Wind Turbine Syndrome

Figure 1: cartoon from 2012 New Scientist article

With our puppet masters pushing for investment in renewable energy sources, wind turbines are big business and so any suggestions that their infrasonic emissions might be undermining the health of people and animals living in their vicinity is not likely to be well received.

Predictably, the mainstream media is dismissive. Figure 1 shows a cartoon from a 2012 New Scientist article titled The sickening truth about wind farm syndrome. The cartoon reflects the tone of the article. The author of the article, a certain Simon Chapman, begins thus:

There are several reasons to suspect that the unrecognised entity of wind turbine syndrome is psychogenic: a “communicated” disease spread by anti-wind interest groups, sometimes with connections to fossil fuel interests. People can worry themselves sick.

He then goes on in this "unsympathetic" vein. In partnership with Fiona Crichton, he published a book in November of 2017 titled Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Disease. Clearly, he has not softened his position in the years following his New Scientist article. In a 2018 article to the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, he says:

The history of social panics over new technology shows they have a natural history. There are doubtless a few people left who still fear television sets and microwave ovens. The heyday of fearing cell phone towers came and went in the 1990s. Wind-farm anxiety is now thankfully rapidly receding, with the desultory complaint volumes submitted to the Wind Commissioner showing the phenomenon has all but passed. But the delays this panic caused in driving Australian renewable energy harvesting were major. Our book’s final chapter explores lessons in how we might avoid the next wave of modern health worries.

So we can avoid "the next wave of modern health worries", like 5G cellular networks, by not succumbing to this type of "communicated disease". How do we do that? Well, simply believe it when big business and big government assure you that the technology is safe. They have our best interests at heart, don't they? It's not hard to dislike this guy. His ad hominem attacks on the anti-wind interest groups include accusations of "connections to fossil fuel interests", hostility to change and susceptibility to social panic. I can't resist including this further quote from his article:

New technology has a long history of attracting prolonged, impassioned and often crackpot attacks from those both fearful of and hostile toward mephistophilean artifice that offends the existing order of things.  

The real issue is not wind turbines but the infrasound that they emit. Another source of infrasound emissions derive from ventilation fans in mines. To present the other side of the argument, namely that infrasound can be injurious to health, this 2018 presentation by Dr. Mariana Alves Pereira is quite persuasive.

It's the people living close to these mine ventilation shafts and wind turbines that really need to be listened to. Here's a description of the effects experienced by one family living near a mine in Lithgow, Australia (the author is Norman Allan):

The physical effects include a sense of pressure in the head or chest and throat, vertigo, nose bleeds, vomiting, anxiety induced heart palpitations and other symptoms normally associated with travel sickness like general nausea and include what can best be described as an “out of body” or “living in a fog” experience. These are compounded by a sense of anxiety developed from long term exposure and multiple forms of stress, such as continued muscle tension from instinctive efforts to resist intermittent or constant shaking. These symptoms are extremely distressing. Yet, over time, the acute episodic symptoms pale in comparison to relentless high amplitude noise on the edge of normal human hearing perception going on day after day. In any case, sleep disturbance has been ongoing and the effects of sleep deprivation alone have been debilitating. Source

In November of 2106, the Australian Government issued an Australian Government response to the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines: Final Report  in which some action and monitoring was proposed but how serious its committment will be remains to be seen. What was more interesting in the report were the responses of the opposition Labor Party (not the Liberal-National coalition government). Here's an extract:

Labor senators recommend that the Federal Government reassure the wind energy industry, which is both an important source of income and employment in rural areas and a vital means of abating Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, that it is not intent on preventing its further development based on unsubstantiated claims of negative health, environment and economic impacts. 

Labor Senators recommend that the Federal Government publicly acknowledge that:

•  wind farms are an important means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s electricity sector, thereby contributing to our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals;

•  the health impacts of fossil fuel extraction and generation are acknowledged by the medical and scientific community;

•  there are no causal links between wind turbines and impacts on human health;

• the wind industry is a growing industry at a time when Australia’s manufacturing sector is undergoing significant change and downsizing and that it provides valuable employment opportunities in regional Australia; and

•  the continued growth of the renewable energy industry, including wind, is a positive thing or Australia’s economy and its environment.

This leaves little doubt that the Labor Party is firmly behind the wind energy industry but in truth nearly every government in the world will be leaning this way because of the massive investment and intense lobbying. Politicians know which way the wind is blowing and unfortunately for Norman Allan (whose experiences I quoted earlier) and others similarly affected, it's not blowing in their direction.

Living 1600 ft from a wind turbine is a video of couple talking about the experience of living close to wind turbines and mentioning the gag orders that wind energy companies have built into contracts to help ensure silence:

Down Wind is a much longer video about the impact of wind farms on the lives of communities living in rural Ontario. The liberal government there introduced legislation to ensure that wind turbines could be built even in the face of opposition from local councils. The dirty politics that the video exposes is being repeated worldwide. Electricity prices have soared and there has been no discernible benefits to the average home owner whether living in the city or the country. I realise now monstrous and ugly these wind turbines are. The proliferation of these structures will serve as another catalyst to moving people from the countryside to the cities where, having escaped constant bombardment from infrasound, they can enjoy constant bombardment from 5G frequencies.

Sufferers can draw some comfort however, because Donald Trump is in their corner. Trump is notoriously hostile to wind farms and tweeted the graphic shown in Figure 1 (that quickly went viral), thinking (wrongly) that it justified his hostility.

Figure 1

Perhaps it's better NOT to have Donald Trump's support. It's clear enough though that those who claim to be victims of infrasound will NOT have the support of:

• BIG BUSINESS
• BIG MEDIA
• BIG GOVERNMENT
• BIG MEDICINE

This is a global scam and things will be the same wherever you are. BIG BUSINESS will be downright hostile, BIG MEDIA will supply the propaganda, BIG GOVERNMENT will obfuscate and BIG MEDICINE will not receive any funding for studies into the matter. BIG PHARMA however, will be supportive by providing medication to alleviate the various physiological and psychological disturbances that are being experienced. Even when it seems the whole world has turned its back on you, BIG PHARMA will have your back.

ADDENDUM:

I couldn't help but include this article that appeared in Bloomberg today, the 27th of June 2019.

Bat-Killing Wind Turbines Outfitted With Systems to Stop Carnage

The wind farms that have proliferated across Texas in the past decade have done plenty to cut power-sector emissions. But with blades spinning at up to 100 miles-per-hour, they’ve been murderous for bats. Now Duke Energy Corp. is deploying technology to dissuade the creatures from flying headlong into their deaths. It uses ultrasound to block sonar bats use to navigate at night, prompting them to avoid areas around turbines. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based utility owner is using the “Bat Deterrent System” at installations in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s first time a company has commercially deployed the system, developed by ESCO Technologies Inc.’s NRG Systems, according to a statement Wednesday. A two-year study found it can reduce bat fatalities by 50%, Duke said.

So these wind turbines, as well as emitting infrasound and audible sound, will now be emitting ultrasound as well to ward off the bats. Another article explains why the blades are hazardous to the bats and an alternative approach to avoiding the carnage:

Wind turbines are an essential to our prospects of building a clean energy economy. Unfortunately, there's a lot of evidence out there that the turbines kill bats in alarming numbers--more than they do birds. And not in the gruesome manner you'd think--no high speed collisions with the blades--but in another gruesome way altogether. The sudden drop in air pressure around the turbines causes severe injuries to the bats' lungs, an affliction called barotrauma. Thankfully, scientists have come up with a way to reduce bat deaths around turbines by at least 60% without sacrificing any serious power generation from the turbines. And the solution seems overwhelming logical to me. Essentially, it's this: stop the blades from turning when it's not windy, because that's when bats are most likely to take flight.

The article just mentioned comes from treehugger and notice the article of faith that forms the first sentence of the previous quote: Wind turbines are an essential to our prospects of building a clean energy economy. Environmental groups have uncritically accepted the propaganda of the climate alarmists. See an earlier post of mine titled Students Strike for Climate Action for information about the clean energy economy scam.

The Cost of Renewable Energy

The Jerusalem Post is proving an interesting source of information about is going on in Israel and how that country is reacting to what is going on in the world. However, in today's online edition, the following advertisement caught my eye:

Advertisement in The Jerusalem Post (online edition)
on Friday, February 8th 2019.

What is being advertised is a book, Dumb Energy by Norman Rogers, available on Amazon at only A$6.79. There is a free summary available and that's what I had a look at. A couple of paragraphs in particular caught my attention:

For certain scientific groups, green ideas and global warming alarmism are the geese that lay golden eggs. The golden eggs are not just money, but also prestige. Scientists, particularly climate scientists, benefit from global warming alarmism. They are reluctant, individually or as a group, to express skepticism or to critically examine the theories behind global warming alarmism. Peer pressure to conform is so great, that to contradict the group think is heresy, and likely professional suicide. Global warming has transformed climate scientists, formerly nerdy grinds toiling in an obscure corner of academia, into celebrity scientists. The pull of stardom and money has corrupted the scientific work. The statements that all climate scientists agree, or that predictions of global warming are absolutely solid – those things are propaganda.

I couldn't agree more with that statement but later I came across the following:

Renewable energy and its companion global warming alarmism have become a religion. There is a great danger that it will become an established religion forced on the people by the government and an elite establishment. Important believers include dignitaries such as Jerry Brown, the governor of California and Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and former mayor of New York. This is not a quiet religion. The believers don’t meditate. This is an angry religion.  

This got this me thinking. Previously, I had tended to regard the push for renewable energy sources as basically positive, not fully realising how closely this push is linked to its "companion", global warming alarmism. This led me to investigate a possible link between the rise of renewable energy sources and the rising price of electricity. I came across an article in THE CONVERSATION from January 2nd 2018 titled: A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills. The article looked at the rising cost of electricity bills in Australia. The following section I found particularly relevant:

Up until the late 2000s the market kept chugging along. Then two things happened. First, consumers started using less electricity. And second, the Renewable Energy Target (RET) was ramped up, pushing more supply into the market. 

Demand down and supply up meant even more oversupply, and continued low prices. But the combination of low prices and low demand put pressure on the finances of existing fossil fuel generators. Old generators were being asked to produce less electricity than before, for lower prices. Smaller power stations began to be mothballed or retired. 

Something had to give, and it did when both Alinta and Engie decided it was no longer financially viable to keep their power stations running. Far from being oversupplied, the market is now struggling to meet demand on hot days when people use the most electricity. The result is very high prices. 

A tight demand and supply balance with less coal-fired generation has meant that Australia increasingly relies on gas-fired generation, at a time when gas prices are astronomical, leading to accusations of price-gouging. 

Put simply, Australia has failed to build enough new generation over recent years to reliably replace ageing coal plants when they leave the market. 

Is it renewable energy’s fault that coal-fired power stations have closed? Yes, but this is what needs to happen if we are to reduce greenhouse emissions. Is it renewables’ fault that replacement generation has not been built? No. It’s the government’s fault for failing to provide the right environment for new investment.

The rising prices are a complex issue and the article does a good job of analysing the various components that make up an electricity bill have risen over the previous years. Nonetheless, it's clear that renewable energy initiatives have played a significant part in driving up prices. Of course, it's taken as a given that coal-fired power stations must be closed and that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced.

Getting back to the Dumb Energy summary, the author makes an interesting point when he notes:

The propagandists for wind and solar use fake photography to give the impression that smokestacks of conventional fossil fuel plants are belching toxic black smoke. This outright fakery says a lot about the ethics of the Sierra Club and similar organisations. The picture is an example that appeared on the Sierra Club website. The smokestack is actually belching harmless water vapour. When the water vapour or steam hits the cool air, it condenses into a white cloud. By photographing with the sun behind the smoke stack, the white cloud of water droplets can be made to appear black. It is revealing that, in the photo, there is no “smoke” immediately above the stack before the water vapour has mixed with the cool air sufficiently to condense. 

I don't know if that's true or not but its clear that the propaganda regarding man-made global warming and the need to develop renewable energy sources is driving up the price of electricity. There are few government's in the world that would challenge the core tenets of The Church of Climatology. The Trump administration has done so but that may prove more helpful in the long run to the global warming alarmists who can now put global warming deniers and Trump together in the same basket.

If it's true that carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to overheat, then of course a reduction in our dependance on fossil fuels makes sense. It's worth paying more for electricity in order to save our planet from possible catastrophe. If it's not true then why are we being led to believe that it is? Is there a hidden agenda? Cui bono? It's easy to suspect a profit motive because there is big money involved in alternative energy but, as with global elite initiative, the key issue is control. To quote from Natural Climate Change:

So where does the passion in support of the man-made global warming hoax originate? Freedom First Society believes that the best explanation for the widespread propaganda is that the “crisis” hoax supports an immense power grab. High-level internationalist insiders have selected the global warming scare as one pretext to help them drive forward their revolutionary “new world order.” In particular, they seek to persuade independent nations to submit to world government, cleverly controlled by an elite few from behind the scenes.

Incidentally, my research showed up an interesting site that curates news articles about climate change: TWTW (The Week That Was). I've signed up to receive their newsletter.

Screenshot from climate change change curation site:
http://www.sepp.org/the-week-that-was.cfm

One thing that this archive has already brought to my attention is that environmental degradation and man-made global warming are quite distinct. No one would deny that human activity has caused widespread environmental degradation. The mining, transportation and burning of fossil fuels have certainly damaged the environment but this does not mean that the use of fossil fuels needs to be totally abandoned. Any human activity has an impact on the environment.