get some compensation!".

OK, I've gone over the top, and made some fairly iffy suggestions, but this sort of crap has no place in scientific reporting - any more than the (LMAO, again) report about HHO DHMO.

Good answer, I was having the same issue with the intro of this thread.

We are facing the same problem: living in a rural community and the council planning to install a 4MW windmill in the direct neighborhood.

Personally I'm really pro alternative energy harvesting but my neighbours aren't so lucky with the initiative. They claim that our houses will be 30% less worth.

We will not be able to sleep anymore with the window open.

I must admit that for a decent part of the community the windmill is indeed a problem for their psychic health, they really get nervous on all what could happen and the problems that might arise. And of coarse someone will get some disease and blame it on the windmill.

There is simply no solution which will please everyone, but none of my neighbours decided to stop his electricity subscription.

What's sad is when the name of science is used to deny the obvious. I mean, 10 families, 100 familes, 1000 families, so what? We already know that low frequencies, constant vibration, noise pollution, etc. harm health. There are likely other factors that are obvious and known.

What bothers us is not the absolute figure but the way that the families are selected.

Let's assume that the researcher divided the zone round the tower in ten sections that obviously could be given an influence scale going from 1 to 10.

Then they went to a house in the middle of the zone and found the inhabitants each time cooperative to fill in forms that measures their total health and compares it over time related to the tower construction.

If you then find a relation between the tower and the health you have done a good job. But finding 10 families in 5 countries which have problems with a windmill is not so difficult and a bad way to build up your case.

"10 families in 5 countries which have problems with a windmill is not so difficult and a bad way to build up your case."

I agree, but the health of just one person is important, (expecially to him!). At the very least, this data indicates that more study is needed.

You are right, and I even go further: I notice here that even the idea to have such a unit half a mile from our backyard makes some people ill. (it is in planning phase)

So way more study has to be executed in this domain.

It's funny that people fight about this stuff. Put them on the side of a mountain somewhere. Put up a whole mess of them, who cares? Some rocky cliff. Put them off shore. Attach them to oil rigs off shore. Search for win-win situations that make people happy, not aggravated. The money spent on fighting a community is better spent on finding a better solution, a better location, etc. Regarding the thought of wind power windmills making people sick, that makes perfect sense. I mean whooozzz whooozzz whoooozzz. It makes you sea sick thinking about it. Whooozzzz whooozzzz zzzwwwhhhoooozzzz zzzwwwhoooozzzz. Where are the innovators? What about those silent submarine propellors that I think Mitsubishi sold the Soviets back in the 80's or something? I'm sure everyone is doing the best they can, even the windpower sales and manufacturing folks...happily, folks are speaking out... Are there other real options, real solutions, real win-win type arrangements? Glad to participate in this discussion! :-)

Put them offshore doesn't make everyone lucky: there you have seabirds and the pollution of the horizon.

Problem is that for cost reasons these things get bigger and more powerful, where for sound and visual reasons other routes should be taken.

The problem is always way to polarised and here in North-West Europe you simply don't have the space to locate them without agitating locals.

In fact we need so much of these things that we will see them everywhere in the short future.

Perhaps those who object to the appearance of wind turbines, or the noise, would prefer to be breathing coal smoke and hearing the coal trains going by at night? They could have a nice, quiet nuclear plant that looks science-fictiony. Would that be better? If the turbines do swat seagulls (probably the gulls are too smart), do the operators collect a bounty for destoying vermin and feeding the fish? Good engineering involves trade-offs.

BRICKTOP:

The health of each person IS important. That is not the quesiton. The question is if 10 families dispersed in 5 counties, can suggest any correlation to the windmill.

If I notice that there has been a car within 1000 ft of me, every time I have sneezed, it does not indicate that my sneezing is due to my proximity to cars.

100% of the auto accidents I have seen were betweeen cars that both used rubber tires. This does not mean that rubber tires are the cause of accidents.

100% of the people who breathe air eventually die. This does not mean breathing air shortens your lifespan.

100% of the people who breathe air eventually die. This does not mean breathing air shortens your lifespan.

well, every breath brings you closer to death, so in a way it is. Anyway pure oxygen is also not healthy.

We in Holland have lots of windmills, so going from creaky wooden ones to white metal ones doesn't seem like a bother, our country is allready congested with cars and zillion planes so what is the bother of a few more windmills?

I thought you were Japanese--

What's the deal with the wooden shoes?

Anyway, back to the subject--

The areas here in the US that are affected don't have creaky wooden windmills, let alone car congestion and gazillions of planes--some people sacrafice alot to live there without any of it and then............WHOOOMP!

I ask all of you this---Where can I live without this junk, and I will start making plan to get there if you promise to leave it be.

You need power--John Day Dam is 100 miles upriver of Bonneville Dam and has twice the output---1000 MWs more than an older dam downriver. That's 1000MW 100% of the time. Look at what the Hoover dam remodel did for its output. John Day was built in the mid sixties and Bonneville in the forties, with a partial remodel in the early seventies(which doubled it's output).

Wind power will work where wind is all you have.

EPKE:

Are you suggesting that if I breathe more quickly that I will shorten my lifespan? If I breathe more slowly will I live longer? Does more rapid breathing that results from regular exercise count in this rule of yours?

If breathing more slowly does actually increase longevity, what is the limit here.... isn't a zero rate of breaths per unit time a slower rate than some positive rate of breaths per unit time?

Yes because if you breathe too fast start you could start to hyperventilate.

just slow enough to not loose conscious?

but what is there not to understand? every breath brings us closer to death

every breath of Oxygen oxidises parts in our body and increases the aging.

here is some good general information

http://www.humanedgetech.com/news.php?id=16392

The last statement is wrong: it is the oxigen we need in our body which also makes us getting old and is the reason at the end that our body can't go on anymore.

Oxigen is really nasty stuff.

GWEN:

Now that you have identified the problem, what are you doing to eliminate this 'nasty stuff' from your surroundings?

You're reply proves that you don't understand what oxygen does.

But it is true: species with a slower metabolism (lower oxygen usage) do live longer.

Small dog's use less oxygen than big dog's.

'Small dog's use less oxygen than big dog'

This meant to 'prove' that greater oxygen use equates to a shorter life?

This is a humorous example of what passes for logic. It is as flawed as the study of 10 families.

Being familiar with dogs, I would contend that very small dogs have a much higher metabolism than very large dogs. They breathe faster, their hearts beat faster and the are more active.

While they may consume less oxygen overall, their metabolism and amount of oxygen consumed per pound, is much much higher. Yet small dogs often live twice as long as large dogs.

Harriet tortoises live about 1/4 the lifespan of the much larger giant land tortoise.

Fancy Goldfish live a fraction of the time some Carp live.

Kind of blows big holes in that 'logic' that was so proudly touted concerning the effects of oxygen, huh....

BBB

Just stay within mammals and you will notice that form the same species, smaller breeds life longer.

Never start to compare mammals with other animals (turtles, fish,...) they have a completely other metabolism.

the answer is; The small Urban wind turbines that don't make noise, the vertical ones like mine here , http://thewindpowercorp.com/

web site still under construction not all links work yet

the only sound it makes is when the aluminum frame creeks or when a gust of wind furls the sails ,,it sounds a lot like when i used to live on sail boat, the sound of a marina ,, but not winding or whirling sound even at top speeds, the turbine has been up in front of house for a month and no complaints about noise at all and the neighbors say they like to see if it is turning(how fast at what wind speed),always a subject of discussion as they pass my house, but never negative, it reminds them of the grain mills you see in old drawings of Egypt's, and every one wants to buy one soon!

I like wind power! I have been building home made generator systems since I was in my early teens. I agree with the big units making subsonic noise that is irritating to some people as well. The aesthetics are very subjective though. I like seeing hundreds of them going! I however hate seeing the city skylines!

However most of the whining comes from people that don't like the fact that big business gets the money from the machines and not them. I know people that say oil wells are smelly and bad for the environment. But I would bet good money that the oil well whiners would STFU and change their tune if some oil drilling company told them they have a pocket of oil under their yard that could net them $10K a day for the rest of their life!

I think that many of the giant wind mills are not entirely cost effective simply due to greed in one form or another. That greed has many placed in locations with poor wind that reduces their overall efficiency and effectiveness. I live in a very windy area of the country and we on the average like the wind farms that are being placed here. We have a natural location where the wind farms are cost effective to put up and operate. They bring in more money to our state and help the local economy grow. If I had the money I would happily build as big of units as I could and place them all over the family farm and any other location I could.

Most people that don't like the fact that big farmer get paid for having wind generators on their land also don't like the fact the the big farmer makes a lot of money be cause well, He has a lot of land an resources to work with! If you live in a ratty apartment building with no yard and no place to do anything and nothing to show for the efforts of your life but your crappy job, your going to find many reasons to hate the guy that didn't make the same decisions in his life and thusly lives a better life than you!

You don't need thousands of acres of land to get one of those big wind generators put on your property. You just need to own the one acre that they place it on! The giant farmer just had a much higher chance of getting one or more because he has more than one acre to work with!

Just using wind or just solar or just one source of energy is stupid. The most effective way to get our power is with a diverse number of energy sources. I don't understand why some people get their undies in such a bunch over the addition of more alternative energy power production. Wind power is not and never will be the only power source and neither will any other one as well.

As far as people not liking some thing, if you dwell on anything and its negative sides (real or imagined) you will make yourself sick!

Put a giant pile of gold bars in your front yard with a free for the taking sign in front of it and wait long enough and I guarantee some one will still complain to you that they are to shiny and too heavy!

Its just human nature to complain about anything. Complaining is easy, but actually doing something about what your complaining about is hard and people in general don't like to do hard things. Especially when what they are complaining about would take a great deal of time and effort just to prove, let alone prove it was bad for them or anyone else!

There has been a lot of good solid arguments against large wind power installations related to health, engineering and business. Generally they don't make sense.

As a smaller scale there are a lot of very good installations of wind generators as a source of power for remote locations or as part of an off-grid system.

I strongly agree with your point of multiple sources to feed our power requirements. In fact the use of locally generated power eliminates issues with transmission losses and costs.

Alternative energy sourcing doesn't make sence in the actual financial driven economy.

When you look to other parameters than money they do make sense.

Look to the health related issues due the use of fossile fuels. Way more people suffer from it than the solitude nerve picker who blames the stress on the sound of the blades.

In my neighborhood they also want to install a big tower, one of us is against and it is again the same man who is alway's against everything. So nobody is following him. But he will suffer from it, he already does.

Blades can be modified to make less noise, or in a frequency range that is less irritating.

I find a noisy wind turbine less problematic than a leaky nuclear plant

G'day, there are a lot of people in Victoria, Australia, that are being driven crazy by this low frequency noise. The really crappy thing is they can't sell their properties because of it. No one wants to buy them. One poor lady has wind generators on three sides of her property (10 acres?) and even the power company will not buy them out.