Wind turbines are machines that spin in the wind and generate electricity atop tall towers. As such, the blades, transmission, and generator emit noise when the turbine is operating. Because modern wind turbines are relatively new on the landscape, a veritable cottage industry has arisen attributing a panoply of ills to wind turbines--even when they are not operating. Consequently, there are numerous studies on the health effects of the noise from wind turbines. This section includes links to these studies and to reports on the general environmental impacts and benefits of wind energy.
Study concludes there is no ‘detrimental effect’ on the number of holidaymakers in places with wind turbines
A campaign calling for two kilometers between a turbine and the nearest built environment for new wind farms has failed. State politicians are nonetheless looking for ways to increase acceptance.
The act against wind turbines imposes a number of restrictions on producers of wind energy (except for micro installations and offshore wind farms).
Authorities say a 31-year-old from Manly died Thursday in a construction accident at a wind turbine in central Iowa. Christopher Thompson of Manly was working inside a wind turbine under construction...
Imagine for a moment that these new studies find no statistically defensible evidence to link infrasound to human ill-health. Will those calling for a moratorium accept the results and declare wind...
Renewable energy, presented as environmentally friendly and clean, must turn out to be harmful to humans and the environment. There's an ironic, vindicating righteousness in believing, as intensely...
It seems to happen with every new technology. It wasn't so long ago that some people were convinced a photograph could steal your soul. We may read about that now and have a little chuckle, but are...
Germany, as it happens, has a very strong culture of benefit sharing. I had a chat to my host about my experience on the outskirts of Ebersheim. She told me about a neighbour in the small town who...
It is understood that the man had been working on the €145m Meenadreen wind farm extension project when the tragedy occurred.
It was during this process that Colin Sinclair’s harness became entangled in the high-speed shaft coupling, causing him to be pulled in towards the shaft.
The family of a commercial diver from Bebington who died on a dive at an off shore wind farm in Germany are demanding answers.
Siemens Windpower A/S and Fluor Ltd were sentenced on Friday and ordered to pay GBP 650,000 (USD 988,000/EUR 876,000) in fines after in 2010 a worker was killed and another seriously injured during...
Two companies have been sentenced after a worker was killed and another seriously injured during construction of an offshore wind farm.
Federal regulators cited a North Dakota company for a serious safety violation in connection with the death of a 40-year-old crane operator at a wind farm near Elgin, Nebraska.
As I've expected for some time, there's a new effort to create and propagate health fears around solar power, given the rapid decrease in costs, and the rising threat it poses to incumbent generators...
There are reasons normally-rational people will angrily reject good science, and credulously believe bad science. We twist ourselves into awkward, dissonant ideological formations, and it seems...
Results: (1) Infrasound sound near wind turbines does not exceed audibility thresholds. (2) Epidemiological studies have shown associations between living near wind turbines and annoyance. (3)...
Gretchen Tenbusch, health officer for Huron and Tuscola counties’ health departments, said she had looked at five death certificates of individuals supposedly dying from wind turbines. Her review...
From a scientific standpoint, wind farm syndrome fails the test of cause and effect, which generally has to fulfil two criteria: that harm from infrasound makes biological sense; and that there is a...
“Makes you wonder what all the fuss is about, really,” he says.
Results suggest accessing positively framed health information may reverse or dilute the effect of negative expectations formed from exposure to media warnings about health risks posed by new...
The most likely cause of nocebic symptoms is the misattribution of normal and common physical sensations to infrasound. This further heightens monitoring for such sensations, creating a vicious cycle...
How do we practically achieve that? There are two key elements to refuting misinformation. The first half of a debunking is offering a factual alternative. To understand what I mean by this, you need...
Two weeks ago, we published a review of reports – all of them from outside Germany – on the GMA’s recent resolution on the health impacts of wind turbines. It is worth noting that there have been no...
I've received a response from the German Medical Association - a group that The Australian claims were moving to ban wind turbines in Germany. As I described, they weren't, but I thought I'd check.
The judge should request the medical records of complainants from periods both before and after the operation of wind farms, to settle the matter of whether the complaints were sufficiently serious...
But many energy and environmental analysts, who see a switch to renewable energy as long overdue, have been dismayed by this hostility to a source of electricity that they see as much more benign in...
TSP Canada Towers Inc., a manufacturer of wind towers in Thorold, has pleaded guilty and fined $80,000 after a worker was crushed by components being moved along a line two years ago.
Currently, there is no further existing statistically-significant evidence indicating any association between wind turbine noise exposure and tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo or headache.
Scaremongering about the health effects of wind power is irresponsible. It causes enormous anxiety for some people and it threatens to derail a promising and necessary industry for this country.
Spreading health fears can itself result in harm. A BBC Panorama report on the 'health dangers of wifi' warped a collection of already-flawed 'studies' to present the theory that WiFi causes health...
The Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health information paper was released on Wednesday and is the result of a review of more than 4,000 documents on the connection between wind farms and health.
By now I'm sure you know the score. America's anti-vaccination movement has steamrolled its way across the country, leaving a trail of sick people in its wake. Measles is back. Whooping cough is...
Creationism, climate denial and anti-vaccination rage: long before the measles outbreak in the US, a deep mistrust of scientists infected some strands of the American conservative movement.
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running such events anywhere in the world. Nearly a thousand people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk across...[more]
The Court dismissed all the appeals. In effect, the Court has confirmed the constitutional validity of the Ontario overnment’s system for approving and regulating wind turbines. The Court’s decision...
There's also the quaint notion of shared responsibility for the public health. Such arguments get drowned in the nasty propaganda of anti-vaccination groups with neutral names. We speak of the...
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) advised the Waubra Foundation that its status as a health promotion charity had been revoked earlier this month. The status gave the...
Children whose mothers were exposed to high levels of fine particulate pollution in late pregnancy have up to twice the risk of developing autism as children of mothers breathing cleaner air,...
To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions at a pace and scale that experts agree is necessary to avoid increasing catastrophic effects of global warming, we need a mix of renewable energy. Wind power...
Wind turbines generally have little effect on the value of nearby properties with possibly isolated exceptions, a recent study of thousands of home and farm sales has found.
Bavaria has the most PV installed of any German state. But southern Germany is going to lose quite a bit of nuclear power by the end of 2022, so Bavaria cannot do without wind power. It is hard to...
Mount Mercer’s 64 turbines became operational in the middle of this year and a family living about one kilometre away is unsure “what the fuss is all about”. “We barely hear them,” said Stephen Kent,...
“Dr. Studzienny pled guilty to professional misconduct in four complaints,” said Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario Registrar Irwin Fefergrad when contacted Monday. Dr. Fefergrad said that...
The worldwide expansion of wind energy has met with opposition based on concerns that the infrasound generated by wind turbines causes health problems in nearby residents. In this paper, we argue...
To date, the evidence has been insufficient to support the revocation of a wind facility approval. This article reviews the legal basis for the dismissal of human-health based appeals.
Instead Forest has spent over $500,000 of its taxpayers’ money to fight close to $600,000 in annual increases in local wealth. Does anyone really think that the citizens of Forest were fully informed...
Stephen Ambrose and Robert Rand are US acousticians who believe that wind turbine noise is somehow uniquely making people sick. In 2011, they were contracted by Bruce McPherson, a Falmouth...
"The highest percentage believing [claims about wind turbine syndrome] (21 percent) was in Wisconsin, a state which has far fewer wind farms and where some political leaders have in recent years been...
California parents are deciding against vaccinating their kindergarten-age children at twice the rate they did seven years ago, a fact public health experts said is contributing to the reemergence of...
Wind health impacts have been dismissed in courts across the globe. This Energy and Policy Institute report assesses legal cases in five English-speaking countries pertaining to wind energy. The...
. . . suggest that these wind turbines have not significantly impacted nearby property values. Thus, these results do not corroborate the concerns raised by residents regarding potential negative...
Il est par contre possible d'expliquer ce que sont véritablement ces vapeurs de condensation qui se forment dans le sillage des avions, les contrails, étudiées par les scientifiques depuis les années...
The denial of deduction and causation is a necessary component in the concrete acceptance of extremely weak hypotheses, such as those underlying homeopathy, anti-vaccination fear-mongering,...
In the short to medium term the fossil fuel interests and their supporters – both witting and unwitting — are fighting the battle of their corporate lives to preserve the privileged position they’ve...
The conclusion is that the symptoms reported for people living near wind turbines identified by the WCO survey are not significantly different than those experienced by the general population, i.e....
My paper concluded that the claim was a factoid promoted by wind farm opponents for dramatic, rhetorical impact. The claim sits alongside other contestable claims made by wind farm opponents,...
The report stated that 'some 80,000 ha of national park were destroyed by a wildfire ignited by the turbine debris' and gave an Australian Broadcasting Commission report as a reference. In fact, the...
With thanks to the long-lasting science Crackpot Index, this Wind Crank Index is intended to provide a simple way to figure out how you should invest your time: helping the person understand more...
Even if Denmark had its own 'wind turbine syndrome' organisation, I strongly suspect the phenomenon wouldn't take hold. The Middelgrunden Wind Farm happens to be half-owned by Middelgrunden Wind...
Based on the findings and scientific merit of the available studies, the weight of evidence suggests that when sited properly, wind turbines are not related to adverse health. Stemming from this...
Citizens of Greensburg live so close to wind turbines it is a bit astonishing. The local hospital’s turbine is just across the driveway, only twenty yards or so from the building. The local Best...
Logical fallacies are everywhere. Flick open the newspaper and hear the latest assertion from your politician-of-choice, and you'll see one being used to advocate a course of action, framed in...
Half of respondents to national survey would welcome a new wind farm within five miles of their home
In an interview last September with CBC News, Studzienny said he refused treatment to certain councillors on M'Chigeeng and Little Current councils because he is opposed to wind turbines and was...
A small airplane heading back to South Dakota after a Texas cattle sale crashed into a wind farm in foggy weather, killing the pilot and three passengers.
The urgent need for rapid decarbonisation of our electricity system means we have to research, build, test and deploy a raft of new technologies, all in a short time period. As new technology...
Recently, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released a comprehensive position statement on the curiously invulnerable issue of 'wind turbine syndrome'. One phrase from the statement caught my...
The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that the infrasound or low frequency sound generated by wind farms, as they are currently regulated in Australia, causes...
Natural News isn't an easy website to browse. If you're conscious of the impact of the anti-vaccination movement, the content on the website quickly goes from mildly-entertaining weirdness to real,...
Australia’s peak health research body has again found there is no reliable evidence that windfarms harm human health, but the Abbott government is promising to commission further “comprehensive”...
The draft Information Paper provides a summary of the available scientific evidence. Based on the evidence, the paper concludes that “there is no reliable or consistent evidence that wind farms...
This report takes the number of reviews published on the issue since 2003 to 20. And all have reached the same broad conclusions.
Since 1998 there have been 45 hearings held under rules of legal evidence in at least five English-speaking countries and four types of courts regarding wind energy, noise and health. Forty-four...
The UBA study found 13.8% of land area suitable for wind energy; 49,000 km2, and that with contemporary wind turbines there is the astonishing 1,200,000 MW capable of generating 2,900 TWh/yr. This is...[more]
As blogger Ketan Joshi has observed, unlike any other disease “wind turbine syndrome” seems to be a health problem that occurs mainly in English-speaking countries.
Eric Gillespie, anti-wind lawyer, received a great amount more of legal fees to fail yet again in this extensive appeal. You would think that the people who keep paying him would eventually realize...
Tired of hearing these comments about renewable power, but don't know how to reply? Saskatoon Community Wind has come up with a list of common wind power myths along with snappy responses.
The tribunal found the current state of scientific opinion was that there was no causal link of a physiological nature between adverse health effects and wind turbines. It was given no evidence at...
What links the phenomena of allegedly stressed emus, dancing cattle and disoriented echidnas? Nothing but the ill-founded trend to blame anything and everything on wind farms
The most interesting places on Earth are the subduction zones where tectonic plates of science and emotion scrape relentlessly. Buried in these dynamic boundaries we find the most telling insights...
Since the Waubra wind farm started generating power in 2009, the town has acquired a dubious reputation: the so-called `Waubra Disease’ is now known internationally. But how much sense does it make? ...
For several years, a Portuguese research group has been touting the horrors of something they termed “vibroacoustic disease” or VAD, claiming that this was a physiological affliction due to extended...
Typically, we listen to experts, particularly when they're telling us about imminent danger. Yet, climate scientists have been burdened with an effective, angry and motivated crowd of climate...
As each of anti-wind types’ arguments get shot down in flames, they usually resort to more and more outlandish claims. One of the most outlandish is that research on sonic or acoustic weapons is...
People who host wind turbines on their properties and derive rental income from wind energy companies have important stories to tell about living alongside turbines, but they’ve largely been absent...
I am posting a link to this article for its discourse on modern manias that could be compared to the panic caused in some communities by anti-wind energy activists, mostly in the English-speaking...
moking-related diseases caused 14,900 deaths in 2004-05, there have been 4,700 deaths from mesothelioma since the 1980’s, and during the thalidomide crisis, 10,000 children were born with birth...
The Waubra Foundation, Australia's key player in the spread of health fears around wind energy, have stepped up their efforts - a flashy new website has popped up, adorned with brazen statements in...
There have been 17 reviews of the evidence about wind farms and health published internationally. Each of these reviews have concluded that wind turbines can annoy a minority of people who live near...
In an interesting study by an Australian consulting company, the acousticians found that complaints about noise were directly related to the attitude of receptors toward the perceived aesthetic...[more]
A recent study by the Pembina Institute found that there have been only six complaints about wind energy in the province during the 12-year period surveyed.[more]
“It is erroneous to interpret the reasons as establishing a precedent for the degree of proof required to establish a decrease in property values in these circumstances,” wrote Justice Healey in her...
No other province in Canada has a longer history with wind energy than Alberta, which has 20 years of experience with utility-scale wind farms. Yet, unlike some parts of the country, we don’t tend to...
Jamie Baxter from Western's Department of Geography and his team explore the conundrum that while a relatively strong majority of rural Ontarians actually living with turbines in their farming...
Researchers found 69% of residents surveyed in an area home to one of Ontario’s first large turbine projects support them, but support dropped to 25% in a community that didn’t have turbines, said...
One of the B-movie monsters of wind energy that hasn’t lurched out of the woodshed recently, the splitting maul still stuck in its thick skull, is the favoured meme that somehow the World Health...
The Senate today passed a motion by Greens Health Spokesperson, Dr Richard Di Natale, calling on the Australian Vaccination Network to disband and to cease its “harmful and unscientific scare...
Expectations can make you ill. Fear can make you fragile. Understanding the nocebo effect may help prevent this painful phenomenon.
Assessing the quality of medical literature is challenging. Assessing the quality of wind energy and health related literature is easier, because the number of people publishing in the field is...
It is one of the most comprehensive collection of conspiracy theories I have seen in a while. The site itself offers a fascinating study of how conspiracy theorists operate - and, potentially, tells...
An impressive line-up of speakers including the master debunker of the mythical “Wind Turbine Syndrome”, Professor Simon Chapman, attracted a large crowd of enthusiastic renewables supporters....
Anti-wind groups will no doubt continue to disseminate hyperbolic misinformation through the veil of secretive front organisations, compensating for a lack of evidence with the assumed authority of a...
Anti-wind farm activists are blaming turbines for everything from herpes to doubling power prices
Voters soundly rejected a question on Tuesday's ballot that would have funded the removal of two town-owned wind turbines. . . The question was rejected 6,001 to 2,940, with 67 percent voting against...
Though the researchers set out to show how irresponsible reports in the media can trigger a nocebo effect, they ended up showing how easy it is to make a person feel sick with just a a prop and a few...
Further study, as demanded by opponents of wind, will appropriately continue, and will take time. Given, however, the well-documented and peer-reviewed evidence thus far, there is no medical...
If wind turbines were as “bad” for you as windbaggers in the US would like you to believe, there should be a lot of body bags piling up in places like Germany, Denmark, and, well, Iowa – places that...
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the peak national body for research in Australia, issued a Public Statement: Wind Turbines and Health - July 2010 that there was no published...
However, the available evidence does not support claims that inaudible sounds can have direct physiological effects. Physiological effects on humans have only been detected at levels that are...
The case of the increasingly vocal lobby groups against wind farms in populated areas is based on the idea that widely accepted scientific principles are wrong. . .
Consistency is important. When you are faced with a severe deficiency of empirical evidence, you must turn to tactic. The anti-wind lobby uses one tactic with regularity - the generation of enormous...
Test case upholds complaint from RWE Npower Renewables that Milton Keynes Council acted unlawfully with turbine restrictions . . .
These results fit in with a longer literature on what has come to be known as “motivated reasoning.” Other things being equal, people tend to believe what they want to believe, and to disbelieve new...
Research by Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber shows that there is no basis to the anti-wind activists claims of a ‘thirty to fifty percent drop’ in property values near wind farms. . .
Interesting paper for the possible connections between anti-science climate deniers and the anti-wind industry. Both are fond of conspiracy theories. . .
The results of {the study “NASA faked the moon landing — Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax”} implied that conspiratorial thinking is linked to climate denial, and hence might emerge in turn to...
Public concern about new technology infrastructure like mobile phone masts has been shown to trigger reports of ill health… and recently even the new ‘green’ technology of wind turbines has been...
Public concern about new technology infrastructure like mobile phone masts has been shown to trigger reports of ill health… and recently even the new 'green' technology of wind turbines has been...
Factors unrelated to noise may explain some of the annoyance reported in the few epidemiological studies of wind turbine noise. These factors include being able to see wind turbines from home, having...
Earlier this week researchers at the University of Auckland published an experimental study showing that people primed by watching online information about health problems from wind turbines,...
A surge in health complaints linked to wind farms could owe more to increased discussion of health risk than the low-level sound generated by the actual turbines, according to a new study. . .
Health complaints from people living around turbines shown to be psychological effect of anti-wind lobby making people worry . . .
Background and objectives With often florid allegations about health problems arising from wind turbine exposure now widespread in parts of rural Australia and on the internet, nocebo effects...
The lowly potato has a story to tell and it's a parable about modern attitudes toward wind energy. . .[more]
Driven by media and online coverage of the idea, many believe that things like wifi and cell-phone signals are making them ill. There’s no good evidence that such ‘electrosmog‘ causes health...
With this and a small handful of other pictures of wind turbines on fire, anti-wind lobbyists and campaigners are raising yet another set of unfounded fears in those living in areas where wind farms...
Just Because a Better Mousetrap is Known Doesn’t Mean it will be Used When There’s a Vested Financial Interest in the Status Quo . . .[more]
The study Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health by Nissenbaum, Hanning and Aramini is being referenced in articles world-wide and is being held up as peer-reviewed evidence...
It is clear from the results that the infrasound levels measured at the two residential locations near wind farms (Location 8 near the Bluff Wind Farm and Location 9 near Clements Gap Wind Farm) are...
Across Canada anti-WiFi activists are spreading misinformation about wireless networking (WiFi) and related technologies. Many activists blame WiFi networks’ low level radio signals for a broad...
The documentary, though, was commendably sober. It became stiflingly uncomfortable as the girls’ parents looked fruitlessly for someone or something external to blame. They were repelled by the...
The fact that money seems to be a magic antidote to these ailments further undermines the claims. Health complaints are as rare as rocking horse excrement among turbine hosts. Complaints are rare...
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) is describing Health Canada’s study of health impacts from wind turbines as “superfluous (and) a waste of time and a waste of public...
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) is describing Health Canada’s study of health impacts from wind turbines as “superfluous (and) a waste of time and a waste of public...
At the beginning of this year I started collecting examples of health problems some people were attributing to wind turbine exposure. I had noticed a growing number of such claims on the internet and...
The medical officer of health for Chatham-Kent says claims that turbines affect human health are nothing more than hot air. . .
The daft claim that wind subsidies have driven 50,000 people into fuel poverty exemplifies the dishonesty of most objections . . .
Denmark and Germany provide evidence of a different kind: despite the presence of 30,000 wind turbines in these two countries, adverse health effects are not a significant issue in either country. ....
Summary: the infrasound produced by wind turbines is too quiet to be heard, felt or to cause harm. . .
Summary: Dr. Pierpont's book, Wind Turbine Syndrome, is a deeply flawed and vastly over-inflated work that is causing much more harm than any good it might be attempting to achieve. . .
Da die von Windkraftanlagen erzeugten Infraschallpegel in der Umgebung deutlich unterhalb der Hör- und Wahrnehmungsgrenzen liegen, können nach heutigem Stand der Wissenschaft Windkraftanlagen beim...
There is insufficient evidence that the noise from wind turbines is directly (i.e., independent from an effect on annoyance or sleep) causing health problems or disease.
Wind Turbine Syndrome (“WTS”) is an alleged condition proposed by pediatrician Dr Nina Pierpoint. . .
In peer reviewed studies, wind turbine annoyance has been statistically associated with wind turbine noise, but found to be more strongly related to visual impact, attitude to wind turbines and...
Wind turbines can be built in Ontario, despite opponents’ claims of adverse health effects. . .
Ontario’s family physicians and nurses are launching an advertising campaign to defend wind and solar power. . .
Low Frequency Noise and Infrasound Associated with Wind Turbine Generator Systems A Literature Review. . .
The decision effectively dismisses claims of potential impact and the credibility of witnesses for the plaintiffs.
The scientific evidence does not demonstrate any direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects according to a new report from Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's Chief Medical...
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...
Specifically, neither the view of the wind facilities nor the distance of the home to those facilities is found to have any consistent, measurable, and statistically significant effect on home sales...
The review concluded that there is no evidence of noise-induced health effects at levels emitted by wind turbines . . .
Shame on Pierpont for using such deceit to prop up her case. Shame on the Independent for not even bothering to read the Pierpont website carefully enough to detect this poorly concealed...
This study provides no conclusive evidence that wind turbines have an effect on health or are causing the set of symptoms described here as "wind turbine syndrome". The study design was weak, the...
The time for that choice is now. Do we allow our health to suffer by continuing to rely on coal? Do we gamble on nuclear? Or do we choose a less harmful path toward renewable energy? How do we...
So, which concerns are real and which aren't? Let's investigate whether utility-scale wind energy is as green and economical as the industry and politicians paint it. . .
The known and well-documented health effects from coal use and the threat that climate change poses to humans and other species must be weighed against the unproven links between wind turbines and...
Dr. David Colby doesn't doubt that some people are bothered by the noise generated by a wind turbine, but the acting medical officer of health for Chatham-Kent says there's no direct link between...
On Noise from Wind Turbines and Wild Claims
opposition to wind farms on the basis of potential adverse health consequences is not justified by the evidence. . .
Based on these findings, [the British] Government does not consider there to be a compelling case for further work into AM [Aerodynamic Modulation] and will not carry out any further research at this...
There is no one setback from residences for large wind turbines in California. Setbacks are regulated by individual counties. In 2006, the University of California at Davis did a survey of setback...
First, they raise questions about the role of wind as a source of electricity against America's main source of electric power today - coal, much of which is mined and burned in Appalachia. Second,...
In 25 years of wind generation, with 68,000 turbines now worldwide, there are no significant reports of health issues. This includes Denmark, whose turbine density is 30 times that of the UK.
The Measurement of Low Frequency Noise at Three UK Wind Farms--Of the 126 wind farms operating in the UK, five have been reported low frequency noise problems. Therefore, such complaints are the...
Excerpted from Wind Energy Comes of Age by Paul Gipe, John Wiley & Sons, Inc New York (1995), pages 361-364, ISBN 0-471-10924-X. This except is provided as public service and can be viewed...[more]
