The issue of health effects of wind turbines is a late addition to my research. I’ve held off because, although the noise, flicker, vibration etc of turbines could conceivably cause health problems, the evidence I’ve seen until recently has not been totally persuasive. A number of people living close to turbines have complained about these various effects, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to health problems. Unfortunately, over time, the evidence is building up. More and more doctors are starting to speak out about the symptoms they’ve noticed and how they seem to be directly related to turbine exposure. continue reading…
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While the proponents tend to emphasize research that was not written by doctors, especially doctors out in the field, opponents point to the reports from neighbors and a relative handful of doctors who have seen enough to be convinced there’s something to the complaints. The earliest major report of medical problems came from Dr. Harry in England. While there are have been other scattered reports of health problems in Europe, recently most of the reports have come from Canada, the U.S., Australia, NZ and Japan. These reports number into the hundreds and are very consistent, to the point where they can’t all be part of some conspiracy. These newer countries seem to be less careful with the health of residents than Europe is, plus Europe was early in the game and the turbines are now much larger. Probably the most notable agitator is Dr. Pierpont from New York, with her book entitled Wind Turbine Syndrome. Other prominent doctors include McMurtry from Canada and Nissenbaum from Maine. First I’ll go through a sampling of complaints and then I’ll dive into the doctors’ papers. continue reading…
Proponents steadfastly deny any health effects from wind turbines. I’ll start with a look at some of the papers proponents hold up as proof that there are no health effects of wind turbines. Then I’ll look at a typical “myth” statement on CanWEA’s web site which is typical of “myths” you can find on all the WEA’s sites. Then I’ll segue into a look at a prominent proponent’s pretty scary mind. continue reading…
Here’s a collection of reference material. This isn’t a complete collection of what I’ve read through, just a sampling, roughly in reverse chronological sequence.
Simon Chapman, a public-health professor in Australia, has long maintained that the health and annoyance issues from wind turbines that people complain about are the result of nocebo. Recently he published a study that purports to conclusively demonstrate that those health complaints are not caused by the wind turbines; rather they are caused by anti-wind activists (presumably like me) instilling these ideas into people by our writings.
In an effort to give his study the fairest shake I could, I haven’t read it yet. Instead, I’m going to put myself in his position and think about what kind of study I’d have to do to and what it would have to show. After that exercise I’ll be looking through his paper to see if it in fact shows the things it needs to show to confirm his assertions. continue reading…
The town of Heath, Massachusetts, like many other town faced with wind turbine projects, formed a committee to study the issue. Their final report is a very accurate and very readable compilation of the issues surrounding wind energy. Hats off to the members who took the time to do the research and had the strength to do it honestly.
Unfortunately, the Town of Heath hasn’t posted the report on its web site, so there’s no link to the original. In the meantime, the town has proposed a bylaw that outright bans wind turbines within the town. UPDATE, February 27, 2013 – Heath voters unanimously passed the ban.
The wind energy industry has a long list of “studies” (i.e. Chapman’s 17) that they claim “proves” that wind turbines present no health issues for nearby residents. One of my strongest criticisms of all of these studies is that nowhere in them has anyone ever gone to a victim’s home and actually measured what was going on in there. There’s good reasons why they don’t. continue reading…
In May 2009 Dr. Arlene King, the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health, released a review that has subsequently been used by the wind industry to “prove” that wind turbines are safe. The King report was one of Chapman’s 17 reviews and it has been cited repeatedly by developers, especially in Ontario. It is by any standard a real disservice to the health of rural Ontarians in the path of wind energy developments. I’ve posted on it previously as has the Society for Wind Vigilance.
The money sentence is “The review concludes that while some people living near wind turbines report symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, and sleep disturbance, the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.“ Note the “direct causal” language. You’d think a Ministry of Health would be concerned about all health issues, not just those that were direct and causal. Apparently not in Ontario. continue reading…
Chapman’s “17 Reviews” gave me a chance to look again at the Pedersen, Pedersen and van den Berg studies, along with looking for the first time at the Shepherd study. Until recently these were the only peer-reviewed journal-published studies that looked at the health effects of wind turbines. More recently the Nissenbaum study was finally published and thus becomes the 5th such study. I figured I was on a roll so might as well make it complete. continue reading…
This is part 3 of my series on Chapman’s 17 health reviews. In this part I’ll take a closer look at the main underlying studies that his reviews use to establish their points.
Chapman’s most recently-published review (Massachusetts) correctly lists just 4 peer-reviewed journal-published studies (actual studies, as opposed to a review) on wind turbines and health (a fifth, Nissembaum, was published later). Yep, just 4. They are:
- Pedersen 2004
- Pedersen 2007
- van den Berg 2008 (or Pedersen 2009, same study)
- Shepherd 2011
Of the 17 reviews most of them at least refer to either 3 or 4 of these studies (depending on when the review was written) and a number of the 17 reviews use these studies as their central resource. If anyone is going to write about wind turbines and health it is almost inevitable that these studies get referenced. In short, they are central to the industry’s claims that wind turbines are not a health concern. Given their importance part 3 of this series will take a closer look at them. continue reading…
In part 1 of this series I introduced the reviews and listed them along with links. In this part I will delve a little deeper into the reviews, ending with a paragraph summarizing each one. As a summary, here is a clickable chart of the 17 reviews and how I “rated” them on several criteria:
continue reading…
Several months ago I started noticing references among wind energy proponents to 17 reviews of the evidence relating to health effects, all of which concluded there were no problems. The 17 reviews apparently originated with Simon Chapman, a professor in Australia. Initially I didn’t pay much attention to them – proponents are always claiming to have a mass of evidence that shows that wind turbines are safe, which is always contraindicated by actual neighbors. But when I saw that OSEA (the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association) mentioned the 17 reviews in a formal submission to Health Canada I thought I ought to take a look at them. To go through all 17 takes longer than one post, so I’ve split this one into 3 parts: (a) an overview and listing of the 17, (b) more detail on the 17, and (c) a look at their underlying source material. I cannot image anyone reading through all 3 parts, but I wanted to make sure I gave the 17 every chance to show me that wind turbines are not a health hazard. In this, they failed. I came away with 3 major conclusions:
- the jury is still out on health impacts (but the jury is filing in);
- turbines disrupt sleep and create annoyance (enough to become a health issue);
- Chapman is a skilled cherry picker.
New Zealand, like many countries around the world, has been encouraging the installation of wind energy projects. Unfortunately, also like many countries, the residents who end up living next to these projects have been complaining about the noise, after having been assured that it would be minimal. NZ has noise regulations that predate wind projects, but like many countries they have developed special noise regulations uniquely customized for the wind industry - something called NZS 6808. The previous version of this Standard (1998) didn’t protect the neighbors – there were hundreds of complains while the developer could plausibly claim to be following the standards. So they formed a committee and came up with 6808:2010. One person on that committee, Philip Dickinson, refused to agree to the new standard and went public about his reasons. continue reading…
William Palmer continues to gather facts about Ontario’s electrical grid and the uselessness of wind energy in it. This is very much unlike Ontario’s government and any number of ENGO’s, who simply repeat their slogans over and over until enough voters believe them to keep them in power. This time he has put together two charts and a longer paper showing Ontario’s generation mix for the last quarter-century and they pretty much put to rest two of these pervasive slogans: (1) that wind energy is eliminating coal generation, and (2) that coal generation is related to asthma and respiratory deaths.
UPDATE – Feb 29, 2012. Palmer has also started a series at MasterResource that expands upon this topic. Part two.
As my long-time readers (hi, Mom!) know, I’ve critiqued what seems an endless series of “health studies” from “experts” that claim wind turbines have no health effects on the neighbors. That list now includes:
AWEA-CanWEA Expert Review, aka Colby (2010)
Maine’s Neuro-Acoustical Issues paper, aka Mills (2009)
Ontario’s Potential Health Impacts of Wind Turbines, aka King (2010)
Australia’s Rapid Review, aka NHMRC (2010)
The latest in the series is Massachusetts’ Wind Turbine Health Impact Study: Report of Independent Expert Panel, published in January 2012. I originally wasn’t going to post anything about it. First off, it wasn’t a study – it was a literature review, just like all the other “studies” mentioned. And why waste my time on the same-old same-old?
God knows there’s enough victims in New England (starting with Falmouth) that they could have gone out into the field and practiced some science for a change, but I suspect they were afraid of what they might find. So they Googled around, found Pedersen, Pedersen and van den Berg and one new entrant, Shepherd. They found fault with everything and went home declaring there was nothing there. Which made their boss, Governor Patrick, very happy.
Enter one Raymond Hartman, whose resume looks pretty serious. He took a look at the Impact Study and came away with much the same impression that a lot of us who have been studying this stuff for a long time did. In short, it was Junk Science, just like all the others in this series. He published a summary of its faults, which I’ve converted to a pdf and reformatted a little to make it more readable. It is a series of points, easily read in a few minutes. I’d urge everyone to take a look at it.
Brian McPherson was a resident of Cape Cod who was distressed at how miserable the residents close to the Falmouth, MA wind turbines were, due to noise. So he hired Robert Rand and Steven Ambrose to measure inside one of the problem homes to see if they could establish what the problem was. They were perhaps more successful than they wanted to be. In short as they watched the levels of infrasound from the turbines increase with the wind, they became ill themselves. Perhaps even more powerfully, the levels at which they became ill corresponded nicely with the projections previously published by Alec Salt.
This study was too important for a short posting, so I created a 9-page pdf with details on the work of both Salt et al and Rand et al, along with charts and some amount of discussion.
Barbara Ashbee and her husband Paul Lormand were unfortunate enough to own a home that became surrounded by wind turbines. After a long series of complaints the authorities investigated and found that, sure enough, the noise at their home exceeded Ontario’s limits. They were bought out in a deal that gagged them from discussing their health issues publicly.
With the Ontario elections approaching, they decided to be go public with their story in spite of the possible breach of contract. The CBC, hitherto a major supporter of wind energy, picked up the story. In addition to her own story, she also revealed that the Ontario MOE had told her that she was the only one complaining and publicly said there were either no or little complaints when in fact there were a large number of complaints, as an FOI finally revealed.
When the government enables private corporations to destroy people’s homes and then lies about it, what more can be said? As Harrison says below, there just isn’t any excuse for this.
Links
Link to original CBC story. Backup link.
CBC contacted John Harrison for comments, but he was babysitting. After he got home, he wrote this letter to the CBC, which is now posted in the comments section of the original CBC story.
Link to the original audio report on the Ontario Morning show, which is more informative than the story on the web. Backup Link.
I’ve posted on Barbara Ashbee before.
- An earlier letter.
- The study of the noise at her home.
- My comments on the noise study.
- General complaints about noise, including references to her (under Ontario/Melancthon) and the letters she wrote to the MOE before they finally bought her out.
Wind Concerns Ontario posted on it as well.
The Liberal government of Ontario, faced with increasing complaints about the noise from wind turbines, continues to dig in and insist that their noise standards are very strict and meet the WHO’s standards. As usual, the devil is in the details, and the details don’t favor the Liberals position. Denise Wolfe has researched the WHO’s standards and written up a 2-page summary of how the Ontario government falls short.
Wind Concerns Ontario published a memo written by a senior environmental officer in the Guelph MOE office that questioned the MOE’s draft regulations which specified the setbacks and noise limits of wind turbines. In the end, his memo was rejected and the MOE went ahead with their industry-friendly regulations. Since then, predictably, any number of neighbors have suffered due to the noise created by the turbines. As I read the memo I noted how similar the officer’s observations were to what I and a number of others have been posting all along. So I created a pdf (it got too long and convoluted for a simple posting here) with the memo in its entirety along with some links and comments.
My Comments on the Hall Memorandum
The wind energy opposition is quite strong in Ontario. Carmen Krogh has been relentlessly building and presenting the case that industrial wind turbines are a menace to the neighbor’s health. She sent me her latest effort, A Summary of new evidence: Adverse health effects and industrial wind turbines, August 2011. I’m pleased to post it.
