In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama touted renewable energy and declared that he would “not walk away from workers” such as Bryan Ritterby, who is employed by a wind-turbine manufacturer in Michigan.
But in their rush to embrace the wind-energy business, Obama and numerous other politicians are walking away from rural residents such as David Enz and his wife, Rose. A year ago, the couple abandoned their home near Denmark, Wis., because of the unbearable low-frequency noise produced by a half-dozen 495-foot-high wind turbines that were built near the home they’ve owned since 1978. The closest was installed about 3,200 feet from their house.
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Shortly after the Shirley Windproject’s turbines began operating, the couple began experiencing numerous symptoms, including “headaches, ear pain, nausea, blurred vision, anxiety, memory loss, and an overall unsettledness,” says Mr. Enz, 68. Today, the Enzes are living in their RV or staying with friends. “We didn’t expect any of this stuff,” says Enz, who spent more than 30 years working as a millwright at a paper mill in Green Bay.
Policymakers and health experts are casting a hard eye on wind energy at the same time that the wind industry is desperately trying to convince Congress to pass a multi-year extension of a tax credit that supports it. Without the subsidy, the domestic wind business, which is already being hammered by falling natural-gas prices, will be forced to downsize even further. In December, the American Wind Energy Association issued a report predicting that some 37,000 wind-related jobs in the U.S. could be lost by 2013 if the tax credit is not extended.
That possibility doesn’t faze Wisconsin Republican state senator Frank Lasee, whose district includes the Enzes’ 41-acre property. Last October, Lasee filed legislation that would require the state to investigate the health effects of the noise produced by industrial wind turbines. If passed, the bill– the first of its kind in the U.S. — will impose a moratorium on new wind projects until the study is completed. “I’ve heard and seen enough from people I represent to know that we need a factual study,” Lasee told me recently. In addition to the Enzes, Lasee says he knows another family among his constituents who have abandoned their home because of wind-turbine noise. “We shouldn’t be embracing an agenda that hurts people’s property values and their health,” he said. In mid-January, Lasee filed another bill that could allow cities and counties to establish minimum setback distances between wind projects and residences.
It’s tempting to dismiss the complaints about wind-turbine noise as little more than NIMBYism. And to be clear, not every wind project is causing problems. Further, the most problematic noise generated by the turbines — low-frequency sound (20 to 100 hertz) and infrasound (0 to 20 Hz) — has varying effects. Some individuals feel the effects of the noise quickly and compare it to motion sickness. Others may not feel it at all. That said, the harmful effects of infrasound are well known. A 2001 report published by the National Institutes of Health said that exposure to infrasound can cause vertigo as well as “fatigue, apathy, and depression, pressure in the ears, loss of concentration, drowsiness.”
Furthermore — and perhaps most telling — are the news reports. And there are lots of them. Newspaper stories from Missouri, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Britain, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and New Zealand indicate that the wind-turbine-noise problem is global and that the frustration among rural landowners is growing.
Notice the carbon dioxide pollution is only committed by those deemed politically unfit. Why aren't these windmills located off Puget Sound or Martha's Vineyard where the wind blows continuously? Perhaps the view of the elites could be tarnished by unsightly steel towers?
Meanwhile, the EPA Ministers of Industrial Policy cover their tracks.
Put a few of these monstrosities inside the Beltway and then laugh at how much 'wind' would be immediately emanated from the Halls of Congress in their rush to outlaw 'wind energy'.
Perhaps trivial in comparison, but the visuals of a wind farm are depressing, too. Driving past a wind farm is to feel a cold soft hand slide in and subtly constrict your soul.
Thanks for the great link - I LOVE oil rigs pumping up crude for our refineries, shipping their product to my gas station so I can fill up my big SUV with home grown gasoline! Buy American!
I agree about the visual part. Whenever I have to drive through that long installation along I-65 in Indiana or up across northeastern Wisconsin I get a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Watching the blades inexorably chop, chop, chop is just nauseating at a level that is impossible to articulate rationally. I simply hate it. When the installation disappears out of my rearview mirror I feel better almost immediately.
Thank God I don't have to live near them. The infranoise would literally drive me crazy. Giant wind farms have to be among the worst ideas the political class of this country has ever devised.
You should see those turbines at night on I65!!!! In order that airplanes not fly into them, they have blinking red lights on them. They go on and off, on and off, on and off. It would drive me insane if I lived near them.
They managed to make them eyesores even at night!!!!
and I get a severe case of giggles when I go by those same wind farms on I65 north of Lafayette, Indiana and see those turbines NOT turning but standing still
On airplanes with multiple propellers there is always an issue with harmonics. I would imagine that these wind farms are experiencing a like phenominum. The problem is, have they studied it (the wind industry) and how hard will it be to "tune" all these propellers so that they cross the mast at differing times and don't set up harmonics. The other issue is sensitivity. Hearing is like smell and vision, everybody has different threshholds for what is an irritant. If my son opens the back window in one of our cars it sets up harmonics that give me a headache in a couple of minutes but has no effect on my son or my wife.
A couple of possible solutions:
1. only one generator per windfarm-too costly
2. "tune" all the blades in the farm to eliminate the noise (from all directions)-might be impossible
3. wrap the masts in a sound absorbing "blanket"- This might reduce the noise but might not eliminate it.
4. build more nuclear power plants
Another thought, how much carbon do these things really avoid? What does it take to manufacture these turbines? How much carbon is released just in making the concrete necessary for the foundation?
I hope, some day, all of this nonsense enacted to negate the effects of global warming will be recognized for what it is: The largest waste of revenue in the history of man.
Never has so much waste, been caused by so few, for such a small degree of reason.
Really, Tintin's quest to invade Iraq and occupy it for 10 years was not a larger waste.
In the scheme of human civilization, I'm pretty sure lower-footprint energy projects will outweigh a few years of Iraqi democracy on a product/dollar basis.
The combined cost of Iraq and Afghanistan was less than the cost of the failed porkulus bill.
Federal subsideis for some renewal energy projects: Solyndra $500,000,000
SunPower: $1,200,000,000
First Solar and ProLogis. $3,550,000,000
Fiskar Electric Cars $529,000,000
That's just 5 projects. Let's not forget the tens of billions in subsidies for ethanol and wind power as well as for the Chevy Volt. And the costs of all the regulations to fight non-existent manmade "global warming" "climate change" or whatever moniker you want to give it this week.
Wind turbines are a hazard to human health? Call the EPA! Regulate the developers! Pass a law! Oh wait, this is (purportedly) a conservative magazine. Aren't we conservatives the champions of private property rights, and the enemies of onerous regulations by constitutionally suspect government agencies?
How did that wind turbine come to be on the Enz's 40 acres? Did they sign a lease? How much did they get paid for it? Why should I support a law to protect them from themselves?
Everyone knows that the wind energy industry is not viable without subsisidies. Those susbsidies should be removed, as they are a waste of taxpayer dollars. But, if the subsidies were removd and the industry could stand on its own two feet, give me one conservative argument why landowners should not be allowed to lease their land for wind energy development?
"How did that wind turbine come to be on the Enz's 40 acres? Did they sign a lease? How much did they get paid for it? Why should I support a law to protect them from themselves?"
Read the article, Rancher. There is not one turbine, but a massive turbine farm; and it is not on their land, but about 1000 yards away. The Enzes did not consent to this development, nor was their consent asked for.
"But, if the subsidies were removd and the industry could stand on its own two feet, give me one conservative argument why landowners should not be allowed to lease their land for wind energy development?"
Because no landowner is entitled to destroy the utility of other people's land for half a mile to a mile beyond his own property line.
Are you really this dense? The turbine was on the neighbor's land, perhaps put as close to the Enz's so to be as far from the lessee as possible. If it was on his land, he'd likely be contractually prohibited from speaking publicly about his problem.
As for the one conservative argument - you can do what you want with your land, as long as it doesn't unduly affect your neighbor. And I think all of us would agree that driving your neighbor out of his home is unduly.
1. The wind farm is not on their property. a square 40-acre plot is about 2500 feet on a side. The turbine is 3600 feet away from them. In case you didn't realize it, sound doesn't know to stop at property boundaries.
2. Pursuant to that, if what you're doing on your private property is directly harming the health of people off your property, that exceeds the bounds of property rights. I don't know any conservatives who think otherwise.
3. I have two very large long-distance high-voltage transmission towers on my farm (those eiffel-tower-looking things that carry high voltage lines up a couple hundred feet in the air). They were erected decades ago before I bought it, but you can bet if the landowner at the time had fought the easement, the government would have used eminent domain to keep the power company from having to loop around the property. *That's* how things can get built on your property even if you don't want them there. If I decided today that I didn't want the darn things there anymore, I'd just be out of luck, I own the property free and clear, and I never personally agreed to the easement, but there's not a chance in heck of me being able to get it revoked. It's in the deed forever. Fortunately, the things are generally more benefit than harm -- the power company takes responsibility for brush clearing on the couple-hundred-yard-wide by half-mile+ long space under the wires, so that makes my life easier.
I must have skimmed over the part of the article that said the turbines were located 3600 feet from the Entz's home. So, I must concede you point that the turbine is probably not on their 40 acres. However, I would note that a square 40 acre parcel is in fact 1320 feet on a side, not 2500 feet. 2500 square feet would be somewhere north of 140 acres.
I'm afraid that does not change the argument. Telling people what they can and cannot do on their land via constitutionally suspect goverment agencies is liberalisms stock in trade. I'm all for ending the subsidies to the ridiculous waste of taxpayers dollars that is wind energy. What I am not for, is telling other people what they can and cannot do on their land. Private property rights are the basis of our system of government.
The subsidies are the only reason they exist, even the so - called privately owned variety are constructed with taxpayer subsidies. Perhaps someday the utopian green energy fantasyland will exist, but never so long as the undisciplined river of diverted largesse is thrown at it from afar. In reality, green energy really means less energy for the masses because there will still be enough for the political elites.
Actually if the 40 acres is an aliquot parcel (i.e. one sixteen of a square mile which contains 640 acres), it is a square a quarter of a mile on each side (1320 feet). The turbine is over a half mile away, which is apparently still too close.
We have an EPA that shuts down power plants in adjoining states over perceived health risks (the science backing the decisions is shoddy).
Have to say the woman who complained about my old high school classmates pig farm after she moved in doesn't get any sympathy. Nor did the people who bought houses at the end of the Stapleton Airport runways 40 years ago then started complaining.
These people on the other hand seem to have a case. Will be curious to see some good solid studies on infranoise. Regulation of real public health threats is a legitimate function of government - the EPA's problem is that they took care of those long ago. And of course that does not apply to self-inflicted health threats such as smoking or the eating of 'inappropriate' foods.
Ultimately though, if these were not 'green' tech the enviros would be screaming for them to go.
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