Wind Turbines II

I read Babble all the time but I have never bothered to actually comment before.

I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party and not one that I want the NDP to have anything to do with.

Electricity generation by wind is not perfect, it comes with some problems, but it is one of the best options we have for clean energy.  The whole discussion of the 'health impacts' is so unscientific and probably arises by the often repeated statement "There is no scientific evidence to show that wind energy has adverse effects on health".  Many misinformed people interpret this as if we just haven't looked hard enough or don't understand the health impacts.  Wind turbines blades are simple rotating pieces of metal.  There are no mysterious forces emanating from them.  Many countries have studied this.  The WHO has studied this and found wind to be one of the safest forms of electricity generation.  Some people think turbines are impacting their health, but other than noise, there is simply no plausible mechanism for this to occur.  If the turbines are far enough so that the noise is below a certian volume, the problem is solved.

Peter Tabuns of the Ontario NDP very niclely outlines the argument here (it is at the bottom, but you can search the page on the words "Before I go on to the main":

http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?Date=2010-0...

The alternatives are coal, oil, nuclear and other things which are much worse for health, for security, and most of all for the environment.  It is fair to criticize some specifics of the Samsung deal or other details of how we transition to clean energy but the health argument is just plain ridiculous.

I don't want to see progressives divided on this.  Let's unify around wind (and solar) because we need clean safe energy and we need it now!

Ken_in_Toronto wrote:

It is fair to criticize some specifics of the Samsung deal or other details of how we transition to clean energy but the health argument is just plain ridiculous.

I suspect that the "health issue" is a red herring and that the biggest objection is NIMBY (most people view large wind turbines in massive quantities in any landscape as being ugly).  People like to live on a waterfront to enjoy the natural view of the water, not to look at a fleet of wind turbines filling the horizon.  Same with rural areas (massive wind farms aren't exactly what most people would consider as being "pastoral").

But, if wind is going to provide a significant contribution to electricity production in North America, thousands of square miles will need to be devoted to industrial-sized wind farms.

Same with solar.

I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party and not one that I want the NDP to have anything to do with.

Jesus H. Christ I am sick to death of misinformed urbanites telling us in rural Ontario that we are a bunch of frikkin hicks if we don't live by the theory on wind energy alone (and other alternatatives) and actually go on our experience with them all around us. The system is corrupt. Totally and utterly corrupted. We are allowing all kinds of unprogressive things to happen to rural residents and communiites. This has nothing to do with my science vs your science on health issues, but around privitization, preditory exploitation of residents by these companies and the loss of any input whatsoever on how a community is shaped. Until you have bothered to actually find out what is happening in rural Ontario and get some facts behind your comments, you should problably stick to advocating for wind turbines on the Scarborough Bluffs and every few hundred metres along the Lake Ontario Shoreline. That way at least the power would be generated where it is going to be used.

And Tabuns comments are dismissive, arrogant, totally misunderstanding the totality of the concerns being raised and unreflective of many New Dems I know who live in rural Ontaro. It makes me want to throw away my NDP membership card.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Jesus H. Christ I am sick to death of misinformed urbanites telling us in rural Ontario that we are a bunch of frikkin hicks if we don't live by the theory on wind energy alone (and other alternatatives) and actually go on our experience with them all around us.

It is not at all clear to me why you think I am uniformed on this issue just because I am an urbanite. I have been to rural wind farms in Ontario as well as Germany, Spain and The Netherlands.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

The system is corrupt. Totally and utterly corrupted. We are allowing all kinds of unprogressive things to happen to rural residents and communiites.This has nothing to do with my science vs your science on health issues, but around privitization, preditory exploitation of residents by these companies and the loss of any input whatsoever on how a community is shaped. Until you have bothered to actually find out what is happening in rural Ontario and get some facts behind your comments, you should problably stick to advocating for wind turbines on the Scarborough Bluffs and every few hundred metres along the Lake Ontario Shoreline. That way at least the power would be generated where it is going to be used.

I was mainly making my point in the context of the planned Lake Ontario offshore turbines, although I didn't actually state that, but the issues are not much different for other wind farms. Although YOU can easily say that it is not about health or my science or yours, that is the discusssion in the Ontario Legislature now and what the original string actually began with, which I was addressing, but I have not read all the comments.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

And Tabuns comments are dismissive, arrogant, totally misunderstanding the totality of the concerns being raised and unreflective of many New Dems I know who live in rural Ontaro. It makes me want to throw away my NDP membership card.

What part of what is said is so offensive.  He is dismissing the health issue which you seem to agree with.  He is highlighting the health problems with coal and other fossil fuels and the increased cancer risks with nuclear.  Not very offensive to me.  He is also talking about how in other jurisdictions the landowners are more involved and perhaps we need to have more wind co-ops.  The Ontario Feed-In-Tarrif (FIT) program opens the door to this.

If you are so well-informed, what solutions to the accelarting greenhouse gas emissions of Canadians do you propose?  And let's be constructive here, don't treat me like I am the problem just because I live in a city.  I know most Canadians hate Torontonians, but this is based on misconceptions.  I don't own a car, my electricity is Bullfrog powered, I rarely eat meat, and use trains or buses instead of planes whenever possilble. On average, urban Canadians have much lower per capita carbon footprints that rural Canadians since rural Canadian drive so much.  That may be an inconvenient truth for you, but it is a fact.

Mike from Canmore wrote:

Ken_in_Toronto wrote:

the health argument is just plain ridiculous.

I found your comment completely offensive. Have you ever spoke with someone who lives below a wind turbine? Perhaps you will feel differently if you actually visited the communities that have wind turbines and spoke with the people. I have. I have attended many community forums where people expressed their health and environmental concerns. As a New Democrat I am really disappointed withPeter Tabubs' response to people's health concerns. Blowing off the concerns of rural communities is not progressive nor does it win us votes. The NDP could at least attempt to reach out to these people and try to find a solution that works for everyone - not just Toronto. When Torontonians, like yourself, make comments like that my attitude is if you want wind power you can build it along your waterfront rather than forcing it on rural communities who don't want it. 

I am glad that we both agree that the Lake Ontario offshore turbines are a good thing.

Please see Bookish Agrarian's dismissal of your health concerns above. You may also want to check out the WHO study.

Charter-Rights, the payback on wind changed with the feed in tariff program. I believe payback is around 12-16 years. Having said that solar seems to pay off faster, from what I've been reading.  Solar is less instrusive and much more portable than sinking turbines into the ground.

I can't see how anyone in Ontario would consider more wind turbines in rural Ontario a good idea as practical policy for generating renewable power.  Is Port Burwell being juiced up directly from even a single turbine, despite being surrounded by them?  Alymer?  St Thomas?  Port Rowan?  The people living on farms and small plots of land around the turbines? 

Are they off the grid when the wind is blowing, with Nanticoke's stacks puking out that much less energy?

I don't know. 

Anyway, the history of these turbines, and the companies involved, is so tangled that Ontario would need a royal commission to figure it out.  If the information was availible.

Does bad policy equal being a NIMBY-ist?  If so, sign me up. 

So, I'm at the WHO site, and I can't find a study about windmills or infrasound-- at least not under those specific headings.  Perhaps, Ken, you could direct this less than the sharpest knife in the drawer to where the study is.

Besides that, I don't recall anyone saying windmills cause nosebleeds on any of these threads.  I think when it came to "health concerns"  I was the only one wondering IF infrasound is coming off those turbines, and if so, can people, (all or some) actually be effected by them.

I bet there was a time way back when, when "progressives" thought that the jobs Reed Paper Inc was bringing to the Grassy Narrows area was important economic progress.

And that's the thing.   We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning up after the good progressive ideas of a generation ago.   

I tend to think asking questions and examining the fairness and utility of something as it's in the planning stage a hallmark of "progressiveness".

Siddown and shuddap is a hallmark of torydom.

There was a time I had both the skills and patience for searching stuff out.  All I learned, Webgear, is that you post a lot more often than I thought you did.       I thought I was being melodramatic mentioning nosebleeds.  I must have missed that post.

Tommy

I would find the thread for you however my internet connection is pretty bad. I think it is a common rural issue.

Like I keep saying, based on unrelated to windmills information that has stuck between the little holes in my sieve like brain, I think infra sound effects some people but not others.   It could have something to do with the shape of the skull bone behind the ear, for example, or some other physicality.   But, because a person can sense infra sound doesn't mean that it's a health concern, or need be a health concern.   Where it becomes a health concern, perhaps, is anxiety due to not understanding why they feel "wierd" around windmills, and having people call them crazy for feeling that way around windmills.

These things can easily be confirmed or dismissed by ordinary and not terribly expensive double blind tests.   Pro or con, I've never seen one sited.

Actually, my health was very nearly deeply effected by the windfarm between Copenhagen and Port Burwell.

Another driver, mesmerized by one close to the road, veered into my lane.   

I am actually surprised that this became a rural-urban debate (to some extent).  I don't speak for Toronto, but I can tell you, the city is not unified in support of wind and I really doubt that the consensus among rural NDPers is against large scale wind generation. If there are rural people who welcome it, it would be constructive to hear from them.

I was surprised, intially also.   Because I didn't really think about it.  I remember a few rural posters here not being terribly receptive to wind farms where they live, and my attitude was, "well, tough, you live where the wind is."   But they rightly pointed out that there's lots of on shore and off shore breeze in Toronto, just like along Lake Erie.

Add to that the fact that electricity is lost over transmission lines, so it's quite reasonable to wonder why electricity for the GTA is being generated in Melancthon township, and not along Lakeshore boulevard first.

Seriously, the lack of windfarms along the GTA coast is indeffensible.

Then you have "Progressive"  Mayor Miller "solving"  Toronto's garbage problem by making it someone else's problem.  Someone else in rural Ontario.

And, Ken, you wonder why there's an urban/rural divide over these issues?  I think Bookish Agrarian's head is going to explode just over the fact you are surprised.

I support moving forward with building big wind farms now and lots of them because the scale of the climate change problem (including its health impacts) is so serious. Moratoriums and other obstacles really just amount to more of the same - fossil fuels and nuclear.

Okay, so where abouts in Rosedale are we going to put the next half dozen windmills?

Tommy_Paine wrote:

Being a reductionist at heart, the environmental catastrophe about to happen is, sure, due to fossil fuels and chemicals and whatnot.

But, if we take a closer look, what has made this all possible, and what is really preventing any meaningfull change is that almost every "progressive" environmentalist is blind to the fact that it's all due to politial power imbalance.

We are not going to save ourselves without taking that issue on first and foremost, and I really don't hear anyone talking about it.  Besides me, ad nauseum.

I disagree, Tommy. Political imbalance is certainly part of it, but it goes back, once more, to lifestyle. Even the most anti-capitalistic among us refuse to give up the toxic fruits of capitalism. We are all too wiling to buy into the childlike belief that we can eat our planet and have it too. Fossil fuels and electricity, generated from whatever source, has afforded us lifestyles that would require slave armies that would have made the pharohs of Egypt blush.

Consider just this one thought from an article I read earler today: "A fully-tanked jumbo jet contains energy equivalent to around 13,000 years of human labour."

And then think that over the past century and a half we have exhausted half of the legacy of millions of years of sunshine for nascar and obese vehicles parked outside the obese homes of obese people. Given such a store of energy, humans didn't construct a Star Trek-like society free of want, but squandered it, mostly, on activities that can best be described as narccistic. 

And its not as though the polictial and soclal elites had to force the rest of us to join them. I have observed it before and I will continue to observe that the most shocking aspect of Shock and Awe in Iraq was the almost absolute non-impact the war had on sales of gas guzzlers, gas powered toys, and fill-ups in general. The message was loud and clear: Westerners, when given a choice, prefer their lifestyles over the lives of brown people in oil rich countries.

And, again, as we see the Gulf fill with oil and vital habitat and wetlands threatened, we will send money, we will hold concerts, we will wring our hands and gnash our teeth, but we will not make the connection between that disaster and our own lifestyles so dependent on sucking the earth dry.

The link for the quote above: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2010/2886142.htm

I haven't been to the Desbro Inn for years.  Is it still open?  My memory of it was being able to drink there before you were 19.  The attitude seemed to be if you could get there you were old enough to deserve a drink.  Fond memories.  Did you ever go to the old Hall across the road.  I loved the fact that the troughs were the same urinals in use when my Dad and Mom used to go to dances there when the were young and dating.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

The opposition to windfarms borders on hysteria and is mostly a product of hype.

The dismissal of people's health concerns is a major part of why this has become a rural/urban debate. It's real low to tell someone their health issue is just in their head. And we look like a bunch of bigots saying it.

 The argument that that fossil fuels are worse so we'll sacrifice the health of a few rural communities doesn't look good either. Is it the NDP's stance that we're willing to sacrifice a few for the greater good of Ontario? Because that's what your arguments are starting to sound like. That's what rural communities are hearing. 

As stated in the previous thread - this does not have to be a black and white debate. The world is our oyster. The ONDP should seize this opportunity - not to defend the Liberals - but to come up with a unique strategy that takes into account expressed health concerns. This is leadership. This will make us stand out amongst the Liberals and Conservatives. 

Please know that I am not against wind power. As stated in the previous thread, Bookish, myself and many others were huger supporters of Wind Turbines initially. The appearance never offended me. But when I saw friends get sick - friends who signed up to have the turbines on their property because they were environmentalists - friends who were gagged from speaking about their health issues because of that 40 page contact they signed to have a turbine on their property - that's when I began to question. 

Using you're either with us or against terminology is Bush tactics. Since when did the ONDP adopt Bush style politics to push through an agenda? What happened to community consultation and championing minority interests?  

FM then you have never seen the contracts.  The only people making money are the companies.  Farmers have signed on for a lot of reasons, but one of them is a necessary quick infusion of some cash when it is in short supply.

And I have seen those news stories before.  All you have to do is take out the work renwable energy and insert the words hemp, switch grass, industrial hog barns, feed lots, host a transmission line, buy out your neighbours, borrow a bunch of money and put up another barn and buy more cattle, rabbits, pigeons..... the list is endless.

I did a quick google and found these (there's over a million results!!!)

WIND TURBINES: Noise, Health and Human Rights Issues

I thought the third link on that page was interesting - Wind Turbine Syndrome

and this:

Study to determine health effects of turbines

excerpt:

While the Ontario government recently legislated a 550 metre setback for wind turbines, the 86 machines on Wolfe Island that officially hissed to life on June 26, are only 400 metres from people's homes.

excerpt:

Previous research, much of which has not been peer reviewed, links wind turbines with a variety of physical and emotional problems. Researchers in Portugal claimed the turbines contributed to "vibroacoustic disease," a full body reaction to low frequency noise that affects the auditory and vestibular system, which controls a person's ability to balance. A pediatrician in the United States coined the term "wind turbine syndrome" to describe the symptoms people experience from living near wind turbines, such as sleep disturbance, headache, vertigo, ear pressure, tachycardia (rapid heart rate) and concentration and memory problems.

FM

I would like to see more green projects however I feel like many others that rural concerns and issues are not being addressed.

Dams aren't much better than the others. More than humans need rivers.

Webgear, that just isn't supported. The contractors who get bits and pieces of the work that employ consutruction workers, electricians, and others are often rural. Rural communities are just as dependent on electricity as are cities. And rural communities suffer just as much from asthma, mercury contamination, and other ill effects of coal. Nanticoke, for example, is closer to rural than urban. The wind is more likely to carry the filth over south western Ontario as it is Toronto. This is a false dichotomy. 

For me, I aqgree with Peter Gorrie in this article: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/627747

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

FM then you have never seen the contracts.  The only people making money are the companies.  Farmers have signed on for a lot of reasons, but one of them is a necessary quick infusion of some cash when it is in short supply.

You're wrong bookish. Visit the landowners along Lake Erie. Lake Erie Shores has been profitable and the farmers are getting the cash they leased their land for. Facts are tough, but the industry, love them or hate them, have no difficulty finding farmers who will lease their land. But then again, farmers still buy the bullshit about GMOs and think the best way to respond to low prices for a commodity is to grow more of it. So maybe they aren't making money so much as applying farmer math.

FM, please accept that some people actually post from a point of experience and knowledge, not what we would like to be.

I have seen the contracts.  I have been offered one.  I personally know many of the farmers who signed on after being promised the moon.  Those promises have not panned out and a great many of those farmers would dearly love to be out of the lease.   These companies come out make all kinds of promises, use high pressure sales tactics, lie outright to farmers and rural landowners and then after the person has signed on those sales people disappear and the companies plead ignorance on the promises made to their new leasees.  So given this I am not surprised many are still willing to sign on.  These companies do their homework before they start the contract signing portion of their business deals.  They find out who to approach, who to avoid and who's name to drop.  Our extended family was used as an example of someone signing on to a deal, givng the company instant credibility, when in fact that family member was never approached and in fact was studiously avoided.  So please give us a break that everything is goodness and light if it is done in the name of renewables.  And you know what your snide comaparison to GMOs is probably not that far off, the same kind of promises, tactics and actions are being used by both industries, and often the same people are even involved in promoting them. 

ETA - FM you are also wrong on who gets the work, at least in my area of the province.  With the exception of cement, which is of course heavy and expensive to transport, the companies have crews that move from community to community - development to development.  One of the largest complaints that have come to me from farmers across the area is that the construction crews left things in an awful mess after they were done.  They have a don't give a shit attitude, because they get paid no matter what and once they are done they are off to another community.  I suppose local motels make a bit of cash hosting the crews, but that is very short term.  I know a couple of local contractors who tried to get those jobs and they found out there were none available as it was all being done 'in-house'.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Look here are your choices: Wind, solar, bio-gas, coal, gas, nuclear. 

Those may be the choices but they come in a wide verity of different models. Just because I don't like the wind turbines going up in our communities doesn't mean I'm against wind. It means I don't like that particular design. Go back to the drawing board and design something that doesn't harm humans. If we're going to spend $7 billion I'm pretty sure the project can afford to do it right. 

Doug wrote:

Wind power is best generated where (surprise!) the wind blows most powerfully and often. In Ontario, that happens to be along the Niagara Escarpment, the Lake Huron, Lake Erie and eastern Lake Ontario shores.  The geographic distribution of wind determines the placement of turbines much more than the distribution of consumption (in Southern Ontario, anyway) because the transmission loss is low for short distances. That's not to say there isn't wind power potential in Ontario's cities, just that most of it isn't there.

I agree with that. Did you see the Fifth Estate show on the wind power "1 mile from downtown Toronto"? It was very convincing.

Imagine Toronto running electric cars powered by the lake winds. Oh, what a wonderfull world that would be!!

FM, is Port Burwell being powered directly by the 50 or so turbines surrounding it? 

I suspect many turbines are being built on land owned by more or less absentee landowners.  A small landowning farmer would have to think hard about giving up that much land. 

Were you talking about the Belmont solar farm in the previous thread?  I missed the mention.  The protest over that particular green energy project has nothing to do with people's health being directly affected by the installation.  Local farmers were concerned that prime farm land was being used, against the rules of the Green Energy Act.  The company doing the work apparently had a contract, or contracts, in place before the Act was issued and that allows them to build regardless of the Act.

The people most upset by the Belmont proposal are the locals who wanted to do smaller solar installations, as a business.  They suspect the Belmont operation will be given the "green" space on the grid.  At least that's what I was told.  I didn't have time to confirm the facts.  

Odd that a private US owned company has more rights than the municipality.  The Green Energy Act takes away the rights of municipal governments but the Act doesn't apply to a private company, at least in the Belmont case.

The Ontario government helped pay for the first wind turbines, and they were bought from foreign companies, and put up with US workers.  Erie Shores is\was a local management company, I believe, not owners of the machinery.  The tangle in the story is a mix of public money and private enterprise.  And we all know how honestly business and government interact when millions of dollar are floating around.

It is not at all clear to me why you think I am uniformed on this issue just because I am an urbanite. I have been to rural wind farms in Ontario as well as Germany, Spain and The Netherlands.

Actually Tommy, this is the kind of comment that makes my head want to explode. I hear a version of this all the time. I walked right under a wind turbine and there wasn't any noise at all, it all sounds like hooey to me is another version. Basic acoustic analysis shows that the quietest place around a turbine is right underneath it. Because of the shape, height and prevailing winds sound increases on an inverse angle from the turbine blades to the ground. So the loudest place might easily be a half a km away on any particular day. Sound works differently in rural areas that it does in urban ones. In rural areas because of the open spaces and especially through open hills and valleys. This is behind the experinece some might have had where they can hear people talking across a far field, but not hear the person on the other side of the house.   Sound travels, it bounces, it can be magnified by double paned windows, and it can all depend on the prevailing winds and even cloud cover.  So to say I visited a turbine and all was good is a pretty good sign the person doesn't really respect the people who live near these things 365 days a year, year in and year out through all kinds of conditions.

I am actually surprised that this became a rural-urban debate (to some extent).  I don't speak for Toronto, but I can tell you, the city is not unified in support of wind and I really doubt that the consensus among rural NDPers is against large scale wind generation.  AND I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party

What exactly would you expect when the legitimate concerns of rural people are dismissed as crank-like and they are expected, once again, to be the dumping grounds of urban problems. Or is comparing babblers and others who are concerned about some of the reality of these developments as tea baggers meant to be a term of endearment and a call for a group hug?

With all the hydro projects proposed in this part of Quebec, I doubt there will be much wind farming here, but we do have a lot of wind most days in the spring, fall and winter - summer months not so much.

There has been a joint wind farm proposal  between north coast BC First Nations and private energy concerns, however, apparently the sound where they were thinking of locating the windmills in the water, have a bird migratory route.

..have not heard whether the initiative has advanced further since that development or not.

Spectrum would know, am waiting to see  if he makes an appearance shortly, as want to ask him about something else in this avenue too.