Please visit our LSARC Climate Change page for additional research on Renewable Energy
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Wind Generation Performance, CO2 Reduction & Economic impacts
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Wind Energy is intermittent, unpredictable and variable View online Download PDF
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Wind Power is unreliable and inefficient View online Download PDF
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Wind replaces Coal & Gas generation View online Download PDF
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Wind Power does not reduce CO2 emissions View online Download PDF
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Industrial Wind Generating Plant safety View online Download PDF
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Wind doesn't reduce CO2: Wind and CO2 Performance of Irish Grid on the 4th April Gale and 19th April Calm View online Download PDF |
Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation
By Peter Lang View online Download PDF |
Estimation of real emissions reduction caused by wind generators
O. Liik, R. Oidram, M. Keel View online Download PDF
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| IESO - Integrating Renewable Generation View online Download PDF
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The hidden fuel costs of wind generated electricity.
K. de Groot & C. le Pair View online Download PDF
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| Bentek - How Less Became More View online
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Bentek - The Wind Power Paradox View online
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| Analysis of UK Wind Power
Generation by Stuart Young Consulting (An excellent analysis whose
findings apply to Wind Power in general) View online |
Irish Academy of Engineering new report: "Energy Policy and economic Recovery 2010-2015" View Abstract View online View Technical Annex online Download PDF Download Technical Annex PDF |
LSARC Critique of Bow Lake Heritage and Tourism Impact Assessment
Download PDF (225KB)
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LSARC and Dr. Ross McKitrick's Critique of "Greenwich Economic Impact Study"
Download Dr. McKitricks report (PDF 442KB)
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Wind Generation Health Impacts
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Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study -
Adverse Health Effects Produced by Large Industrial Wind Turbines
Confirmed, by Stephen E. Ambrose, INCE (Brd. Cert.) and Robert W. Rand,
INCE Member: View online Download PDF
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Industrial Wind Generating Plants cause human health problems View online Download PDF
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Critique of "Wind Turbines and Health A Rapid Review of the Evidence" by Wayne Gulden, September 2010 View online Download PDF
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Wind
Turbines can be Hazardous to Human Health - Alec N. Salt, Ph.D.,
Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis. View Online
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Recent research on low frequency noise from wind turbines View online
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Why A-weighted Wind Turbine Sound Measurements are Misleading by Dr. A. Salt View Online
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Health Can Cut on the Bias: Old Pattern or New Design? Download PDF
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Why it is Difficult to Demonstrate the Infrasound Generated by Wind Turbines by Dr. A. Salt View Online
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Industrial Wind Turbines Generate Infrasound by Dr. Alex Salt View Online
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550 Meter, or Lower, Setbacks are Insane - by Dr. A. Salt View Online
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The Ear Detects Infrasound at Levels that are not Heard - by Dr. A. Salt View Online
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Presentation to Internoise 2012 - by Dr. A. Salt Download PDF
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Who’s protecting our health? Risks of harm associated with energy facilities A commentary by Carmen Krogh, BScPharm View Online Download PDF (7.2MB)
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Genetic effects of insufficient sleep Download PDF (1.6MB)
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Pre and Post-turbine Update
Submission: Industrial Wind Turbines can Harm Humans Download PDF (37KB)
Health and Social-economic impacts reported in Ontario by Carmen Krogh, BScPharm |
Sleep disturbances and suicide risk: A review of the literature Download PDF (82KB)
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Risk of Harm and Industrial Wind Energy Facilities Physicians as Health Advocates
A Commentary by Carmen Krogh, BScPharm Download PDF (49KB)
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Open Submission: Risk of Harm to Children and Industrial Wind Turbines by Carmen Krogh, BScPharm Download PDF (2MB)
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Open letter conclusivley demonstrated wind turbine health effects by Brett Horner Download PDF (803KB)
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Low Frequency Noise manifest as Vibro Acoustic Disease in Equines and manifests lower limb deformities Download PDF (1.7MB)
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| National Health and Medical Research Council open letter July 31 2012 by Brett Horner Download PDF (385KB)
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Open letter to Steven Harper re Health Canada Study feb-11-2013 by Brett Horner
Download PDF (1.1MB)
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Literature Reviews on Wind Turbines and Health : Are They Enough?
Brett Horner, Roy D. Jeffery
and Carmen M. E. Krogh, Bulletin of Science Technology & Society
2011 31: 399 DOI: 10.1177/0270467611421849
Download PDF (360KB)
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Wind Generation Environmental Impacts
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| Industrial Wind Generating Plants kill birds View online Download PDF
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Impacts of Wind Farms on Upland Habitats: The Environmental Cost of Scotland’s Renewable Revolution" by The John Muir Trust View online Download PDF
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| University
of Newcastle (2002) Visual Assessment of Windfarms Best Practice.
Scottish Natural Heritage Commissioned Report F01AA303A View online |
Low-frequency sounds induce acoustic
trauma in cephalopods, Andre et al 2011 View Abstract online View Article online Download PDF |
Location, Location, Location - Migration, Migration, Migration
“This is truly an
international problem, one that so many developers and
local/state/provincial governments pooh-pooh as a NIMBY issue in order
to slide the deals through. This problem runs from the arctic to the
tip of South America — and that is one helluva big backyard!”
View online Download the full document (1.6MB PDF)
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| Responses to Wind Developer Spin |
Download map of proposed Wind projects between Sault Ste Marie & Montreal River Harbour
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Download Swindle: the Cons of Industrial Wind by C. Bayne (JPG 720 Kb)
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Response to HGC Literature Review by John Harrison
Introduction
The low frequency report,
prepared by Howe Gastmeier Chapnik Ltd. was commissioned by the
Ministry of the Environment (MOE), released in draft form in August
2010, released in final form to MOE in December 2010 and to the public
in August 2011. Why MOE is issuing it now as a press release is a
mystery. This response will address the report itself and the
news release from the Ministry of the Environment.
A glaring omission from the report and the news release is the
motivation for the commission to HGC. The motivation of course is
that a large number of residents living in proximity to wind turbines
are suffering from annoyance, sleep deprivation and resulting adverse
health effects. The root cause of the annoyance is the noise
generated by wind turbines.
The commission focussed on low frequency audible sound and infrasound
because at a distance of several hundred metres from a turbine much of
the high frequency sound has been absorbed by the atmosphere.
The annoyance associated with turbine noise is considerably larger than
noise of a similar sound pressure level generated by traffic or
industrial noise. For instance field studies by Pedersen, van den
Berg, Bakker and Bouma (referenced in the report) show 15% and 27% of a
population are annoyed[1]
by sound pressure levels in the ranges 35 to 40 dBA and 40 to 45 dBA
respectively. These numbers are to be compared to 3% of a
population annoyed by traffic noise in the same sound pressure level
range. The present Ontario noise limit is 40 dBA; the noise limit
before the Green Energy Act was 51 dBA in a sufficiently high
wind. As noted below the Ontario noise limit is based upon
prediction with significant noise contributions to the prediction not
considered.
Possible reasons for the difference in response to turbine noise and
road or industrial noise is the predominance of low frequencies in the
turbine noise and the characteristic amplitude modulation of turbine
noise at the blade passage frequency; this amplitude modulation draws
continual attention to the turbine noise in the way that a dripping tap
does. The wind industry and its lobbyists make much of the
contribution of attitude to wind turbines to the annoyance.
However, it is difficult to think that the attitude to industrial
plants or road noise would be any less benign. In addition, while
Pedersen et al. show a linear dependence of annoyance on the turbine
sound pressure level there is no similar study showing a linear
dependence of annoyance on attitude!
Not only does the report and news release avoid mention of the
motivation for the commission, neither MOE, the Ontario Chief Medical
Officer of Health nor HGC made any attempt to interview those suffering
from adverse health effects.
Not for nothing do the
following health and other experts propose setbacks well beyond those
allowed by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment:
The HGC report gives considerable
prominence to the Colby et al. health study and to the Chief Medical
Officer of Health, Dr. Arlene King, health study. The one was
commissioned by the Canadian/American Wind Energy Authorities and the
other by the Ontario Government which is far from unbiased with respect
to wind energy. Both are seriously flawed, notably in having no
interest in the numerous people suffering from adverse health effect
and in emphasizing the absence of direct health effects.
Generally the adverse health effects are indirect: sleeplessness and
annoyance leading to stress-related illnesses. This is recognized
by the World Health Authority which considers annoyance and stress as
adverse health effects. A recent paper by Dr. Carl Phillips, a
noted epidemiologist, offers a detailed critique. The King report
is marred by an erroneous quotation from the 2009 Pederson et al. paper
of the number of people annoyed by turbine noise. Dr. King has
yet to acknowledge this error/deception.
Technical Review
As must be, much of the HGC report concerns technical aspects of noise
generation and sound propagation. Here there is a fairly complete
literature review. However, this section fails to emphasize that
the turbine manufacturers are aware that the future of widespread
acceptance of wind energy will depend upon reducing noise and
low-frequency noise. To quote:
“The
acoustic noise radiating from wind turbines continues to be the
dominant design driver that must be incorporated into the design
process. The tip speed of many turbine designs is limited by the
amount of noise created by the blades passing through the atmosphere.”
Moriarty (NREL, USA) et al., AIAA Conference Proceedings (2005).
“
…noise emission….has become one of the most important environmental
impacts of wind energy.” (Romero-Sanz and Matesanz (GAMESA
Spain), Wind Engineering, 32, 27-44 (2008))
As stated in the report a major cause of turbine noise is aerodynamic
trailing-edge vortex creation. There has been theoretical and
wind-tunnel research to investigate the effect of different blade
cross-sections on TE noise.
Perhaps of far more importance for low frequency and infrasound noise
is the work on inflow turbulence. HGC, the Ministry of the
Environment and CanWEA continue to bury their heads in the sand
concerning this issue. This important noise source has been
brought to the attention of MOE and the Canadian acoustics community by
bringing to light the early work at the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) in the USA. This work demonstrated through
theoretical work based upon the mathematical modelling by Amiet and
through experimental work with the NREL CART up-wind test turbine that
turbulent inflow considerably enhances the low frequency noise emitted
by turbines. More recently, Dr. Moriarty has brought to my
attention their continuing work, in collaboration with Dr. Guidati,
well-known as a co-author of the Wagner et al. treatise on wind turbine
noise.
On July 8th, 2011, The National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy,
Risø, Denmark placed the following description in an advertisement for
a scholarship: “Noise is an interesting concern for wind turbine
manufacturers and communities living near wind turbines. These
concerns are exacerbated by the constant increase of wind turbine sizes
and the cost advantages of placing turbines close to the
consumers. The design of low-noise turbines requires the use of
validated and accurate engineering models. The main sources of
noise generated by a wind turbine have been identified as turbulent
inflow noise and trailing edge noise”
If still not convinced then Figure 32 of a recent report by K.D. Madsen
and T.H. Pedersen should be enough (“Low Frequency Noise from Large
Wind Turbines” DELTA report AV-1272/10 (2010)).
Other work not referenced concerns
measurement of turbulence intensity. This work is being done
because turbulence increases dramatically low frequency noise, because
it puts stress on the turbine blades and because, with associated wake
loss, it decreases the capacity factor of downwind turbines. A
list of references that needed to be addressed is as follows:
Lange et al., “Modelling of Offshore Wind Turbine Wakes”, Wind Energy, 6, 87 (2003).
Barthelmie et al., “Modelling and measured Power Losses and Turbulence Intensity …”, Wind Energy, 10, 517 (2007).
Wagner et al., “Influence of Wind Speed Profile on Wind Turbine Performance Measurements”, Wind Energy, 12, 348, (2009).
Barthelmie et al., “Off-Shore Wind Turbine Wakes Measured by Sodar”, J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 20, 466 (2003).
Bertaglio, “NACA0015 Measurements in LM Wind Tunnel and Turbulence
Generated Noise”, Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy
(2008) (report # Risø-R-1657(EN))
In Europe, the European Commission is supporting turbine research through the SIROCCA Project: ( http://www.ecn.nl/nl/units/wind/projecten/sirocco/ ).
Propagation of Low Frequency Noise (Section 3.2)
The report makes important points concerning the propagation of turbine
noise: The cylindrical decrease in sound energy, the acoustically
hard character of ground for low frequency sound, the low absorption by
the atmosphere for low frequency sound and the ready penetration
through residence walls. These points needed to be emphasized in
the executive summary, the conclusions and the recommendations.
At present they are not acknowledged by the Ministry of the
Environment. This is especially important as guidelines are drawn
up for off-shore wind energy.
Noise Annoyance (Sections 3.5, 3.6 and 3.8)
Laboratory studies have their place. Nevertheless, for reasons
that Dr. Leventhall gives, as referenced in section 3.6, far more
weight needs to be given to field studies in comparison to laboratory
studies. Missing from Section 3.6 is consideration of the
amplitude modulation. This is typically 5 dBA but higher values
have been reported. Dr. Leventhall himself has written: “A
time-varying sound is more annoying than a steady sound of the same
average level and this is accounted for by reducing the permitted level
of wind turbine noise”. As we are well aware, the Ministry of the
Environment refuses to do this.
Section 3.8 quotes the work of Pawlaczyk and Luszczynska. It was
only fair to have quoted also the work of Persson Waye et al. (“Low
Frequency Noise “Pollution” Interferes with Performance”, Noise Health,
4, 33, (2001)). This paper comes to the opposite conclusion for
low frequency noise at the 40 dBA level.
Health Effects (Section 3.11)
The Colby et al. and King reports
were dealt with above. Turning to the discussion of Dr.
Pierpont’s work, the report is bizarre. There is no mention of
the bulk of the work on the medical study of a large number of people
suffering adverse health effects resulting from wind turbine
noise. This work analyses the range of symptoms and finds reason
to treat them collectively as a syndrome. Separately, there are
hypotheses for the cause of the syndrome. Hypotheses are not
proofs; scientifically, the presentation of a hypothesis is reason to
study the problem and to demonstrate proof or otherwise. Whether
the hypotheses are correct or not is irrelevant to the fact that there
are adverse health effects. The energy devoted by Colby et al.,
King, CanWEA to denigrate the medical and diagnostic work of Dr.
Pierpont is reminiscent of the methods we saw some decades ago used by
the tobacco industry! Again, I recommend a reading of the
Phillip’s report on the power of crossover analysis in understanding
the reality of adverse health effects from wind turbine
noise. There is a reference to Leventhall (2010) missing
from the bibliography; nevertheless, I know that Drs. Leventhall, Colby
and King are not epidemiologists!
Conclusions (section 5.0)
5.1)
Although turbine noise is broadband, at a distance of 500 metres, much
of the high frequency sound has been absorbed. Distance enhances
the low frequency component as does turbulent inflow.
5.3) Reference needs to be made to the
Salt study demonstrating other pathways for the perception of very low
frequency sound.
5.4) This conclusion is wrong and is a
red herring. Turbine noise in the range 35 to 45 dBA causes
annoyance and sleep disturbance. These are adverse health effects
and in turn lead on to other adverse health effects. 100 people
reporting adverse health effects and more than a dozen families
abandoning their homes in Ontario alone gives the lie to this
conclusion.
5.5) Non-trivial (a derogatory and
unworthy expression) has no place in a professional report. It
should be replaced by about 20% being annoyed.
Recommendations (Section 6)
Given that the review of current
technical literature in the HGC report has missed completely research
dating back to Amiet and forward to detailed comparisons between theory
and experiment on turbulent inflow noise, the first recommendation
needs to be revised. MOE does need to revisit its guidelines to
include turbulent inflow noise, to treat the ground parameter as hard
for low frequency sound, to reconsider spherical spreading,
particularly for off-shore sound propagation, to address the
uncertainty in the prediction of sound at a residence and, given the
accepted enhancement of annoyance due to amplitude modulated noise, to
apply a penalty for amplitude modulation.
Response to Backgrounder: Low Frequency Sound and Infrasound Report
What kind of noise do wind
turbines produce? Turbines do indeed produce a wide range of
frequencies. However, the noise 550 metres or more from the turbine is
skewed towards low frequency noise because of selective absorption of
the high frequencies by the atmosphere.
Is wind turbine sound harmful? The Minister of the Environment writes
that there is no direct health risk. However, field studies have
demonstrated that 15 to 27% of people exposed to turbine noise at the
Ontario regulated limit will suffer annoyance. This is an adverse
health effect and in time leads on to other adverse health effects such
as stress, tinnitus, headaches and sleep disturbance.
Are Ontario’s rules to control wind turbine sound stringent enough?
The minister writes that at the Ontario regulated setback much of the
sound that turbines produce lays outside the range that people can
hear. This is untrue. Field studies show that at the
regulated setback, 80% of people can hear the turbine noise.
Also, the minister fails to note that Germany, with its more extensive
experience with wind energy, has a lower night-time noise limit than
Ontario.
John Harrison harrisjp@physics.queensu.ca
[1] Pedersen et
al. consider five reactions to turbine noise: do not notice; notice but
not annoyed; slightly annoyed; rather annoyed; and very annoyed.
They group rather and very annoyed together under the heading “annoyed”.
Responses to Wind Developer Spin
ENERGY/EFFICIENCY/CO2
etc
Replies to DP Energy's Q&A of March 2011
:
1. Wind Farms are inefficient
2. How much energy will Bow Lake generate?
3. How much energy does a wind turbine use?
4. When you take the CO2 it takes to build turbines
and deconstruct wind farms there is no saving on CO2.
5.
I've heard that wind energy
doesn't really reduce pollution, because other, fossil-fired generating
units have to be kept running on a standby basis in case the wind dies
down. Is this true?
Power
1. Wind will not
produce enough power to shut down our coal plants
2. Why are you using
the wilderness of the Lake Superior coast line to
provide power to Southern Ontario?
3. Ontario does not
need the power. It has too much power even to export. Ontario does not
need the power, they can get it from Quebec.
Safety
1. What about turbines throwing ice or turbine blades?
Impacts on Tourism, Lake Superior Park and Highway 17 Corridor
1. What about Cumulative Impacts and the other developments in the area?
2. What would the
visual impacts be upon Lake Superior Provincial Park? The Highway 17
corridor, the Algoma Railway Line and the Lake Superior Shoreline?
3. Does wind farming affect tourism? How will it affect local tourism in the Algoma Region?
Access
1. Roads: Will existing roads still be accessible to people with camps in the area and the general public?
2. Will there be restrictions imposed on Access to Crown Land or fishing lakes on the area?
Health
1. Wind farms make you ill.
Noise, Low Frequency and Infrasound
Other
ENERGY/EFFICIENCY/CO2
etc
DP Energy: 1.1 Are wind farms inefficient?
Efficiency along with grid operation and kWh displacement of fossil
fuel energy is probably one of the most misunderstood points in
relation to wind power generation. In the Physics/Engineering sense of
the word efficiency is simply a measure of how much kinetic energy can
be extracted from the wind and usefully converted into mechanical and
then electrical energy by the turbine.
The maximum amount of kinetic energy (i.e. the energy due to the air
movement) that can theoretically be extracted from wind flowing through
a disc type rotor is around 59% defined by Betz' law which was first
formulated by the German Physicist Albert Betz in 1919 (Albert Betz:
Wind-Energie 1926). It’s obvious that if we extracted 100% of the
kinetic energy that would mean that the flow after the turbine would
have to be zero and clearly, from a flow perspective that is simply not
possible as new air would not be able to enter the rotor.
What is perhaps more important than efficiency is the amount of energy
generated over the life of a turbine compared to the energy used in
manufacturing it. This is discussed further in the following question
below.
This is mostly true, the
theoretical maximum amount of energy that can be extracted from the
wind by a perfect wind turbine ranges somewhere between 31% and
61%. The actual amount is substantially less due to friction
inefficiencies of the rotor design etc... Modern rotors can only
achieve 70% to 80% of the maximum achievable, so the effective
efficiency based on the rotor alone would be 48.8% at best and we
haven't even started adding inefficiencies from friction etc...
Wikipedia has a good explanation here
though it gets technical in
spots.
Basically while partly true, as
with most wind farm answers, this 'answer' is irrelevant as it doesn't
address what most people mean when they say efficient, which is how
much electricity do we get for our dollar, how fundamentally good an
investment is wind power? Answer, it isn't as I'll explain
below. Also how much electricity IWT generate over their lifetime
compared to the energy used in making them is irrelevant as we are
asking which form of generation gives us the biggest bang for our buck,
the biggest return on our investment, both financial and of CO2 emissions. Wind requires more land and
more materials than any other form of electrical generation except for
hydro, and hydro generates way more, and way more reliably, than wind
farms see the table on page 2 of this document.
1.2 I’ve heard that when you
consider the CO2 it takes to build turbines and deconstruct wind farms,
there are no savings on CO2. Is this true? All electricity generation
systems have a ‘carbon footprint’ and at some points during their
construction and operation, carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted. There has
been some debate about how large these footprints are, especially for
low carbon technologies such as wind and nuclear. The UK Parliamentary
Office of Science and Technology produced a report (Ref POSTnote
October 2006 Number 268) which compared the life cycle CO2 emissions of
different electricity generation systems currently used in the UK and
concluded that wind turbines have one of the lowest carbon footprints
of around 5gCO2eq/kWh, compared with 500gCO2eq/kWh for gas generation,
and over 1000gCO2eq/kWh for conventional coal.
From an energy perspective, the
Danish Wind Manufacturers Association produced a note on Energy Balance
(Ref Background Information Note No 16:1997) and concluded a modern
Danish 600 kW wind turbine would recover all the energy spent in its
manufacture, maintenance, and scrapping within some three months of its
commissioning. It further observed that within its 20-year design
lifetime it would supply at least 80 times the energy spent in its
manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and scrapping. A more
recent assessment undertaken by Vestas for their 3MW turbine estimates
a 6.6 month energy payback for its V90 3MW on shore turbine (Life Cycle
Assessment
of offshore and onshore sited
wind plants based on Vestas V90 3.0W Wind Turbines June 2006). The
calculation varies depending on the machine type and of course the
local wind speed, but it gives an indication of why we suggest
efficiency isn’t a very meaningful term when applied to a free fuel
supply. Efficiency is obviously much more of a critical term when
considering thermal plant which uses coal or gas since it’s a direct
measure of wasted energy.
It is true, that if you consider only the CO2 emissions to manufacture, install, service and decomission a wind turbine
DP Energy: 2. How much energy will Bow Lake
generate?
There are a number of terms
used in describing wind turbines/farms and their energy production such
as rated power, capacity factor, installed capacity etc and its worth
discussing these. Bow Lake has an installed capacity (based on the
nameplate rating or generator size) of 60MW (or 60,000kW), but will
only generate at 60MW when the wind blows strongly enough for each wind
turbine to reach this its rated power. A 2.3MW turbine such as a
Siemens 2.3MW machine reaches its maximum or rated power of 2300kW at
around 13-14meters/second and maintains this until approximately
25meters/second. If the Bow Lake machines ran at their full rated power
for all 8760 hours of the year it would be described as have a capacity
factor of 100%. In reality wind farms of course operate at lower
capacity factors than this since the wind isn’t always blowing and we
cannot simply switch the wind on at will. Bow Lake is expected to have
a capacity factor of around 30%.
The calculation for annual
energy production in kWh then is quite straightforward:
= 8760 x 60,000 x 30% = 157,680,000 kWh
To put that into perspective
the Office of Energy Efficiency (Ref National Energy Use Database 1997)
gives two figures for average Canadian household electricity usage one
for 23 367kWh (84.1GJ) per annum for homes which solely rely
electricity and 8 587 kWh (30.9GJ) for households which also use
Natural Gas.
Assuming an all electric
dwelling the Bow Lake output would equate to around 6,750 homes, or
alternatively for properties which use other forms of energy for heat
(such as gas or wood) the electricity consumption of 18,400 homes. The
total number of Private dwellings in the Algoma District is noted at
58,742, with 50,044 normally occupied (Ref: 2006 Community Profiles
Statistics Canada).
(A more recent Office of Energy
Efficiency survey (Ref: Survey of Household Energy Use 2007) gave the
all energy consumption of the average Ontario household as 107 GJ (or
29,750 kWh) and noted that Natural Gas formed the principal energy
source for heating (66%) but didn’t break out the average electricity
consumption to repeat the calculation. However, it might be reasonable
to assume the electricity consumption had been increased and
household’s numbers would be proportionately be reduced. We will be
looking for more up to date numbers on this).
This is no doubt all very
interesting, but again it is irrelevant, because
1) does any of the
electricity generated by Industrial Wind Turbines (IWT) get used by
Canadian households?
and
2) Is it in the ratepayer's best
interests to generate electricity from IWT?
As is demonstrated on Ontario Wind Performance, all electricity
generated by wind is exported, often sold for less than
we pay for it, or given away. There are other sites that have
done
similar calculations and come up with similar results: Tom Adams
Energy
at the bottom of the page. Similar research has been done in
other
countries as well:
"The Danish power system has much
higher total capacity with increasing share of
new natural gas power plants,
which enables to absorb larger amount of windmills,
but the main answer is the use of
Norwegian and Swedish hydro plants for the
compensation of fluctuations and
also strong transmission links with German power
system. We analyzed the Danish
wind energy data [7] and found strong correlation
between the wind electricity
production and export of electricity (see Figure 2). It is
easy to conclude that the major
part of wind-generated electricity has been exported."
O. Liik ∗ , R. Oidram, M. Keel:
"Estimation of real emissions reduction caused by wind generators";
International Energy Workshop 24-26 June 2003, IIASA, Laxenburg,
Austria.
So wind energy is exported and we
sell it at a loss which costs us hundreds of millions annually see here and
here.
So as I've shown, the energy isn't
used by Canadian households and we pay to supply 'green' energy to the
US or other Provinces
Furthermore in their answer above,
DP Energy uses a capacity factor of 'around 30%' This is not
likely to be the actual capacity factor for Bow Lake though, Prince
WindFarm has only managed 26% since it started operation. However
capacity factor is a very misleading number as it gives the impression
that Bow Lake will provide full power 26% (or 30% if you're willing to
believe their guess) of the time. That is very far from the
truth.
Here is
an excellent analysis of how useless wind power is as a source of
reliable energy for our homes.
So bottom line here is that Wind
Plants really only have an effective capacity factor of around 10% and
regardless of how many homes they will power (Canadian or otherwise)
the electricity they produce costs WAY too much per kWh to be worth
investing in. The huge increase in the cost of power will hurt
Ontario families and make Ontario companies less competitive, driving
them
to jurisdictions where energy costs less.
DP
Energy: 3. How much energy does a wind turbine use?
Energy is certainly consumed
within a wind turbine for various purposes such as energizing the
generator, or powering the yaw motors which drive the rotor to face the
wind. Blade heating using hot air blowers is also used on some cold
weather turbines to increase energy production by reducing turbine
downtime due to icing and again this consumes energy. However, despite
some of the speculation you may have heard these numbers are very small
in comparison to the production.
Wind farms are usually metered
both for export and import since both are billed on a kWh output or
input basis. For November 2010 the monthly billing for one of our
Irish wind farms showed the import being 0.38% of output over the
month. The Bow Lake machines are unlikely to be significantly different
In respect of blade heating an
experiment on a high elevation Swiss site St. Brais using Enercon E82
turbines demonstrated that a 3% increase of annual energy production
could be achieved by blade heating whilst the blade heating itself
would only reduce the annual production by 0.5%. (European Meteorology
Society 2010 conference Wind Turbines in Icing
Conditions)
This is a very difficult question
to answer factually because the actual power requirements of IWT and
wind plants is closely guarded. First, we don't even know that
there is a meter on the power they use in Ontario. Furthermore I
suspect that they are being disingenuous and that the number is
actually
38% in this case, or 0.38, not 0.38%. Note no actual numbers
are provided, not even for the number and size of the turbines.
Based on one 1.5MW turbine generating 26% of nameplate capacity
(typical for Ontario) , 0.38% represents the electricity used by one
100W light bulb for 10.7 hours. Seems pretty unbelievable doesn't
it? For example:
Energy produced by one IWT in November = 1500 (kW or 1.5MW) x 24 (hours) x 30 (days) x .26 (26%) x .0038 (0.38%) = 1,067kW
Now compare that to the list of power requirements listed here!
"Large wind turbines require a
large amount of energy to operate. Other electricity plants generally
use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they
generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined.
Wind plants, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not
appear to be accounted for in their output figures. At the facility in
Searsburg, Vermont, for example, it is apparently not even metered and
is completely unknown [click here].
The manufacturers of large turbines -- for example, Vestas, GE, and NEG
Micon -- do not include electricity consumption in the specifications
they provide.
Among the wind turbine functions that use electricity are the following:†
-
yaw mechanism (to keep the blade assembly perpendicular to the wind;
also to untwist the electrical cables in the tower when necessary) --
the nacelle (turbine housing) and blades together weigh 92 tons on a GE
1.5-MW turbine
- blade-pitch control (to keep the rotors spinning at a regular rate)
- lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data collection, etc.
- heating the blades -- this may require 10%-20% of the turbine's nominal (rated) power
-
heating and dehumidifying the nacelle -- according to Danish
manufacturer Vestas, "power consumption for heating and
dehumidification of the nacelle must be expected during periods with
increased humidity, low temperatures and low wind speeds"
- oil heater, pump, cooler, and filtering system in gearbox
- hydraulic brake (to lock the blades in very high wind)
-
thyristors (to graduate the connection and disconnection between
generator and grid) -- 1%-2% of the energy passing through is lost magnetizing
the stator -- the induction generators used in most large
grid-connected turbines require a "large" amount of continuous
electricity from the grid to actively power the magnetic coils around
the asynchronous "cage rotor" that encloses the generator shaft; at the
rated wind speeds, it helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the
wind starts blowing it helps start the rotor turning (see next item);
in the rated wind speeds, the stator may use power equal to 10% of the
turbine's rated capacity, in slower winds possibly much more
-
using the generator as a motor (to help the blades start to turn when
the wind speed is low or, as many suspect, to maintain the illusion
that the facility is producing electricity when it is not,‡
particularly during important site tours) -- it seems possible that the
grid-magnetized stator must work to help keep the 40-ton blade assembly
spinning, along with the gears that increase the blade rpm some 50
times for the generator, not just at cut-in (or for show in even less
wind) but at least some of the way up towards the full rated wind
speed; it may also be spinning the blades and rotor shaft to prevent
warping when there is no wind§
(One need only ask utilities to show how much less "dirty" electricity
they purchase because of wind-generated power to see that something is
amiss in the wind industry's claims. If wind worked and were not mere
window dressing, the industry would trot out some real numbers. But
they don't. One begins to suspect that they can't.)
*There is also the matter of reactive power (VAR). As wind facilities
are typically built in remote areas, they are often called upon to
provide VAR to maintain line voltage. Thus much of their production may
go to providing only this "energy-less" power.
†Much of this information comes from a Swedish graduate student
specializing in hydrogen and wind power, as posted in a Yes2Wind
discussion. Also see the Danish Wind Industry Association's guide to
the technology. The rest comes from personal correspondence with other
experts and from industry spec sheets.
‡An observer in Toronto, Ontario, points out that the blades of the
turbines installed at the Pickering nuclear plant and Exhibition Place
turn 90% of the time, even when there is barely a breeze and when the
blades are not properly pitched -- in a region acknowledged to have low
wind resource.
§'In large rotating power trains such as this, if allowed to stand
motionless for any period of time, the unit will experience "bowing" of
shafts and rotors under the tremendous weight. Therefore, frequent
rotating of the unit is necessary to prevent this. As an example, even
in port Navy ships keep their propeller shafts and turbine power trains
slowly rotating. It is referred to as "jacking the shaft" to prevent
any tendency to bow. Any bowing would throw the whole train out of
balance with potentially very serious damage when bringing the power
train back on line.
'In addition to just protecting the gear box and generator shafts and
bearings, the blades on a large wind turbine would offer a special
challenge with respect to preventing warping and bowing when not in
use. For example, on a sunny, windless day, idle wind turbine blades
would experience uneven heating from the sun, something that would
certainly cause bowing and warping. The only way to prevent this would
be to keep the blades moving to even out the sun exposure to all parts
of the blade.
'So, the point that major amounts of incoming electrical power is used
to turn the power train and blades when the wind is not blowing is very
accurate, and it is not something the operators of large wind turbines
can avoid.
'[Also, there is] the likely need for a hefty, forced-feed lubricating
system for the shaft and turbine blade assembly bearings. This would be
a major hotel load. I can't imagine passive lubrication (as for the
wheel bearings on your car) for an application like this. Maybe so, but
I would be very surprised. Assuming they have to have a forced-feed
lubrication system, given the weight on those bearings (40 tons on the
bearing for the rotor and blades alone) a very robust (energy-sucking)
lubricating oil system would be required. It would also have to include
cooling for the oil and an energy-sucking lube oil purification system
too.'
--Lawrence E. Miller, Gerrardstown, WV, an engineer with over 40 years
of professional experience with large power train machinery associated
with Navy ships."
The above section quoted from: The Energy Consumption in Wind Facilities, by Eric Rosenbloom
The motors that operate the yaw mechanism (there are three or more per
turbine) are 690V 3 phase 1.5kW or greater motors. The motor that
drives the hydraulics is a 21kW motor, which alone would only run for
50.8 hours, or 2 days (1,067,000 Watts / 21000W = 50.8 hours) based on
all of the energy represented by that 0.38% ; add in the yaw motors
and the turbine would operate for less than 2 days and we haven't even
counted the power required to run everything else!
We are actively working at trying to get real, actual electrical usage
numbers for IWT, until then all I can say is do you believe this 0.38%
claim based on the list of electrical power demands each IWT has? If 0.38%
won't even run an IWT for 2 days, how can it run one for a month?
DP
Energy: 4. When you take the CO2 it takes to build turbines and
deconstruct wind farms there is no saving on CO2.
All electricity generation
systems have a ‘carbon footprint’ and at some points during their
construction and operation carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted. There has
been some debate about how large these footprints are, especially for
low carbon technologies such as wind and nuclear. The UK Parliamentary
Office of Science and Technology produced a report (Ref POSTnote
October 2006 Number 268) which compared the life cycle CO2 emissions of
different electricity generation systems currently used in the UK and
concluded that wind turbines have one of the lowest carbon footprints
of around 5gCO2eq/kWh, compared with 500gCO2eq/kWh for gas generation,
and over 1000gCO2eq/kWh for conventional coal.
From an energy perspective the
Danish Wind Manufacturers Association produced a note on Energy Balance
(Ref Background Information Note No 16:1997) and concluded a modern
Danish 600 kW wind turbine would recover all the energy spent in its
manufacture, maintenance, and scrapping within some three months of its
commissioning. It further observed that within its 20-year design
lifetime it would supply at least 80 times the energy spent in its
manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and scrapping. A more
recent assessment undertaken by Vestas for their 3MW turbine estimates
a 6.6month energy payback for its V90 3MW on shore turbine (Life Cycle
Assessment of offshore and onshore sited wind plants based on Vestas
V90 3.0W Wind Turbines June 2006) Obviously the calculation varies
depending on the machine type and of course the local wind speed but it
gives an indication of why we suggest efficiency isn’t a very
meaningful term when applied to a free fuel supply. Efficiency is
obviously much more of a critical term when considering thermal plant
which uses coal or gas since it’s a direct measure of wasted energy.
Again, this is mostly true, but so
what? First, there is no scientific proof that human caused CO2
poses any danger to the planet or the climate. Second the
intermittency and unreliability of wind means that for every 1 kWh of
wind generation we build, we need to build at least 0.9 kWh of back up
generation to generate electricity when the wind isn't blowing.
Typically that back up generation is natural gas based because it
reacts faster to changing demands than coal or nuclear. On top of
which, when cycling coal or natural gas plants you create
inefficiencies in their operation, just like a car in heavy traffic
gets fewer miles per gallon because it accelerates and slows down
repeatedly. Depending on the studies and the nature of the
existing generation assets as well as the amount of Wind generation as
a percentage of the whole, these inefficiencies can amount to between
5% and 20% which means that not only does wind power not save much, if
any, CO2 emissions, it may actually cause them to increase. On
top of which from an economic point of view if we want 2000MW of Wind
energy we will have to build at least 1800MW of conventional or nuclear
generation. Wind generation costs two to three times (or more
depending on location) as much to build per kWh as does conventional
coal or natural gas. So we build 2000MW of wind generation,
then we build 1800MW of conventional generation (to supplement/back up
the wind power) and each kWh of power thereby costs us at least 3 to 4
times as much than if we had just built a 2000MW gas or coal
plant. On top of which we don't save any CO2 emissions, if that
even matters (though it is the only selling point these companies have)
Here are three papers which
you might find interesting:
1-
Speaking Truth to Wind Power
2- There
is no Free Lunch Except for Windfarms
3- Watts with
the Wind
One, 'There is No Free Lunch
Except for Wind Farms' deals with all of
the issues I've discussed so far and has many good references.
Herewith also are a number of links to papers on the CO2 reductions (or
lack thereof) to be expected from wind power. The interesting
thing is that they are written by people from many different countries
and they all find similar results. The Bentek study from Colorado
is particularly noteworthy because Bentek is an energy industry
company, an insider if you will, and they had access to data that is
not publicly available.
BENTEK-How-Less-Became-More
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.117.7192&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www.windaction.org/?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=1777
http://www.clepair.net/windsecret.html
IESO - Integrating Renewable Generation
You might also enjoy listening to
this.
DP Energy:
5. I've heard that wind energy doesn't really reduce pollution,
because other, fossil-fired generating units have to be kept running on
a standby basis in case the wind dies down. Is this true?
Wind energy does not
specifically require standby plant. What actually dictates the
size of this standby or so called Operating Reserve (OR) plant is the
potential loss of the largest generators on the system – typically
large nuclear generators. In Canada the IESO (that manages the grid)
usually schedules between 1,380 and 1,580 megawatts of OR at any given
time (www.ieso.ca).
Wind is of course variable and
it is true that other generating plant has to be available to the power
system's operator IESO in order to supply electricity when the wind is
not blowing but this is load following plant and the reality is this
plant already operates in this way in order to follow the general
variation in loads over the course of the day. It is quite easy to
schedule plant to follow load since the wind does not just start and
stop. Typically, wind speeds increase gradually and also taper off
gradually, in fact the fluctuations in wind plant output generally
change more slowly than do the changes in customer demand that a
utility must adjust to throughout the day.
To help address the variable
nature of wind energy the IESO is adopting a centralized wind
forecasting system, (due to begin in mid-2012), which will allow the
IESO to understand the periods of time in which greater levels of wind
generation will be available.
In response to a similar
question raised on a wind project in Scotland we wrote a paper in
conjunction with one of the Scottish Utilities (Scottish and Southern
Energy), who actually do manage plant and operate a diverse supply
portfolio of plant which dealt with this
question(Ref:AssessmentofOp&Effectiveness_March2006). Whilst
clearly there are differences between Scotland and Ontario and the
plant fuel mix the principles are the same. The main observation of the
report was that the reductions in load following plant efficiency (by
running the plant at off maximum loads) in order to accommodate wind
variability was not significant.
Wind doesn't specifically require Standby or Operating Reserve, it
specifically requires backup power. It needs power to energize it
generators and there must be a source of power to fill in for wind
power as the wind fluctuates, as DP Energy admits. However this
load following plant now has to compensate not only for demand
fluctuations, but also for wind fluctuations and typically wind power
output drops as daily demand rises. There are many studies, done
in many different countries, by different people and organizations (5 are cited above),
which all conclude that Wind Power doesn't reduce CO2 emissions at all
and may even increase them. The scientific consensus is obvious, Wind Power doesn't reduce CO2 emissions
at all and may even increase them.
" Operating Reserve:
Ontario’s IESO manages an operating reserve (OR) market, which is
essential to maintaining the reliability of Ontario’s electricity
system by ensuring that there is always enough supply to meet the
demand for electricity. "
So Operating Reserve is specifically to balance supply to demand, it
can also be called upon in the event of the loss of a base load
generator. The operating reserve typically
consists of 270MW of spinning reserve (plants that are "idling" and
ready to supply power) plus 1080MW of 10 minute reserve (plants that
can be started up and supply power within 10 minutes) and 203MW of 30
minute reserve (plants that can be started up and supply power within
30 minutes). When Wind Power is only a small percentage of the grid,
the backup power required by Wind's variability and unpredictability
can be drawn from the 10 Minute spinning reserve, or excess production,
without seriously affecting the reliability of the electrical grid.
For example, on March 30, 2011 between midnight and 3:00 PM, wind
supplied and average of 65.13MW per hour (5.2% of an
installed capacity of 1250MW) and varied by 6MW to 24MW from hour to
hour. The 10 minute spinning reserve would provide the power wind
wasn't and the spinning reserve would then be reduced from 270MW to
between 246MW and 264MW. No problem, except that the 10 minute
spinning reserve is now accelerating and decelerating, which introduces
some inefficiency and causes it to produce more CO2 emissions and
require more maintenance than normal (see the references in the
preceding section). However on a day like March 24, 2011,
the wind power dropped 213MW in the space of 2 hours - now the 10
minute spinning reserve is down to 57MW. Unless of course
Ontario was producing between 3052MW and 5796MW more power than needed,
as it was... Which begs the question: Why do we need
expensive and environmentally damaging Industrial Wind Turbines in the
first place? As we saw above, the power from them is just
exported for less than we paid to generate it.
Currently Wind Power represents about 2% of Ontario's generating
capacity. However as the percentage of Wind Power increases on the grid
and surplus production drops as a result of economic recovery and
growth in demand, the amount of spinning reserve required to backup
Wind Power will increase. By Regulation, the IESO can only allow
the 10 minute spinning reserve to drop below 270MW for short periods of
time. As the percentage of Wind Power on the grid increases
Ontario will be obliged to build new gas-fired or nuclear generating
stations to back up Wind. So given how little power Wind
produces, why not just build the gas plant or nuclear plant and save
ourselves the cost of the Industrial Wind Turbines?
Wind power can vary quite a bit from minute to minute and hour to hour
and the way its speed
changes can
be quite abrupt at times as shown in the graphs on page 35 and 43 of
Bentek's report (cited above). Here in Ontario it is not
uncommmon for Wind Power to rise or drop unpredictably by 100MW or more
within an hour, whereas demand fluctuates more slowly and, more
importantly, predictably. Anyone living off the grid with a
small wind turbine can attest to that fact. Whether or not the
fluctuations in Wind Power occur more gradually than the changes in
demand is not the point. Wind Power supplies most of its power during
off-peak times and least of its power during peak hours. The
point is that Wind Power fluctuates inversely with demand and power
must be supplied from somewhere when wind doesn't. What that
means is that Wind Power is a total waste of money, we are building
twice the needed capacity at three times the cost.
POWER
DP Energy:
1. Wind will not produce enough power to shut down our coal plants
Whether a fossil fuel plant
will be closed by more wind generation would depend on the specific
grid conditions and the balance of other plant on the system. Like most
networks the Ontario grid system has been designed around large
generators feeding the system and transporting power from Generator to
Consumer through a network of progressively reducing voltage. As more
wind and other renewable generation is introduced usually at lower
voltages within the distribution system and other plant reaches the end
of its life the system and its operation is likely to change and that
will involve readjusting the fuel mix and closing down plant but it
isn’t going to happen overnight. However it is worth noting that
Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan published by the OPA (Ref Long Term
Plan)has a target for 0% generation from coal by 2030. There will,
however, always be a need for a mixed fuel grid system, with a variety
of plant providing Operating Reserve and Load Following Capacity.
It’s obvious that without storage one cannot have just a wind only grid
system.
In the short term, however,
more wind generation does enables less coal or gas to be burnt since
load following plant can be run at reduced loads when the resource is
available. This can generally be done without major losses in
efficiency (Ref: AssessmentofOp&Effectiveness_March2006). There are
therefore real savings in CO2 emissions.
The first paragraph of
generalizations is true enough, however not a single coal fired power
plant in Germany or Denmark, the two countries with the most installed
Wind Power capacity, have been shut down as a result of Wind Power.
Furthermore, in Ontario, based on the IESO's data, Wind Power doesn't displace any coal generated power.
In other words there is no CO2 savings because the plants aren't being
run at reduced loads even when Wind Power is available.
Furthermore the Engineering and Scientific consensus, based on numerous
reports by Industry experts and lay Engineers, is that THERE ARE NO CO2
SAVINGS to be had from Wind Power. The report cited by DP Energy,
above, was written by an employee of DP Energy and a manager from a
Scottish Utility, neither of whom we know to be Engineers and neither
of which are impartial. I would prefer to believe impartial
Scientists and Engineers when it comes to technical analysis like this.
It is worth reading this excellent article on the subject by Michael
Trebilcock - "Wind power is a complete disaster"
This commentary was first published in the Financial Post on April 9,
2009.
There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a
significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is
instructive. Denmark, the world's most wind-intensive nation, with more
than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close
a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated
electricity to cover wind power's unpredictability, and pollution and
carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating
company ELSAM (one of Denmark's largest energy utilities) tells us that
"wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions." The German
experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that "Germany's CO2
emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram," and additional
coal-and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable
delivery.
Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually
increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the
carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its
intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental
ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on bird life and
other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and view sheds.
To read the full article click here
DP Energy: 2. Why are you using
the wilderness of the Lake Superior coast line to
provide power to Southern Ontario? The impact of needless transmission
lines and other infrastructure would be much less is these
installations were put in Southern Ontario where the demand is.
There are a number of parts to
this question:
Wilderness can be defined in a
number of different ways but usually
includes terms describing it as where the effects of man are not
apparent. However, whilst the Bow Lake site certainly has a remote feel
to it both the site and the local area show significant impacts of
human presence. The site is actively managed by a forestry company for
selective timber felling and is serviced by a number of roads to
facilitate extraction. Immediately to the north the Montreal River has
a long history of renewable generation dating back to 1938. Gartshore
Dam and Generating Station (23MW) lies 2km to the north west and is
only one of 4 hydro power stations located along its length with the
Mackay Station (62MW) upstream, and the Hoggs (19MW) and Andrews
Stations (47MW) downstream. These stations are linked by service roads
and the two 115kV overhead lines which run east – west along the river
and onto the main Mackay substation and 230kV Transmission system.
Immediately to the west of the site is a licenced aggregate pit, and
further west at the junction with Highway 17 lies a working Ontario MNR
Dump.
In respect of transmission
lines very little infrastructure will be
required to connect the Bow Lake Project to the electricity grid. It
was for this reason Bow Lake was one of the projects awarded a Feed In
Tariff contract rather than being placed on the Economic Connection
Test list (Ref: http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca). The Bow Lake wind
farm will connect directly to the two existing 115kV transmission lines
which service the Montreal River Dams.
In an ideal world generation
would be at the point of demand but that
is not always practical or desirable and power stations of all forms
need to be where the resource is (e.g. coal mine, river, windy land
etc), or where the infrastructure is in place to support them (e.g.
rail head or shipping berth for example). Wind farms need large areas
because they are capturing a low density resource and whilst there
obviously are good wind farm locations in Southern Ontario there are
also good locations in Northern Ontario where good resource exists and
plenty of area to develop significant projects. Bow Lake is
particularly fortunate in that it has both resource and existing grid
infrastructure.
It
is not a question of 'wilderness' it is a question of habitat
destruction and fragmentation and the consequent loss of
biodiversity. As anyone from the north knows, selective logging
does not fragment habitat the way wind stations do and once the loggers
leave the area the forest regrows and reclaims the logging roads.
There are no thousand ton steel and cement constructions pulsing
infra sound, or roads and clearings that are kept open by chemical and
mechanical methods. There are no IWT killing birds and bats, many
of which are migratory species and protected under the Endangered
Species Act. The only blessing, as far as this project is
concerned, is that major new transmission lines won't have to be cut
through the forest.
The impact on the view shed,
tourism and the environment does not justify the meager amount of
energy we will get from this project. It is a very poor
investment of public money in the form of guaranteed feed-in-tariffs.
DP Energy:
3. Ontario does not need the power. It has too much power even to
export. Ontario does not need the power, they can get it from Quebec.
The Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan published by the OPA (Ref Long Term Plan)
actually projects a sizeable increased requirement for generation of
48,000MW by 2030 (compared with the projected 36,975MW in 2010). Grid
systems rarely operate in isolation and it is common for them to be
interconnected across borders to facilitate power transfer back and
forth. This significantly aids system reliability since there is a
larger pool of reserve generation available. However, it is unlikely
any one Province/State or Country would want to be solely dependent on
any other purely from a perspective of security of supply. This
is one of the benefits of resources such as wind and hydro which are
not vulnerable to fuel supply or fuel cost variations.
The OPA's projections, 29 years
into the future, is pure guesswork. They couldn't even predict
the downturn in demand from 2007 to 2008! How is anyone going to
predict anything 29 years into the future? If we are going to
daydream, why not consider that by then we will have clean, affordable
non-polluting cold fusion (https://lasers.llnl.gov/) Furthermore
the OPA's plan to meet our increased energy needs aren't really based
on wind power, they are based on nuclear, hydro and gas
generation. Yes there is a plan to build more IWT, but that is
merely ongoing corporate welfare, a handout from the Government to its
friends, which the people of Ontario will pay for through electricity
rates. In any case, Wind Power Stations only take 2 to 4 years to
build, so if indeed our requirements for energy increase and exceed our
present unused generating capacity, it is time enough to build them in
the future. There is no need to build IWT today (which have a 20
year life expectancy) just because we might need power in 29 years
time...
Safety
DP Energy: 1. What about turbines throwing ice or turbine blades?
Ice can build up on wind
turbine blades or on the nacelle, as it does on any structure which is
exposed to the elements, when appropriate conditions exist. When
stationary, a turbine is no more likely to suffer from ice accretion
than any large stationary structure such as a buildings, trees or
power lines and like such structures, this accreted ice will eventually
be released and fall directly to the ground. However, when operating,
ice can also accrete on the rotor blades and observations suggest that
higher ice accretion rates occur due to the relative velocity of the
rotor blades.
Usually icing of the blades is
accompanied by icing of the turbine wind sensors and this would inhibit
the turbines from starting or shut them down if they were running.
Similarly sensors also detect rotor imbalance and would shut a machine
down if the imbalance became too great. There are scenarios where ice
throw can occur and it is recognized that ice fragments which detach
from the rotor blades can be thrown significant distances from the wind
turbine. The theoretical maximum distance of potential ice throw for
the proposed Bow Lake turbines is around 300metres well within the
immediate area of the turbines and their access roads.
Any fragments which are thrown
will land directly below the wind turbine, in the plane of the rotor or
downwind. A study of icing throw in the Swiss Alps (Ref: Wind Turbine Studies in the Swiss Alps)
based on 600kW Enercon machines recorded that almost 40% occurred
within 20metres (blade radius), with a maximum throwing distance of
92metres well below the theoretical maximum of 135metres for that
machine.
It is fairly easy to predict
when icing events are likely to occur and therefore to initiate
precautionary measures by posting warning signs and issuing advisories
for anybody likely to be in the close vicinity of the turbines. It is
also easy to protect service crew actually accessing the machines by
utilizing remote shut down and yawing (by modem).
In respect of blade throws
these were common in the industry's early years, but are almost unheard
of today on modern utility scale machines because of better turbine
design and engineering and the implementation of well defined turbine
design and manufacture standards. In reality most of the dramatic
failures that have happened through blade overspeeds for example have
resulted from human error during commissioning. Wind turbines are
unfortunately no different in this than most other pieces of technology.
Lighting strikes and blade
damage can and do occur and we have had a number of these on our own
wind farms in Ireland but these do not result in the loss of blades or
even blade fragments just the localized splitting of the blades edges,
loss of power and sometimes temporarily increased noise until the
machine is shut down and repaired.
Unlike the Nuclear Industry, there
is no requirement for Wind Stations to report mechanical failures or
accidents unless they endanger or injure workers. Therefore it is
extremely difficult to verify the claims made by Wind Station
Operators, however Caithness Windfarm Information Forum 2010
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm reports on IWT
accidents. There were 344 accidents at Wind Stations around the
world between 2008 and 2010. Nineteen of these accidents resulted
in human fatalities, of which 40.4% involved the general public, not
employees. There were 31 accidents which injured humans, 20.3% of
which involved members of the public. There were 63 incidents of
blade failure. Pieces of blade are documented as traveling over 1300
meters. In Germany, blade pieces have gone through the roofs and
walls of nearby buildings. This is why CWIF believe that there should
be a minimum distance of at least 2km between turbines and occupied
housing - in line with other European countries - in order to
adequately address public safety and other issues including noise and
shadow flicker. There were 40 turbine fires in those three years.
The biggest problem with turbine fires is that, because of the turbine
height, the fire brigade can do little but watch it burn itself out.
While this may be acceptable in reasonably still conditions, in a storm
it means burning debris being scattered over a wide area, with obvious
consequences. In dry weather there is obviously a wider-area fire risk,
especially for those constructed in or close to forest areas and/or
close to housing. Two fire accidents have badly burned wind industry
workers. Here in the North, during the fire season, this could be
disastrous.
In their DRAFT Fire Prevention and Preparedness Plan DP Energy has stated “Firesmart construction will not be used at the
Bow Lake wind farm site as the wind turbine structures are not
flammable or at significant risk of ignition.”
At two recent Open Houses held in
Goulais and Sault Ste Marie, DP Energy stated that their turbines do
not have fire suppression equipment installed and that, in their
opinion, it is not needed inasmuch as turbines left to burn themselves
out will not start forest fires. Given that there is recorded
evidence of pieces of burning blade being carried many hundred meters
by the wind and flaming oil running down the turbine support column,
this claim seems unreasonably optimistic in a situation where the
nearest first responders are a volunteer fire department which will
take at least 1 hour to get on site. It would seem to some of us
in Montreal River that a reasonable person should take such precautions
as were required to ensure that any danger posed to the community by
their equipment was mitigated to the greatest extent possible.
Given the obvious fact that they
do catch fire and the danger to the forest and inhabitants of the area
it demonstrates a singular lack of social responsibility by this Irish
company that has no understanding of conditions here in the North and
cannot be held financially responsible for any damages their turbines
will cause.
Impacts on Tourism, Lake Superior Park and Highway 17 Corridor
DP Energy: 1. What about Cumulative Impacts and the other developments in the area?
A number of maps have been
circulated by various opposition groups suggesting there might be
1,000MW of wind projects comprising up to 640 wind turbines between
Sault Ste Marie and the Lake Superior Park.
How likely is this to become a reality?
Prince of course is already
built (189MW), but the reality is that of these ‘1000MW of projects’
only Bow Lake (60MW) and Goulais Phase 1 (25MW) have obtained Feed in
Tariff (FIT) contracts from the OPA http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca.
Without a FIT contract and grid connection none of the other projects
can proceed.
Nimaasing (200MW) is on the
Economic Connection Test list as is the second phase of Goulais (15MW)
and it is uncertain whether they will proceed in the future or at all.
Of the others the Offshore
Projects have all been shelved although in reality it is worth noting
that it was extremely unlikely they would have been able to proceed
anyway once the 5km offshore constraint on siting had been applied
since this would have pushed them into deep water and made the
construction costs prohibitive.
Cumulative impacts (including
visual/avian etc) are normally assessed on a first past the post basis.
In other words a second wind farm which applies for permits needs to
take into consideration any project that precedes it, and similarly a
third wind farm needs to consider the previous two. In this way the
degree of impact is assessed progressively until at some point the
impact is considered too significant and permits will be refused. That
is standard practice in most jurisdictions. For Bow Lake it is almost
impossible (nor very meaningful) for us to assess cumulative impacts of
any wind farm which hasn’t entered permitting, been designed or which
is little more than a speculative wind resource monitor application or
site.
Bow Lake is a significant
distance from the only permitted and built Prince Wind Farm and we
wouldn’t normally look at cumulative effects at these distances because
they are so large.
It is true that without a FIT
contract or grid connection no project can proceed. However prior
to receiving their FIT contract or passing the ECT, the same could be
said of the Bow Lake projects. The Nimaasing's project importance
is ranked 23rd out of 55 in the region by the OPA. The Goulais
project is ranked behind it, but given the Ontario Government's
mandated renewable energy targets there can be little doubt these
projects will move ahead and be developed. Why else would Gilead
Power be spending money on its Mica Bay project, erecting two
metereological towers and commencing the Environmental Assessment?
As to the cumuilative impact, we
don't expect DP Energy to look at cumulative effects, that
responsability rightfully lies with the MNR & MOE, neither of which
will conduct substantive review of cumulative impacts so long as the
Ontario Government mandates that they expedite and streamline the
approvals process for Industrial Wind Stations. The MNR already
approves projects which it knows will kill thousands of migratory birds
and bats every year and issues permits to harass, kill and destroy
habitat of endangered and protected species to Industrial Wind
Developers.
There is no independant, objective evaluation of the cumulative impact
of thousands of IWT being built in North America, all of which impact
migration routes.
DP Energy: 2. What would the
visual impacts be upon Lake Superior Provincial Park? The Highway 17
corridor, the Algoma Railway Line and the Lake Superior Shoreline?
How someone feels about the
visual impacts of a wind farm is very subjective and often depends on
what that persons view is of wind turbines in general. If one were of
the opinion that wind turbines do not make any useful contribution to
CO2 mitigation, you might form a different opinion than if you
believed that they genuinely did make a difference. So in response to
these questions rather than making pronounced statements about what our
opinion of impacts are we have elected to provide the information with
visibility maps and photo representations to let people make up their
own minds.
In terms of the siting of the
proposal the Bow Lake turbines are set back around 6km from the Lake
Superior Coast in order to reduce their direct impact on the coast
whilst at the same time being close enough to benefit from the winds
coming off the lake.
The Zone of Theoretical
Visibility (ZTV) or Viewshed maps which show where turbines may or may
not be visible from are posted on the webpage
www.dpenergy.com/bowlake/bowlakeztv.htm. These ZTV maps are theoretical
in that they are just based on land form and don’t take into account
any forestry or buildings etc which obviously would reduce the actual
visibility from the ground significantly.
The ZTVs have been calculated
out to a distance of around 30km but in reality turbines appear very
small at this distance even if they are visible at all, and blades are
generally only visible up to around 10km and then only in conditions of
good visibility. A good way to test this for your self would be to view
an existing wind farm such as Prince at varying distances. (You should
bear in mind though that the Prince turbines are somewhat smaller than
those at Bow Lake (150m) but of course in reality no utility scale
machine can be described as small and these are all big machines).
What the maps show is limited
visibility on the coastline, on the Highway 17 corridor and very
restricted locations of potential visibility on the Algoma Railway.
Views from within the Superior Park are constrained by topography
(particularly in respect of the Agawa Canyon for obvious reasons) and
vegetation. There will of course be views from open ground particularly
at high level on some of the Mountain Trails but these are mostly
mitigated by distance.
The ZTV maps are also used to
identify where this visibility might coincide with specific areas of
interest, such as defined viewpoints, key transit routes, scenic areas,
tourist spots etc and we have already visited a number of these
locations to ground truth the visibility compared to the bare earth
visibility and to take photographs. Photomontages or photo
representations illustrating the likely appearance of the turbines from
these locations are then produced from these photographs in order to
give a better sense of what the change to the view might be.
A number of the viewpoint
locations were selected for production of photomontages and lie within
the Lake Superior Park and along the lake edge. These images have been
also reproduced on the web page www.dpenergy.com/bowlake/bowlakepm.htm
and will also be displayed at the Public Open Houses.
(We will continue to add to
this list over the course of the spring and summer and are open to
suggestions of other possible viewpoint locations for consideration).
&
DP Energy: 3. Does wind farming affect tourism? How will it affect local tourism in the Algoma Region?
Concerns over adverse effects
on tourism are often voiced but in fact there is no evidence to suggest
this is remotely correct. The evidence in fact suggests that most
people approve of wind farms and would actually be interested in
visiting one if they were open to the public.
The UK's first commercial wind
farm at Delabole received 350,000 visitors in its first ten years of
operation. Also in the UK since opening in 2003 over 60,000 people have
climbed the steps to the viewing platform of the Swaffham turbine in
Norfolk (Ref: Sustainable Development Commission UK).
A MORI poll in Scotland (Ref
Tourist Attitudes towards Wind Farms) concluded based on its survey of
people 83% of whom said that they were attracted to the area by its
beautiful scenery and views that 80% of tourists would be either very
or fairly interested in visiting a wind farm visitor centre, and 91%
felt the presence of the wind farms either had no effect (43% equal
positive and negative) or a positive effect (43%).
A comprehensive Report for
Scottish Government in 2008 (Ref: The economic impacts of Wind Farms on
Scottish tourism) noted that 92% of visitors stated that scenery was
important in their choice of Scotland as holiday destination. The study
concluded that 75% of people surveyed were positive or neutral and only
10% strongly negative, and that for those people having seen a wind
farm or photomontages 93-99% suggested they would return (Some of these
noted that the experience actually increased the likelihood of
returning).
There are a number of other
tourism surveys that demonstrate similar results and the levels of
support for wind farms but obviously the key question in relation to
the Bow Lake and tourism is ‘What is the likely impact on the Algoma
Region?’ In order to consider the possible impacts we have
reviewed the local tourism literature available from various sources
and visited many of these locations to assess visibility and where
appropriate produced photo representations or photomontages. A number
of these images are reproduced on the webpage and consider both likely
visibility from the viewpoints and the key view directions. It is
obviously difficult to prove there will or will not be an effect
until the effect has happened. However, based on the Scottish
experience where landscape and scenery are also important to visitors
it seems likely that effects would be similar and not significant.
Conveniently
we have Prince Wind Farm as an example of the ability of IWT to blight
the landscape of our watershed for miles around. The IWT of
Prince are clearly visible across Batchawana Bay at a distance of 30km.
We are keenly aware of the gross defficiencies of DP's misty,
foggy, cloudy Photomomtages which do not follow Scottish Natural
Heritage (SNH) best practices. SNH admits that turbines of that
size (which is actually smaller than those proposed for Bow Lake) would
be clearly visible at a distance of 30km and that photomontages have a
tendency to reduce the visual impacts. There should also consideration
of the context in considering the degree of intrusiveness.
"The Economic Impacts of Wind
Farms On Scottish Tourism" misinterpreted by DP as carte blanche to
destroy the wilderness allure of this area actually states:
“There is often strong hostility to developments at the planning stage on the grounds of the scenic impact and the perceived knock on effect on tourism. However developments in the most sensitive locations do not appear to have been given approval so that where negative impacts on tourism might have been a real outcome there is, in practice, little evidence of a negative effect.” p.4
This is critical as transposed to
the Ontario context where the most sensitive locations are NOT being
seen to be protected and where the "knock on" effect can easily send
tourists not just out of the area but out of the country. It
should be noted as well that the SNH survey indicated that there WOULD
BE a negative impact on tourism and it was only reassuring to tourism
in that the effect AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL would be minor. There are also
criticisms to be made of the survey size and ability to extrapolate
from confusion of issues however it is clear that the misuse of this
document by DP merely serves to hide the true harm to be done here.
Planning recommendations made in the Report include:
… the impacts in some
local areas are important enough to warrant specific consideration by
planning authorities. These should include the following:
Impact on local economy and community development
Landscape character and visual amenity
The repeated views of industrial machines in convoluted terrain will
give the impression of multiple developments littering the landscape
and the boating public will gaze upon a shore pocked by whirling
flashing beacons of the urban blight they sought to escape afloat on a
pristine inland sea.
This too is considered by the SNH:
"It
is the basic intrusion into the landscape that generates the
loss...those tourists who do find wind turbines an objectionable
presence are most likely simply to move to another area in
Scotland. To ensure substitution opportunities it is important
that areas are retained where turbine development is limited
to supplying local needs in small remote communities, and indeed
the wilderness nature of these areas
publicised.” P.16 THIS IS JUST SUCH AN AREA!
Wilderness Scotland, (the 2005
Scottish Tourism Business of the Year), conducted a survey among
clients in July 2005. This showed that 91% would not return to the
Highlands if wind farms are significantly developed. Over 1600 people
responded, from 21 different countries, illustrating the depth of
feeling on this issue around the world. A poll was made in 2006 at
the Monfragüe National Park in Spain. Only about 15% of tourists said
windfarms would not affect their decisions when selecting a
destination. 60% said they would NOT visit an area that had windfarms.
The rest said they would only under certain conditions.
There are areas now which feel a sort of visual pollution tax should be levied on wind farms:
"Spain’s
autonomous region of Castile-La Mancha, currently with over 3.7GW
online, has voted to clamp a visual impact levy on all wind plants
above 5MW.The levy is set at 1.6% of plant generation income for
existing and new capacity. The regional government’s vice president,
María Luisa Araújo, expects the levy to net €15 million annually and
for it to be in force before 2012. South central Castile-La Mancha
is the second region to establish such a tax. Galicia, in the north,
enforced a “landscape impact” levy in 2009",
(Credit: Michael McGovern, www.windpowermonthly.com) , while
the Tirol region of Italy, preferring the natural beauty of its
mountains, decided to become a turbine free zone.
Justifying the violation of the
wilderness ethos here based on the precedent of the existing hydro
development and selective logging is egregious in its comparison of
discrete low profile reservoir and dams set in the woodland context of
beaver damned ponds and lakes, to noisy obtrusive, flashing blinking
industrial machinery ruinous to views for a 30km radius, rearing above
forested hills which reliably attract fall foliage tourists every year.
Having spent considerable time last fall at a scenic lookout on
Lake Superior observing the shock and horror of tourists
confronted with the news of the proposed industrialization of Superior
and her watershed I don't need some little poll to tell me that they
too would be offended to consider Lake Superior in the same tourism
context as the world's largest slate quarry. DP Energy's quoting
tourism numbers for Delabole in the UK was not just an insult to this
area and our intelligence, it was yet more disinformation. Since
the novelty of the first wind farm in the UK did not wear off soon
enough to save the squandering of £5m on a visitors centre which
had to close after three years, Delabole stands as an example of how
the wind industry sells itself to the gullible and greedy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/3701894.stm
Access
DP Energy: 1. Roads: Will existing roads still be accessible to people with camps in the area and the general public?
The majority of the Bow Lake
proposal is on Crown Land and access provisions have already been
discussed with the MNR at some length. The situation is clear in that
following wind farm construction, all of the existing multipurpose road
(such as Mile 67, Rebecca’s or the Twin Lake Roads) must remain open to
other users just as they are currently. In fact since we will need to
maintain 24/7 and 365 days access to the wind turbines in case we need
to do emergency repairs or bring in replacement equipment access is
likely to be significantly improved over the winter and thaw periods.
There may need to be some temporary restrictions on the roads for
safety reasons during construction which would be similar to
restrictions for road repairs or felling and extraction of timber. Our
intention would be to minimize these impacts and wherever possible find
alternatives routes to avoid inconveniencing other users as far as
possible.
In respect of the new roads
within the wind farm footprint this still needs some further clarity
and should be resolved shortly. However, we will be building new tracks
to access each of the turbines bases and crane pads and it is probable
these will be gated where they join the existing multipurpose roads. A
significant proportion of these new tracks will incorporate the inter
turbine electrical cabling either within or alongside the track. The
rationale for gating is multifold - to protect the vehicle running
surface, to ensure that the cable electrical circuits are not damaged,
and also to ensure that improved access does not result in harm to the
local wildlife (the Moose population in particular) due to increased
hunting pressure.
This is as it should be, access to
the Wind Generating Station roads should be restricted in the
interests of public safety, however all existing roads should remain
open and accessible to citizens of Ontario
DP Energy: 2. Will there be restrictions imposed on Access to Crown Land or fishing lakes on the area?
There will be no restrictions
on access to the existing multipurpose roads or the Crown Lands outside
the immediate vicinity of wind turbines. Nor will there be restrictions
to any of the regions fishing lakes.
This is as it should be.
Health
DP Energy: 1. Wind farms make you ill.
Given some of the information
currently doing the rounds on the internet you could easily be forgiven
for thinking there was a growing body of medical evidence and expert
medical opinion supporting the case that wind farms do indeed make
people ill. Or at the very least there was enough concern within the
profession that a moratorium should be called until any uncertainty was
resolved. But is there any reality to the claims?
Dr. Nina Pierpont identified,
defined and named a ‘clinical phenomenon’ Wind Turbine Syndrome. She
describes the symptoms of this syndrome (Ref: Testimony NY legislature
Committee 2006) as including:
1) Sleep problems: noise or physical sensations of pulsation or pressure make it hard to go to
sleep and cause frequent awakening.
2) Headaches which are increased in frequency or severity.
3) Dizziness, unsteadiness, and nausea.
4) Exhaustion, anxiety, anger, irritability, and depression.
5) Problems with concentration and learning.
6) Tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
She and others describe various possible mechanism resulting from Low Frequency Noise that could cause these symptoms.
What do the various health bodies have to say about health issues?
The Chief Medical Officer of
Health (CMOH) (Ref CMOH May 2010 Report) stated that “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”.
Chatham-Kent’s Acting Medical
Officer of Health, Dr. David Colby, (Ref: The Health Impact of Wind
Turbines: June 2008) “In summary, as long as the Ministry of
Environment Guidelines for location criteria of wind farms are
followed, it is my opinion that there will be negligible adverse health
impacts on Chatham-Kent citizens. Although opposition to wind farms on
aesthetic grounds is a legitimate point of view, opposition to wind
farms on the basis of potential adverse health consequences is not
justified by the evidence.”
Perhaps the best that can be
said for Dr Pierpoints theory is that “it is physically and
biologically plausible that low frequency noise generated by wind
turbines can affect people” (Ref: National Health Service Knowledge
Service - Question Page). The note also went on to say “the study was
weak and no firm conclusions could be drawn”.
The reality is that there is no
evidence to support any of the claims and the best that can be said of
these apparently clear causal mechanisms was they are “plausible”. But
this is not evidence. In her evidence to The NY Legislature (Ref:
Testimony NY legislature Committee 2006) Dr Pierpoint also appears to
have speculative views on other matters relating to low frequency noise
and prion or mad cow disease. The full quote of the paragraph from her
evidence is repeated without comment:
“I get a lot of slander and
abuse from the wind salesmen. Their favorites are saying that my
abundantly referenced and footnoted articles, like the one before you
(note: a separate handout), have “no evidence,” or that I think wind
turbines cause mad cow disease. The latter smear came from a town
meeting in
Ellenburg, NY, in October 2004,
when I presented information culled from the medical literature on
possible effects of low frequency noise. This included a paper out of
the UK linking low frequency sound to prion diseases by a complex and
highly speculative mechanism. I was very clear how speculative it was,
but apparently the concept of something being speculative was over
their heads, including over the heads of wind salesmen in the room”.
The Global Wind Energy Council
gives the total installed wind energy capacity (2010) as 194 GW. Even
if that were solely made up of modern larger turbines the size of those
proposed at Bow Lake that would equate to around 85,000 turbines.
Whilst it would a fair observation to say that many of these are in
relatively remote areas away from people, many are not and if there
were serious impacts on public health would they not have materialized
long ago and in significant numbers?
The quote of Dr. David Colby
described above is perhaps worth repeating: “Although opposition to
wind farms on aesthetic grounds is a legitimate point of view,
opposition to wind farms on the basis of potential adverse health
consequences is not justified by the evidence”. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with saying one does not like the look of turbines it
doesn’t need to be justified by creating other speculative issues.
Does this remind anyone of the Tobacco Industry a few years ago?
Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's Chief
Medical Officer of Health and the author of one report cited above,
never even interviewed or examined any of the people affected by Wind
Turbine Syndrome! So here we have a doctor diagnosing disease
long distance without even talking to or examining the patients.
More to the point all she did was a literature review of selected
publications, the same kind of tactic used by the Tobacco Industry 20
years ago. Dr. King has no training or expertise in
epidemiology. Her report has been criticized and dismissed as
woefully flawed and inadequate by experts in the field such as Dr. Carl
V. Phillips and a number of doctors and medical experts whose
criticisms can be found at windvigilance.com. Dr. King even
ignored the findings and opinion of the World Health Organization, for
which she used to work, in her 'research'. The World Health
Organization acknowledges the relationship between annoyance and other
health effects and recognizes noise as an “environmental health hazard”
Chatham Kent's Acting Medical
Officer of Health is even less qualified to conduct an epidemiological
study and Dr. Colby was reprimanded by the College of Physicians and
Surgeons who stated: "Dr. Colby's expertise is in medical microbiology
and infectious diseases, an area quite distinct form audiology or other
fields related to the physical impact of wind turbines on human
health. Thus the committee wishes to remind Dr. Colby, going
forward, of the importance of fully disclosing the extent of his
qualifications in a field in which he has been retained as an
"expert”.” This does not seem to worry the proponents of Wind
Energy who quote him repeatedly. The fact that noise studies are
misinterpreted just as DP misused the SNH reports is disturbing, and
most telling of all, people who abandon their homes are ignored or
mocked...., a sufficient reasons to doubt both the honesty and humanity
of the players in the Green Energy game. People don't abandon
their homes because they don't like the look of something or are merely
annoyed by it!
The medical profession didn't know what caused SARS or Sick Building
Syndrome or Legionaire's Disease either when they first appeared, but
research eventually discovered the causes of these diseases and ongoing
research will do the same for Wind Turbine Syndrome. To claim
that there is no evidence is merely saying that the research is still
in progress.
The facts are that some people do suffer health effects,
physiologically evident and measureable health effects, not
psychosomatic ones as the Wind Developers suggest.
Please visit The Society for Wind Vigilance for more information on the research into the health effects of IWT.
You can download a PDF of John Harrison's response to the CMOH's report as well as Carl V. Phillips excellent Analysis of the Epidemiology and Related Evidence on the Health Effects of Wind Turbines on Local Residents by clicking on the foregoing links. You can find more articles on Wind Turbine Syndrome here
Noise, Low Frequency and Infrasound
DP Energy: 1. Are wind turbines noisy?
Noisy no, but yes they make
noise. All moving mechanical equipment or aerodynamic surfaces produce
noise because no energy conversion is 100% efficient. The same is as
true for trees swaying in the breeze, or a yacht making way under sail
as it is for a wind turbine.
Wind turbines produce noise as
a function of their rotating machinery, and the translation of the
input energy from a low speed rotor through to high speed shaft and
ultimately conversion of that mechanical energy to electrical energy in
the generator. Further noise may be generated by the step up
transformer converting the low voltage energy into higher voltages,
firstly around the site and then at export. Typically the electrical
noise is largely inaudible and disregarded and only the mechanical
noise is relevant, in particular mechanical noise from the gearbox.
Modern turbines are much better acoustically damped than those of early
machines and gearbox noise is rarely an issue today.
Wind turbines also produce
aerodynamic noise as a result of the blades movement through the air.
This noise comes from the leading edge, and trailing edge of the blade
and most importantly from the flow around the blade tips where relative
velocities are highest. Blade tip speed is a function of the turbine
rotor circumference and the rotational speed of the rotor and is a
critical design parameter in designing quiet wind turbines. Aerodynamic
noise on a modern up wind rotor turbine where the rotor rotates on the
wind ward side of the tower can be likened to a ‘swishing’ noise.
So are they noisy?
It is possible to stand
underneath a turbine and hold a normal conversation without having to
raise your voice. Obviously the further away one is the lower the noise
levels and that’s why there are strict guidelines on wind turbines,
setbacks and noise emissions to ensure the protection of residential
amenity.
Noise is one of the topics it’s
always been very difficult to describe successfully and although it’s
comparatively easy to quote the noise decibel levels they tend not to
be very meaningful to most people. Visualizations such as the one above
are helpful but by far the best way to get a feeling for noise levels
and experience the noise (or lack of it) is to visit a wind farm and
see for yourself. Stand close to the machine and then stand 0.5 or 1km
away upwind and downwind and see what you think.
DP Energy: 2. Do wind turbines produce low frequency noise and infrasound?
What is Low Frequency Noise? and Infrasound?
For a healthy young adult the
range of hearing extends from a frequency of approximately 20Hz to
20,000Hz. Low frequency noise (LFN) lies at the bottom of this range
and whilst not clearly defined it is generally taken to mean noise
below a frequency of 150 Hz whilst noise at frequencies below about 20
Hz is generally referred to as infrasound.
The noise from a wind turbine
contains energy spread across the audible frequency range and will also
have some energy in the low frequency and infrasound range (albeit at
low levels). This is not unusual and there are many sources of these
frequencies present in any ambient background and it can be produced by
variety of man-made sources, including machinery and transport and
natural sources such as the sea, wind and thunder.
Infrasound? or Amplitude Modulation?
It is important not to mistake the audible characteristics of a wind farm which can be perceived, with infrasound.
The noise produced by air
interacting with the turbine blades tends to be broadband noise, but is
amplitude modulated at the blade pass frequency (the number of blades
times the revolution rate), resulting in a characteristic ‘swoosh’. The
results from a spectrograph measuring this ‘swoosh’ near a typical
Vestas 2MW V80 wind turbine illustrates an amplitude modulation
frequency of about 0.8 Hz (Ref HGC Report on Infrasound), but this is
not infrasound it is simply the overall level of the broadband audible
noise (containing a wide range of frequencies) that rises and falls at
a low frequency rate.
It is reasonable to observe
that the audible ‘swoosh’ and amplitude modulation might be expected to
increase one’s awareness of the noise from wind turbines, and could
potentially be argued to increase one’s annoyance but this isn’t
infrasound and does not have health impacts.
What levels of infrasound are perceptible or safe?
The International
Standardization Organisation (ISO) designated the G-weighting network,
dBG, specifically to deal with infrasound and the Environmental
Protection Agency in Denmark has developed a criteria for infrasound in
general (including wind turbines) of 85 dBG. This includes an allowance
of 10 dB for people more sensitive than the norm.
Whilst at sufficiently high
levels, infrasound can be dangerous and create serious health, visual
and motor control problems, studies prepared for NASA suggest no
significant effects from infrasound until the level exceeds 125 dB
(linear). Infrasound levels of 85 dBG and lower are not sufficient to
create human perception and in fact infrasonic levels created by wind
turbines are often similar to the ambient levels prevalent in the
natural environment due to wind. There is no evidence of adverse health
effects caused by this infrasound.
Other
DP Energy: 1. What about shadow flicker - isn’t this a problem?
What is Shadow Flicker?
Wind turbines, like other tall
structures cast a shadow on the immediate area when the sun is shining
strongly so if you lived very close to a wind farm, and had a narrow
window facing the turbines, annoyance could result from the rotor
blades chopping the sunlight, causing a flickering (blinking) effect
while the rotor is in motion. Shadows cast outside a building are
rarely an issue. Careful planning during the turbine siting can resolve
this potential issue but in fact shadow casting problems are generally
restricted to a few areas very close to the turbines. The further you
get away from a turbine the less pronounced the shadow is and the less
potential there is for shadow flicker.
Fenner County, New York. A low and strong winter sun casts a shadow behind a GE 1.5MW turbine....
…which extends in this instance
a distance of approximately 1½ times the height of the turbine i.e.
150metres (70metre hub height 35 metre blade)
Is it possible to predict Shadow Flicker?
The maximum possible shadow
flicker at a given residence can be predicted quite accurately. One may
not know in advance whether there is wind, or what the wind direction
is, but using astronomy and trigonometry one can compute either a
likely, or a "worst case" scenario, i.e. a situation where there is
always sunshine, when the wind is blowing all the time, and when the
wind and the turbine rotor keep tracking the sun by yawing the turbine
exactly as the sun moves.
Shadow flicker is easy to
predict and where it has occurred mitigation is straightforward. In
cases where a household is predicted to experience shadow flicker, wind
developers have planted trees, altered siting or agreed to shut down
turbines during predicted conditions of shadow flicker events.
For Bow Lake the closest
residences or properties to the turbines are hunt and fishing camps
which are all distant enough from the turbines to ensure that shadow
flicker is not an issue.
