Mark,

Ask the people of Toora, Victoria, about the devaluation of their property due to noise, sunlight flicker, the constraints placed upon what they can do with their land and the unfettered access by the company operating the turbines.

You say that noise only occurs under unusual topographic conditions but surely noise will bounce around the valleys below the ridges on which are sited the wind turbines.

I really don't care what your computer models show unless you can explain every factor in those models, every assumption and every algorithm. These models are treated as gospel but they are usually very inaccurate. Commonsense says that wind is unreliable and that other resources and infrastructure are necessary.

Also, did you forget to mention that a recent German report said that the costs associated with a major expansion of wind power there could not be justified?

If you read other comments in these forums you will discover that the correlation between temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide is very tenuous and that it is far from certain that CO2 has anything more than a very tiny influence on temperature. (Other climate factors have a far greater influence.) What does this do to your justification for building wind turbines ??

cheers

Excellent article people need to be more aware of the misinformation that pressure groups fling about.

And you study the climate and atmosphere where snowman. There is this pesky idea that some people have about evidence, but this never seems to bother you snowman. You call it common sense I call it stupidity just because a bit of misinformation happens to coincide with your uninformed opinion does not make it real. Anybody telling you the green house effect is not real is a ignorant fool. Without the green house effect the Earth would be much colder (at least 10 deg’s) then it is now. Snowman tell us in your apparent vast knowledge about the atmosphere what causes the existing green house effect and what could unbalance it? Could you provide a link to this German report?

Kenny,

Regards that "pesky evidence", you'll find that meteorological observations simply do NOT support the notion that temperature rises in line with carbon dioxide. Please take a look at http://mclean.ch/climate/Eye_opening.htm (and maybe go to http://mclean.ch/climate/data_sources.htm if you want to see the data for yourself.)

No-one has told me that the greenhouse effect does not exist because, as you say, the earth would be far cooler. What I do find from the research is that water vapour is a far more influential gas than carbon dioxide and that the latter has little or no effect. (If you want to dispute this last comment please provide the raw data so I can see for myself.)

The report about germany came from the UK's Telegraph...

Germany shelves report on high cost of wind farm-produced energy
By Tony Paterson in Berlin
(Filed: 30/01/2005)

A damning report warning that wind-farm programmes will greatly increase energy costs and that "greenhouse gases" can be reduced easily by conventional methods has been shelved.

The findings of the 490-page report, commissioned by the German government and due for publication last week, were so embarrassing that ministers have sent it back to be "re-edited". Jürgen Trittin, Germany's Green Party environment minister, said: "We do not want the findings of this report to be misinterpreted."

(nomore, I'll hitthewordlimit.)

Diesendorf says wind turbines are very efficient, considering how much energy is extracted by three narrow blades. But those blades are typically 35-40 meters long, sweeping an area of 1 to 1 1/4 acres for each 1.5-MW generator. A large wind facility also uses 30-60 acres per megawatt of capacity, which is not efficient and can hardly be called environmentally benign, what with new roads, huge foundations, and clearcutting.

It is convenient to dismiss noise and other complaints by pointing to other, worse, things, but that does not make the problems go away. Diesendorf accuses opponents of not doing anything for the environment. On the contrary, for what we get out of it, large-scale wind power is a pathetic response to our energy and pollution problems. It is big and expensive, so it appears to be a serious response, but it turns out to be only window dressing.

We have wind farms in West Aust at Albany & Esperance. There has been little clear felling that I can see The towers are built in areas of low lying scrub. It shouldn't be too difficult to create similar wind power farms in other locations

I'd rather put up with the small negative effects of noise and road construction just to avoid the effects of acid rain let alone the multitude of disadvantages associated with fossil fueled power stations.

I live in the NE United States, where wind facilities almost exclusively target undeveloped forested mountaintops. If there were evidence that they do in fact help mitigate emissions, then a few might be worth the sacrifice. Unfortunately, we seem to be rushing to sacrifice much more than a few wild places and for no compelling reason. Even if they performed as well as their advocates claim, it would require vast tracts to make any difference, and electricity is the smaller part of our energy consumption.