While I am not a fan of wind power and share concerns about its economics, this article failed to demonstrate adverse health effects. The Danish research referred to seems to confirm that wind turbines do indeed emit some low frequency noise but no evidence is provided on any health effects.

Australian experience seems to show that farmers being paid to host wind turbines on their land have few complaints about noise or health effects. Such problems are more commonly raised by more distant residents (receiving no such payments), while visitors to wind farms generally notice little noise.

It seems to me therefore, that the main negative effect of wind farms is envy rather than noise intrusion.

A recent British House of Commons briefing note on wind farms (see
http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsc-05221.pdf ) found minimal evidence of adverse health effects or that noise was a major issue. The UK has no statutory separation distance between wind turbines and housing, and the idea of such a separtion distance has ben rejected for England.

Interesting wind farms in Victoria which are based on the wider community drawing financial benefit (those within 50 km) rather than just the person whose property the farm is on do not face the same level of opposition!

What would be of greater interest would be finding out how the Netherlands has dealt with wind farms. The Netherlands is awash with wind farms and has been for a number of decades. Look into what their position is in order to find out what is happening.

Australia is increasingly governed by perception, posturing and self interest.

Phillip Adams once used the allegory of the election of an atheist to being Pope to the electorate’s voting in of governments that do not want to govern. Kerry Packer once forthrightly told parliament it was there to do things for him, not to him.

The saw “we’re spending the kid’s inheritance” sums up life values in modern day Australia.

My impression of the health effects of the wind turbines is that the problem is largely psychosomatic. This is very hard to measure. I suspect that most of the perceived health effects come from people who are philosophically opposed to the wind farms, hence the lack of health problems in farmers who are deriving a benefit from them.

I once lived in the city near a tram line and I am sure the noise was much greater than that emitted by a wind turbine. The only time we noticed any noise was the first tram in the morning. For the rest of the day they passed unnoticed. If living in a slightly noisy environment was a problem then in general, I would expect the majority of urban dwellers would have related health problems. This does not appear to be the case.

David

The health issues around wind farms are not the real issues. The real issues are that they are vastly more expensive than the generation they are replacing, and due to the unreliability of wind, they need to be backed up by base load generation, incurring further infrastructure costing.

Max, it “should” be health and economics that will unravel wind farms, but will it?

The Australian Senate Committee concluded that insufficient health effects research had been done, and of course it should be.

As for the economics, I’ve just posted the following on another thread; facts will of course be totally ignored by the dreamers.

Stuart Young Consulting on behalf of the John Muir Trust entitled “Analysis of Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to March 2010” (Actual data from wind generators grid connections)

1. Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.
2. There were 124 separate occasions from November 2008 till December 2010 when total generation from the wind farms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW. (Average capacity over the period was in excess of 1600MW).
3. The average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.
4. At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
Also, during the study period, wind generation was:
• Below 20% of capacity more than half the time.
• Below 10% of capacity over one third of the time.
• Below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve.
• Below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
The discovery that for one third of the time wind output was less than 10% of capacity, and often significantly less than 10%, was an unexpected result of the analysis.

Coal, $68 per Kw/h, Wind, $1,456 per Kw/h, Solar, $4,482 per Kw/h.

I think I'm in a better position then most to have an opinion on this. From my farm I can see over 200 wind generators. I have one one my farm which I put up.
Whether wind farms directly effect health is still to be demonstrated, however they have an affect on peoples health. They are very much like coal power stations look fine from a distance but you wouldn't want on next door.

The wind generator on my farm works okay, however we have found that it's a very good bat killer and so we are taking it down. Solar is much better once it is up and going as there is no moving parts and needs less servicing.

I think a better model for wind farms needs to be created, it's seems to me that city people don't want them where they can see em.
I also don't understand why we don't have more solar power stations.