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Forum Index : Windmills : wind farms cause global warming
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Downwind Guru  Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
Wobbly leg on the bed i think.  Sometimes it just works |
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| MOBI Guru Joined: 02/12/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 819 |
I wondered why I have been referred to as "the old fart" Perhaps it is the baked beans that is causing local warming and not wind farms afterall??  (really localised warming - cheeky)David M. |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
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| MOBI Guru Joined: 02/12/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 819 |
The actual figure is around $1 million per turbine per year. I know it will offend the idealists, but industrial wind turbines are not cost effective and do little to asuage the greenhouse emissions. The 100 or so turbines next to me have done almost nothing for the last three weeks as there has been no wind. It is like that often. When it blow here, it really blows but there are big patches of calm in between. And all the time they are doing nothing, we, the taxpayers are paying for them so much of the money can go to China. IMO, the only truly clean and green turbines that really do reduce green house emmissions (albeit on a small scale) are the ones that we on the back shed espouse. As I am sitting at the computer, I have strong pressure pulses in the base of my skull. It is not nice!!! David M. |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
This is my own view on the topic of wind turbine induced illness. I dont believe there is any physical effect from turbines causing people to get ill. Yes they do produce low frequency vibration, changes in the microclimate around the mill, and an annoying flicker if you are in its shadow, but none of these would make you ill, from a purely medical point of view. Waves crashing on the beach cause low frequency vibration, and walking under trees causes flickering light. Try living next to a rail way line for 6 months. The human body is resilient to this sort of thing. So no, I dont believe anything measurable from a wind turbine can make you sick. But I do believe in windmill induced sickness, its a real serious problem and can be debilitating for the sufferer. A few years ago I had a incident at my home on the side of a hill during a thunder storm. 300mm (12 inches )of rain in 6 hours, thunder so intense all the pictures on my wall moved. Out the back of my house looking up the hill the trees were getting closer as mud slips and land slides crept closer to the house. In my front yard the garden and small trees along the edge had disappeared as they slipped 200mm down the hill. I was afraid. But the storm passed, all was OK, but suddenly I felt very vulnerable in my previously safe home. The next time we had a storm, I was scared. I was so scared I felt sick in the stomach, and needed to visit the toilet several times. I became anxious every time there was heavy rain predicted, but I kept telling myself this was an irrational fear, my house isn't going to slid down the hill. But still I became sick during rain storms, and ended up using ear plugs to help me get through it. After 2 years I had to move out, and the problem went away, I love rain now. I think its called post traumatic stress. And speaking from experience, its very real, and I know many suffer it, especially those that have gone through serious storms, cyclones or floods. You have no control over its symptoms, and they can be very unpleasant. I believe the windmill induced illness is the same sort of thing. The brain has associated the windmill with illness, though something as small as a newspaper story. Over time the thought grows into real symptoms, physical pain. Once the connection between a wind turbine and illness is made, its very hard to break. If you lived near one and had this problem, then the little environmental effects, like catching the sight of a spinning blade out the corner of your eye, or hearing the gently swish of a blade, will compound the problem and reinforce the connection between illness and windmills in the brain. And I could easily believe after time it would become unbearable. Its a real problem, and there is no easy fix. Like I said, I had to move because my brain had associated rain and my home with pending disaster. Now I'm fine. But I dont believe it affects everyone living near a wind turbine. If the windmill has been a pleasant experience for you, and your brain made an association between the windmill and happy feelings, then you wont feel ill around them. Many people who have wind turbines on their property think they are great and suffer no medical problems. So while I dont think there is any connection between low frequency sound or noise and illness, I do believe its a real problem and understand the concern of those who suffer the illness. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
Partly correct Glenn, and partly not too, There has been some worldwide studies done in the effects of infra sound from wind turbines and the effects on humans, with some rather damming results. If you listen to the wind farm developers then this problem dont exist, if you listen to the people that live with wind farms and the science behind the studies and the results of the studies the problem is very real. Infra sound has been used as a weapon of war to effect the enemy, so yes we do know the impact that infra sound can cause on a human. You must remember its not the sounds that the ear can hear or the optical effect of a turbine that causes the problems, it the frequencies below the human hearing range where the problem is, and these frequencies can travel long distances, and beyond the optical range. You could ask why some people suffer sea sickness and others dont, and from some information i became aware or recently, would imply people who suffer sea sickness are more sensitive to infra sound. Im not against wind farms, just dont put them where people live. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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Dragonfly Newbie  Joined: 25/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 17 |
I did not want to be seen as un-sympathetic to people who "claimed" or "believed" or are "actually" suffering from the presence of wind farms, so I tried to stay neutral in my past two posts. As this topic becomes more drawn out, I noticed there are indeed some claims or perceptions I believe are not true. It all started when someone claimed that large wind turbines caused localised warming. I had disputed that claim due to the fact that air masses do not stay static. When hot air rises, cooler air will slip under to replace it. Besides, wind turbines does not generate heat of its own strictly speaking. The only heat I can think of is the friction in the bearings, and that between the blades and the air. Mobi claimed to have suffered from the ill effects of wind farm. Then he began to play out the economic card, I wonder if he actually is against wind farms regardless of his "perceived" or otherwise ill effects. I have known of a doctor of some description even claimed that people who live close to wind farms suffered from rapid bladder and bowl movements. Well, at least we have a cure for constipation ! Just camp under a wind farm for a week, and the traffic conjestion would simply "melt" away. A lot of happy campers. Now Downwind tried to draw a link between sea sickness and infra-sound, I thought it has gone a bit too far. Sea sickness is caused by the "miss-communication" between the eyes, inner-ear and the brain. I have pinched a short explanation from WikiPedia as follows... "...the inner ear transmits to the brain that it senses motion, but the eyes tell the brain that everything is still. As a result of the discordance, the brain will come to the conclusion that one of them is hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing vomiting, to clear the supposed toxin." Whether we like alternative energies or not, or whether some of us do indeed suffer from them, we cannot "stay the course" forever. The recent severe air pollution in Beijing is a clear indication of the potential harms. Waste not... |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
[quote] I thought it has gone a bit too far.[/quote] In actual fact it has not gone far enough, any fool can drag up a wiki quote and take a comment out of context, my comment was why do some people suffer sea sickness and others dont, and some people are more sensitive to infra sound than others, and it would seem those who suffer sea sickness are also more sensitive to infra sound, i did not say there was a direct link to sea sickness and infra sound. Its fine to sit back and be an arm chair critic, and think every think is perfect in wind turbines and wind farms, we once thought the same with tobacco, asbestos, lead emissions from smelters, etc, etc, and given time we learnt different, do we all need to be so blind and go down that path again, just because some billion dollar industry and a over committed government tells us its all good. Im all for renewable energy, but lets get it right and view all the facts, and not make some knee jerk reaction that back fires and costs more to fix than it ever solved. It would seem some are drawn to wind farms like a moth to a light, and the moth will keep bashing his head against the light till its turned off. Put the light (wind farms) in locations where us humans dont live, as at present the law is 1km from a residence which is far too close and hence the ill effects, first there is one or two turbines then 50 to 100 turbines its like a virus, and the local residents are meant to just except the ill effects because the arm chair critics think its all fine to be green. No one here has said not to have wind farms, its just the location of the wind farms thats the problem. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| Dragonfly Newbie Joined: 25/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 17 |
"... i became aware or recently, would imply people who suffer sea sickness are more sensitive to infra sound." I am a fool, not a lawyer, Downwind. The way I "foolishly" interprete the above sentence is that seasickness can "potentially" be triggered by infra sound. If I am wrong, why then would you want to bring in seasikness and infra sound into this debate ? For your information, there are many fools like me who regularly turn to WikiPedia for topics they know nothing about. For the benefits of The Backshed, how would you describe the cause of seasickness, please ? Waste not... |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
The whole point was different people are effected in different ways to different effects, whether it be sea sickness car sickness, or any other effect, just because one person might not be effected in the same way it dont mean others are not. In a recent meeting i sat in on it was indicated that there might be a common link with people who suffer sea sickness also being more sensitive to infra sound, its just a view to bare in mind, and not necessarily a hard fact at this point in time. For one to stick their head in the sand and not consider these effects that people suffer is plain stupid in my opinion, to move forward for the better good of all mankind, all the facts need to be viewed, and not just the facts we want to see. As i quoted previous the military used infra sound in world war 2 as a weapon so we do know the impact that infra sound can have on a human. Commercial Wind turbines in this country are rather new and most not much older then 10 years, and its only now that the effects are being reported, and some action being taken to better investigate the health issues, even though the studies have been done in other countries previous, its not until the studies are also done here that some credit can be give to the health argument. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| Dragonfly Newbie Joined: 25/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 17 |
"...The whole point was different people are effected in different ways to different effects" Yes, that I do agree with you, Downwind. Child immunisation programs against polio, measles and other horrible diseases which many of us thought no longer exist, have been the target of some self-proclaimed health experts to be causing autism, brain damage, etc. These experts, aided by the tax-free dollars, went to war against child immunisation. Now even the Talibans in Pakistan are getting into the act and killed many of the volunteers doing good work in the poor villages ! Now, it is probably true that some children did suffer adverse effects from the shots. Fortunately, the majority of them, I guess it can include us too, had benefited from it. Should we keep the immunisation program going, or should we throw it out as some babies could have been negatively affected by it ? Yes, I do agree about finding out more facts. Unfortunately, I do find many anti-alternative energy "agents" are creeping into forums like this to sow some doubts into our minds. Waste not... |
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Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Isn't this getting way off topic, maybe you can open a new thread? There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| Dragonfly Newbie Joined: 25/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 17 |
Yes, Madness. It is getting off topic a long time ago. Perhaps you should remind the other contributors much earlier ? Or is it true that what I said is getting closer to the truth ? Waste not... |
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| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
The truth about global warming and wind generators? That is a long way from immunization and Taliban. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Yeah agreed, its drifing off topic too far. For this thread, stick with the discussion about the environmental effects of wind turbines, and maybe we could start another on the health effects of turbines. They are both interesting topics with varied points of view. I would stear clear of the immunisation debate, whiles its an important subject, its way way way off topic for this forum. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
So do wind turbines affect the local climate. For sure, measurable within a few hundred meters, but outside that very hard to say for sure. It depends on what you are comparing it to, and your field of view. For the few square meters of grassland that were dug up and turned into a tower footing, the effect of the wind turbine was total destruction. But for a few square miles around the turbine, the effect would be impossible to measure. We gain a few hundred kilowatts or even megawatts of electrical energy, for an nearly unmeasurable environmental impact ( not taking production into account, we talking about once the windmill is commisioned ). How does this compare to a coal burning power station? Wind isn't perfect, but its a start in the right direction. We need to accept alternatives to fossil fuel buring power stations. Fact is we are bathed in energy every day, we have more free energy that we could ever use. But countries like Australia are controlled by the mining industry, and while politicians cry "Jobs" and mining companies tell us we need coal to provide base load power, we wont be going foward. Its bull dung of course. Spain builds solar power stations that provide base load power at night. Wind turbines are a common sight in Europe. Thorium is a clean safer alternative to uranium. The problem is already solved, we dont need to invent a clean energy source, we did that decades ago, we can live in a world of clean energy, but we are still using coal. Why? $ Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Madness Guru Joined: 08/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2498 |
Indeed why are we burning coal, we once rode on the sheeps back, now it's on the back of a dump truck. It is not only what we burn here but the massive amounts exported also. The University of NSW developed solar hydrogen panels, they use the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. I first heard of it on ABC radio in 2005, their only stumbling block at the time was reducing the cost of production. They claimed that 30 square KM of these panels would provide all of Australia's energy. Electricity, gas and oil, all of it. When the hydrogen is burnt the only emission is water. With only water being produced and no other pollutants or CO2 there would be need for carbon taxes, cola mines, coal seam gas, etc. Trouble is it seems to have been shelved for some reason, I can not find any recent information about this invention. If anyone else knows what happened about it I would be very interested to find out. You can watch a University of NSW video about it here. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Thats a typical story. A technology is developed, its proven, then shelved. Like geo thermal. Couple of companies started up, got a government grant, proved they could make it work, but couldn't get any more funding. Once the big excuse was "base load power" can not be provided by solar. We know thats a bull excuse, Spain has proven that, so when you hear a politician or CEO mention "base load power" as a reason to continue with fossile fuels, he is lying to you. The other excuse is the power network cant use power from remote locations, like a solar farm or geo thermal plant in the countries interiour, because it would cost too much to put in the transmission lines. Yes it wouldn't be cheap, but it would be a good investment in out future. Mind you, they find the money to lay down hundreds of miles of new rail line for every new coal mine. As long as there is a dollar to be made in coal, and governments are restricted by the coal industry, we wont see any change, and some would say, any future. We need a coal industry, we need it to make steel, but the push for growth in the industry to feed the growing number of coal burning power stations is just pure greed. The industry could flatten off growth now, still providing jobs and dividens, and continue for hundreds of years. But it wont. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
While wind farms will be a net benefit to the world. Dismissing this research as insignificant is a mistake. This example from their research is showing a temperature effect of averages more than 0.5C in red, I have read that the variation is a lot higher than the averages. I have calculated the area they are showing with elevated temperatures here as larger than 350,000 hectares, the decrease in temperature effects another 100,000 hectares. This is around a group of 5 wind farms, there are another 55 wind farms in Texas, with a heap more going up this year . Inversion layers are an important part of local climate, the overnight humidity close to the ground and little drop in temperature just after dawn is vital to a lot of plants reproduction. Night-time land surface temperature differences near wind farms between 2010 and 2013. 
Credit: Liming Zhou et al., Nature Climate Change I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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| Dragonfly Newbie Joined: 25/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 17 |
I was going to shut the F up when I was told to have wandered off topic too far. It was very unfortunate that people failed to see why I used child immunisation to hightlight the fact that a small percentage of people may "potentially" be negatively impacted by either immunisation or wind farms, but we should not dismiss the ideas altogether because of the small anomaly. Now someone is cherry picking Prefessor Liming Zhou's study to highlight the negatives of wind farms. I thought I should dive into it once more, at the risk of being off-topic again ! This article/link explained that some climate sketics ran off with the good professor's article and twisted it to suit their arguement. In fact, Zhou himself complained that the media coverage of his study has been misleading. Please read this article and make up your own mind. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/no-wind-fa rms-are-not-causing-global-warming/2012/04/30/gIQAMl2GsT_blo g.html Waste not... |
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