Global Climate Change Science News

[Seth]

There are nearly 250,000 wind turbines across sites all over the world – many of
them close to people’s houses.

Reviews conducted by leading health and research organisations from all over the
world, including Health Canada, the Australian Medical Association and Australia’s
National Health and Medical Research Council, have found no direct link between
wind farms and health effects.

Opponents of wind farms have claimed that ‘infrasound’, or sound that is too
low-frequency for humans to hear, can cause negative health effects. However,
there have been multiple scientific, thorough, peer-reviewed studies on wind farm
noise that have found that infrasound from wind farms is not a problem.

Details here

Undoubtly peer reviewed by peers who don't live next to windmills.

[Seth]

There are always going to be the loonies who swear that they have got all sorts, since living near one. But people who live right on top of much more noise, and work in an environment with much more noise, don't show the same symptoms.
Otherwise, you'd never get anyone to drive a truck, or work on trains, etc etc.

It's the same bunch who swear by homeopathy and herbal cures.
They are just highly suggestible.

I've been around a lot of turbines. You can hardly hear one, if you are forty or fifty metres away. And they rarely place them that close to houses.

I wonder if millers suffered all this crap in the old days, when they were grinding flour?

Um, you do realize that the harmful effects of sound in industrial environments is well known and there are very specific laws about protecting employees in work environments from harmful sounds, including, importantly, time exposure limits.

The problem with modern windmills is that they produce low-frequency sound and infra-sound that travels great distances (which is how elephants and whales communicate over long distances) and which can have effects on humans way more than forty or fifty meters, particularly over the long term. Many of the complaints come from people who are exposed to the sound all day, every day, for long periods.

As for millers in the old days, it's an inapplicable comparison because such windmills were in no way comparable to a modern windmill that produces blade-tip velocities upwards of 80 to 100 mph. If you've ever been around a small airport and heard the sounds produced by propeller aircraft when the blade tips approach the speed of sound you'd understand that things are not as simple as you suggest.

Besides, they are FUCKING UGLY and a visual blight that is spreading like wildfire.

Side note: I'd be interested to see what happens to elephant migration patterns if windmill fields are placed in their customary paths. Perhaps using elephants as infra-sound detectors might be useful. Get one, bring it to a windmill farm and observe it's behavior. Is it acting normally and undisturbed or does it appear agitated and show a desire to leave the area, and if so, how far does it go before it returns to normal behavior.

Now there's some actual science for you to pursue.

[Seth]

Yabbut propellers with 11 metre blades make a special infrasound* no other device can make.


*Sound that is too low-frequency for humans to hear. The infrasound of wind powered electricity is nothing like any ordinary infrasound. Trust me on this. There are a number of reports by several NIMBY types and reactionary poltroons to the effect that they suffer terribly from it, so it must be true.

Well, since humans can't hear infrasound, but it most certainly exists, it seems ripe for scientific inquiry.

Besides, wind farms are FUCKING UGLY.

[Seth]

I think we need to let Seth's social Darwinism go to work here and weed this clearly physiologically weak 1% out of the gene pool. You'd agree, no doubt, Seth, given you are a strong advocate of Social Darwinism, yes? Adapt or die, I say..

Yes, actually, I do agree. However, there's no reason that "adapting" to the deleterious effects of wind farms can't include wrapping the pylons in C4 and det cord and bringing a hundred of them all down at one time. Now that would be a sight to behold. We humans are very adept at adapting to environmental pressures by changing the environment. This is a situation ripe for such a Darwinian solution.

[Rum]

The weather outside is frightful...lots of flooding here in the north of England, which is getting increasingly difficult to de-link from global climate change.

etc..

Basically we go nuclear with all that entails or we change stuff more than most of us would tolerate. Wind turbines are a 'good thing' but they are pissing in the...er...wind in reality.

[Hermit]

In the state I live in, South Australia, the reality is that 30% of all electricity is created by wind farms - a fairly substantial piss I would think.

Granted, wind generated power is unlikely to ever cover all electricity needs even though SA is more suited to wind farms than most other regions in the world, and with a population of only 1.6 million the overall benefit is relatively minor, but now 30 million tons worth of CO2 per yeat are not generated that would have been been generated in their absence. Considering that there were no wind farms in SA 13 years ago, that's pretty good progress.

I do agree that nuclear electricity is the way to go. Coincidentally, the Olympic Dam mine about 340 kilometres north from where I live, constitutes 30% of the world's uranium reserves.

[Seth]

The weather outside is frightful...lots of flooding here in the north of England, which is getting increasingly difficult to de-link from global climate change.

Here's a suggestion: Don't build in a flood plain or floodway channel. That's just stupid.

[Seth]

In the state I live in, South Australia, the reality is that 30% of all electricity is created by wind farms - a fairly substantial piss I would think.

Which is horseshit I think in the first place, and at what cost both economically and environmentally in the second place?

[Hermit]

Economically, the per unit cost of wind generated power is less than that of coal generated electricity. Environmentally, the birds killed by the blades are nothing compared to the deaths directly and indirectly caused in the coal mining and burning. I hope you realise that our previous Prime Minister has abolished subsidies for wind andsolar electricity while leaving subsidies and concessions for the mining industry intact.

[pErvinalia]

Yabbut propellers with 11 metre blades make a special infrasound* no other device can make.


*Sound that is too low-frequency for humans to hear. The infrasound of wind powered electricity is nothing like any ordinary infrasound. Trust me on this. There are a number of reports by several NIMBY types and reactionary poltroons to the effect that they suffer terribly from it, so it must be true.

Well, since humans can't hear infrasound, but it most certainly exists, it seems ripe for scientific inquiry.

Scientists are immoral Marxists.

[Seth]

Economically, the per unit cost of wind generated power is less than that of coal generated electricity.

Not so. It only appears that way because of the massive subsidies needed to build the infrastructure in the first place.

Environmentally, the birds killed by the blades are nothing compared to the deaths directly and indirectly caused in the coal mining and burning.

Which is complete nonsense because it's comparing apples and oranges. Birds haven't had the chance to voice their opinions on the subject of being chopped in half by windmill blades, whereas people have long had the opportunity to vote on such matters and have chosen to accept the risks of coal-fueled electrical generation in return for the much greater benefits that having electricity provides.

I hope you realise that our previous Prime Minister has abolished subsidies for wind andsolar electricity while leaving subsidies and concessions for the mining industry intact.

Because people want cheap, reliable electricity 100 percent of the time, which neither wind nor solar can ever even begin to provide. In order to provide that need, even with the advent of "renewables" the electrical generation industry still has to build sufficient excess capacity to completely replace all such "renewable" sources because they are unpredictable and it is simply a fact that power generation capability must exactly match power demand at all times in order to achieve its public mandate.

So, what we have is sufficient generating capacity fueled by coal, gas, hydroelectric and nuclear to meet the existing demand, and all of the expenditures on solar and wind power cannot and do not replace any of that generating capacity at all, ever. All the renewables ever do is to unnecessarily idle the existing 24/7/365 generating capacity at enormous and unnecessary expense, all of which would have been better tasked to deal with actual pollutants from such plants, such as the experimental system being installed in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Instead, billions of dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on useless and wasteful solar and wind installations to the actual physical detriment of people who would have been better served by spending that advanced methods of removing sulfur dioxide and other actually harmful pollutants.

[pErvinalia]

You are still apparently unaware how heavily subsidised fossil fuels are. And again, the externalities associated with fossil fuels are massive and are yet to be paid.

A new study by the International Monetary Fund puts the total cost of fossil fuel subsidies at approximately $10 million a minute globally, when health costs and environmental degradation are included, never mind the effects of a destabilized climate in future centuries.

[url]http://%20www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/06/a-closer-look-at-fossil-and-renewable-energy-subsidies.html[/url]

The IEA’s latest estimates indicate that fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $548 billion in 2013, $25 billion down on the previous year, in part due to the drop in international energy prices, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. Those subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy and more than four times the amount invested globally in improving energy efficiency.

http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resou ... subsidies/

[Forty Two]

A lot of this subsidy stuff is over-inclusive. They include stuff like "refunds of overpaid taxes" or "the elimination of taxes" as "subsidies." In other words, they include things that aren't subsidies and call them subsidies.

[Seth]

You are still apparently unaware how heavily subsidised fossil fuels are. And again, the externalities associated with fossil fuels are massive and are yet to be paid.

Well, the difference is that any subsidies paid for fossil fuel are justified by the fact that fossil fuel provides about 96 percent of the energy needs of the populace, and therefore, if they exist, they provide great bang for the buck. Renewable subsidies on the other hand waste billions of dollars on energy supplies that cannot and will not EVER supply more than a fraction of our energy needs. That money would be much better spent on nuclear power plants and/or research and development of pollution controls and, if it's even necessary, carbon sequestering from existing power plants.

Renewable subsidies are, and have always been, and always will be nothing more than political sops to the Luddite environmental fascists who want us all to go back to grubbing in the ground with pointy sticks and living in wattle-and-daub huts and slop-troughs for those who are more than happy to play "Mr. Green Jeans" while stuffing taxpayer money in their pockets with reckless abandon.

The "externalities" argument is just eco-fascist Newspeak for "I don't like other people living opulent lifestyles enhanced by abundant energy because I can't afford such a lifestyle so I'm going to pretend to be "green" here in my wattle-and-daub hut as I hypocritically type my screeds on a highly energy dependent technological device."

I'll start listening to the eco-fascists when they are foraging for nuts and roots in the forest while wearing hair shirts and eschewing ANY kind of technology more advanced than pointy sticks. Until then I'm going to dial up my internet-enabled home thermostat and crank the temperature up to 80 degrees so I can burn some more fossil fuels and excrete more pre-existing carbon while I'm away. And before I go home I'll cut the temp back to a comfortable 72 degrees. And while I'm away I'll stomp on the gas and burn as much gasoline as possible and excrete as much CO2 and nitrogen dioxide as possible. And I'll do it all just to spite you environmental Luddites and your stupid ideas.

[mistermack]

Subsidies for renewables have always been a wise use of taxpayers money.
Firstly, they kick-started an industry that wouldn't have existed otherwise. If you don't want to be left behind, you have to grow your own industry, or risk having to buy everything from abroad, if the industry takes off.

Also, for the UK, and probably other countries, it's very wise to have a mix of energy supply technologies. So that you're not over-reliant on imports, that could be cut off overnight if the politics went wrong. Here in the UK, we've had experience of the country being held to ransom over electricity generation. That was by the miners unions, but it could be by the Saudis or Norwegians etc etc. just as easily today. If you have a mix of nuclear, wind, solar etc etc as well as imports, then you've always got some generating capacity to fall back on.

If I was in power, I'd be making an offer to the Germans for their nuclear power stations.
Rip em up and ship em over here, if they don't want them.