It seems to me that his 'debate' has turned into nothing more than a ‘slanging match’ between the opposing sides of the debate. Much of this can be blamed on the inflammatory statement contained in the article, “Anti-wind power groups that exaggerate environmental impacts and technical limitations should be scrutinised for possible funding from industries that stand to gain from attacks on wind power”.

Throwing mud and casting doubt on the motives of those with a different view is hardly food for proper academic discourse and is bound provoke an angry response from those who oppose the siting of wind power stations in inappropriate locations.

This goes to show just how divisive and problematic the whole wind power issue is. Can anyone else think of any other issue that has caused such heated and vitriolic comments between total strangers? The promotion of solar energy certainly does not.

The pro-wind power people will not concede that there are problems related to the siting of wind power stations or that there are problems with the efficiency of the technology. The recent German report (Energy Policy – Der Speigel January 2005) states “The quantity of climate-change damaging CO2 gas that would be saved by wind power could be achieved more cheaply by other means”. The fact that the wind industry tried desperately to have this report suppressed is a clear indication that there are genuine grounds for concern.

I suggest that this topic has run its course and until there is more substantiated evidence posted there is little to be gained by its continuance

Now where was I . I don't recall questioning Dr. Diesendorf''s qualifications or his right to make a comment It's the sense and sensibilities of his comments,such as they are, that are of interest. His use of Open Forum as a soapbox to launch a witchhunt under the veneer of academe is another matter and deserves the blowtorch.

On Noise. The State of Victoria uses the noise standards NZS6808 concocted in New Zealand in association with the wind energy industry. By the way NZS6808 is non compliant with WHO noise recommendations and again there is no calibrated wind turbine noise test range in Australia or NZ. Did someone mention ISO9001?

Sorry Doctor, leave the computer model under the bed on this one.
It's back to the drawing board. Noise emissions from wind power stations are due to a complex mix of structural vortices combined with intermodulation products generated by high blade tip speeds and turbine mechanical noise. Influenced also by wind direction, seasonal and diurnal/nocturnal temperature variations. Adverse effects down range may be greater than those closer in to the turbines. See Toora measurement transgressions.

Still on noise. From the chairman of a recent "Independent " Planning Victoria Tribunal on noise. "Infra sound is audible sound below 16Hz" and this is supposed to be a serious investigation into a monster 50 turbine wind power station .Whose laughing?

Property Devaluation. Sorry Doctor. Wind power stations are right up there with sewage farms as items for disclosure on land sales. Failure to disclose is NAUGHTY as vendors recently found to their considerable costs in a LAW COURT in Cumbria.

Accountability. I say hook up the high speed real time electronic correlators,quantifiers and data processors to the wind power stations and bring the wind industry,their sulking courtiers, consorts and political cronies kicking and screaming into the modern real world.

Required Reading. Visit the Darmstadt Manifesto on The Exploitation of Wind Energy in Germany issued at the Press Club in Bonn Germany in 1998 by Prof. Dr.Lothan Hoischen and signed by over 100 Environmentalists, Engineers and Scientists.

Landlubber. Concur. It's now a la-la world.

Dr. Diesendorf
Is it possible for you to provide a web reference to the performance of some selected wind farms?
I would like to now the variation of output in terms of capacity (percentage of nominal power rating), power output (MW) and energy in (TJ). Can you supply data which shows measures of average with confidence intervals, the maximum and minimum outputs achieved. Could the data be arranged so as to indicate daily, weekly, seasonal and yearly variation?

Can also provide reference to scatterplots showing correlation of output from wind turbines with ambient temperature? We know that power demands for air conditioning, heating etc is temperature dependant.

Lastly, I am not interested in the non-sense unit of power to supply so many households

Thankyou Mark Duchamp and Cecil Breakwind-Smyth (love the name) for adding your technical expertise to this Bluff & Bluster article, it has been most welcome to read responses from people who know what they are talking about. I think we have established well and truly where the bluff and bluster is coming from and it is not from the anti windfarm side but from the windy zealots.

Anti-Green we can tell you the output of the Toora windfarm on a typical 40 degree day, zilch, zero, 0. There is rarely any wind on these days. We can also give you the output from the same windfarm a couple of weeks ago during 'the storm' when the summer temperature plummeted here in Victoria, zilch, once again at a standstill. They don't work when the wind blows too strong. Actually they don't work that often at all, often they just sort of stand there like twelve sentinals to stupidity and irrelevance.

As landlubber quite rightly stated we can probably leave this forum be now. There will always be people who desparately want to believe windfarms are the answer and won't listen to any view other than the one that supports their own, none so blind as he who will not see.

Mark Diesendorf has not disappeared into cyberspace as one of your correspondents thought. He has now turned his attention to small rural communities in the Southern Tablelands of NSW whose villages have been targetted for huge wind-farms.

In a post dated Feb 27, Mark Diesendorf said he had “never been a member, employee or consultant to AUSWEA”.

In that case, why until recently did the web-site of the “Sustainability Centre” Pty, of which he is the Director, list AUSWEA on its clients and collaborators page?

This was pointed out in a local newspaper and I immediately printed out a copy of the web-page just in case the reference to AUSWEA disappeared – just as well, because the reference to AUSWEA has now been deleted.

nauswea is mistaken or deliberately misleads. I live 9kms from the Toora windfarm and visit it regularly, precisely to see how well it operates in different weather conditions. It operates about 90% time, although not always at peak generation capacity I suspect. I doubt nauswea and others who have quoted the Toora wind farm even live in the region. If they did they would know summer equals regular onshore easterly winds and winter provides regular southerly through to north-westerly winds. In short, it's one of the best windfarm areas in southern Oz.

Toora residents do occasionally hear blade noise on calmer nights when the wind comes from the NW but it's nowhere near the noise of highway traffic passing through the town - or the sounds from the old milk factory that once operated there.

Properties continue to be bought and sold, the claimed devaluation's don't mirror the reality and seem more designed to support a self serving blanket opposition to wind farms generally.

Here, whinging about wind farms appears to come mainly from urban retirees and other comparatively recent arrivals to the area, precious types with a 'Bugger you Jack I'm alright' mentality.