Impacts of Wind Power Generation

[Cleisthenis]

From, "Alberta wind farm worries residents":

In Alberta, opponents of wind turbines have fought the developments on the basis of reduced property values, destruction of scenic views, or the turbines' wallop on wildlife such as birds.

But the Gogels and two other Trochu families are challenging the Ghost Pine Wind Farm --and will push for a public hearing at the Alberta Utilities Commission--based on arguments the noise from wind farms could have an impact on human health.

Plans for the Ghost Pine Wind Farm call for turbines to be placed between 524 and 888 metres away from their homes. The three families want the turbines placed no closer than 1.5 kilometres.

"There's a growing body of medical evidence that when wind turbines are too close to residents, it's detrimental to our health," Jean Gogel said.

Proponents of wind farms, however, say the medical evidence is inconclusive, at best. And already, wind energy is a highly regulated and environmentally assessed industry.

"Can that sound cause annoyance?" Sean Whittaker, vice-president of policy for the Canadian Wind Energy Association, said of the movement of turbine blades. "Yes."

But health impacts from turbines are reported only by a vocal minority of people, Whittaker said.

Health impacts, he said, are "primarily speculation."

But the battle being fought by the Gogel, Moran and Scheunert families may be a sign of things to come as the province allows expansion of the wind industry in an electrical system where greenhouse gas-producing, coal-fired generation is king.

Until now, Alberta wind farms have been located south of Calgary--in drier, ranching areas such as Pincher Creek or the Cypress Hills.

Now, some are being located closer to more populated rural areas. The Ghost Pine Wind Farm is one of a few proposed wind farms northeast of the city.

While I sympathize with these land-owners, I think the jury is still very much out on the impact of Wind Turbines at great distances. I honestly think that using a microwave daily has a far greater health impact than any minute vibrations from being within a kilometre of a wind farm. At the end of the day, I think we might have to learn to deal with the noise from renewable energy than the pollution, carbon emissions and climate change from non-renewables. In terms of the impact on wildlife, I think that given a choice between ducks landing in tailings ponds or birds and bats getting nailed by giant blades, the later is still more environmentally friendly.

Thoughts?

[Diogenes]

How do I feel about wind power? It blows me away
 
On a less serious note. . .  reduce the hordes we keep reproducing and that'll go a long way to solving the words problems
 
 One must get it in the brain   all is profit
 We, I firmly believe , have past the tipping point  we breed like vermin manage like cretins  and consume like  bulimics. 
 

[Freyja]

I chuckled a little bit at the mention that there were possible health implication with close proximity to windmills, and thought to myself that some people will do anything to preserve their pristine view from their countryside homes!

Till I read this article:


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080928/windmill_safety_080928/20081005?hub=Health

Granted it's a little dated, but it was enough to remind me that we've jumped at every energy-crisis solution in the past with little thought of the aftermath so maybe it's time to learn from our mistakes and actually research the implecations a little more thoroughly.

Not to say that I don't think it's great to diversify our energy sources, but Canada is a big place, last I checked, so if we can pump oil thousands of miles could we not place our fields of windmills at a distance as well?

I admit to being horrendously uninformed on the subject, aside from what my google search could offer but if anyone has any info I'm definitely interested!

[d.wylie]

As much as  I like bats eating mosquitos, I'd rather have clean energy. My 2c.

[Freyja]

ack - sorry my link takes you too an email link. Maybe just copy the text into a new window?

I agree, clean energy is a plus, but perhaps with ramifications like we have seen with Hydro it just needs to be thought out more meticulously and scrutinized before we whip up thousands of windmills and cause a pandemic of migraines and changes in birds migratory paths.   

[Raos]

I can't say I've done any lit searches on medical impacts of wind turbines (although it might not be a bad idea...I should add that to the list of things to get done when they make days 40 hours long...) but I've heard that many of the issues reported with them, though controversial, have been based on early generation models and have been severely mitigated by newer models.

Given that, I don't consider it to be much of a stretch to believe that this is a case of predominately NIMBYism.  Half of a kilometre is not outside your kitchen window.  Even if there are some valid health impacts, I'd expect they're quite minimal, and the millions of Albertan residents in towns and cities are subjected to worse from traffic noise pollution.

[Freyja]

Hmmmm... very likely true. The pictures in the articles looked like they had turbines on the front lawns in lieu of garden ornaments.