Enron's heirs

Another blogger advertises the conjunction of green (ecomoney! we put the "eco" in the "economy"! or is it the "con"? o my!). In his new blog, Paul Conley writes about green tags by which consumers may imagine that they "offset" their own filth. Like medieval indulgences, they allow the marketers to get rich but change nothing, only adding their own cynical scheme to the general morass. (Let us pause here to remember that Enron invented the scam of "green tags" to sell the production from wind turbines twice.)

Conley imagines a whole merchandising nightmare inspired by the "TerraPass" decal. An honest sticker might say, "Ask me about my imaginary friend who doesn't pollute." The medium between you and that imaginary friend, however, does pollute -- and takes your money, too.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism

The developer squirms

The chairman of the three-member Public Service Board of Vermont, who will consider the recommendation of hearing officer Kurt Janson to deny permission to Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport to erect four industrial wind turbines on East Mountain in East Haven, has recused himself, presumably because in his earlier position with the Department of Public Service he had promoted the project. That leaves two members to decide, and if only one of them accepts the recommendation the project is dead. Janson's recommendation, as quoted from his introduction in a story by Carla Occaso in today's Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus, is

"that the Public Service Board deny a Certificate of Public Good for the proposed project," mainly, he writes, because it would be located in the "heart of tens of thousands of undeveloped, conserved lands."

The story continues with the developer's flustered response:

David Rapaport, vice president for East Haven Windfarm, said he hopes to convince the board to reject Janson's findings because they are "in error in certain key respects," primarily because it "does not properly balance the benefits of the project against those impacts," according to comments submitted by East Haven Windfarm officials on March 27. Contrary to Janson's findings, Rapaport said, the wind farm would not unduly interfere with the experience of users of land surrounding the site and, because it would have minimal impact, "the project will not unreasonably or unnecessarily endanger public investment."

Did you follow that? "Janson did not fully consider the benefits, and anyway the impacts can be disregarded." The thing is, Janson very clearly stated that the benefits are important. If he improperly weighed them, it was in that assumption that they are at all significant. In the matter of negative impacts, Janson also clearly stated that the developers have demonstrated an arrogant disinterest in the environmental concerns, something Rapaport doesn't seem to be making any effort to remedy.

One more hearing is scheduled for April 11.

wind power, wind energy, Vermont, environment, environmentalism

Vibroacoustic disease and wind turbines

From Calvin Luther Martin, Malone, N.Y.:

Mariana Alves-Pereira, Dept. of Environmental Sciences & Engineering, New University of Lisbon, Caparica, Portugal, has for many years been part of a team of physicians and scientists studying the pathophysiology of low-frequency noise and infrasound on humans. She is Assistant Coordinator of the Vibroacoustic Disease Project.

Alves-Pereira and colleagues have been doing epidemiologic studies of airline pilots and technicians and other people who are chronically exposed to low-frequency noise and infrasound. The effects are grim: cardiovascular, respiratory, neurologic, and renal pathology and symptoms, which they call vibroacoustic disease.

Alves-Pereira, in discussion with physicians Amanda Harry in the U.K. and Nina Pierpont in the U.S., is now looking into the low-frequency noise and infrasound produced by industrial wind turbines, to determine whether they, too, can cause such vibroacoustic disease (VAD). Alves-Pereira's initial assessment, based on noise measurements taken inside and outside the homes of wind turbine neighbors, is that turbines are indeed a likely cause of VAD.

It was Alves-Pereira's initial research, published in numerous scientific journals, which prompted the French National Academy of Medicine, earlier this month (March 2006), to call on the French government to stop all wind turbine construction within 1.5 km of people's homes. You should understand that VAD is well established in the clinical literature; it is not conjectured. It has been amply documented and is readily detected by a variety of diagnostic tests.

The question remains: Do wind turbines also produce VAD in people living nearby? Again, France's National Academy of Medicine was sufficiently persuaded by the evidence that it called for an immediate minimum 1.5 km (approx. 1 mile) setback of all pending and future industrial windmills from residences. In conversations with Drs. Pierpont and Harry, Alves-Pereira indicates that she is very concerned about the possible role of turbines as a source of VAD.

[update: Alves-Pereira and her colleague Nuna Castelo Branco issued a press release on March 31, 2007, describing the results of their studies demonstrating "that wind turbines in the proximity of residential areas produce acoustical environments that can lead to the development of VAD in nearby home-dwellers." Read it at National Wind Watch.]

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

"Oil is for heat and transportation"

Since switching many plants to cleaner-burning natural gas, the U.S. uses hardly any oil for generating electricity (about 3%), so wind-generated power really has nothing to do with oil, foreign or domestic.

As for global warming, the primary culprit again is heat and transportation. In electricity generation, it's coal. But coal provides the unfluctuating base load of our system, which wind power would never touch. At best, wind power may occasionally allow some peak load plants to ramp down, but since they then have to ramp back up again when the wind slows (or gusts above 60 mph), they may burn more fuel than if kept on line more steadily.

By any real-world analysis -- at least in the industrialized world where we expect a steady supply of energy at our fingertips -- large-scale wind power on the grid is a nonstarter.

In addition to its lack of benefits (except for tax avoidance by big investors -- Enron developed the industry, after all), it has serious negative impacts, particularly as such a huge number of the giant machines is required to pretend it's making any significant contribution.

And that is what is truly disturbing about this article. Lester Brown would have us think differently, but everywhere that wind power facilities are proposed, there is widespread opposition. Aboriginal Australians have fought (and lost) to save their dreaming. Zapotecas are fighting the plans for massive wind power "development" in the Tehuantapec peninsula, one of the world's most important bird migration passageways. To call a small pay-off to farmers in New York a boon is insulting as the wind companies pocket millions from tax subsidies and artificial renewable energy certificates (Enron's most inspired invention). The leases -- written by the company -- essentially make the farmer a tenant on his own land. He even signs away his right to speak to anyone about problems such as noise or stray voltage. Many neighbors of wind facilities have had to flee their homes because of serious health effects.

And so on. The point is that there's another side of this typical story of exploitation and chicanery than Lester Brown's corporate boosterism, one I would have expected a writer for OneWorld to instinctively seek out.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism

Michael Pollan: The Pathology of Desire

In a long essay in Sunday's New York Times Magazine about a quest to kill "his own" wild pig, Michael Pollan briefly envies the "moral clarity" of vegetarianism. He immediately comforts himself by declaring them "pitiable" because vegetarians "deny reality."

Yet at every step of his quest to "own" his meat, Pollan struggles with moral ambivalence and even disgust, requiring hundreds of words of twisted rationalizations. He does not deny his appetite for exotic meat, true, nor the violence necessary to transform an animal from a living individual in a vital social circle into a mouth-watering roast. Neither do vegetarians. Nor do vegetarians deny the natural repulsion we feel from the slaughter, as Pollan struggles to. But he must have his boar, so anything can be justified, any reality denied that does not fit the preordained outcome, the consumerist goal.

This is moral decadence. Most of us do not need to kill to survive. We hunt or eat meat only because we want to. It is a moral choice to continue or not. It is the same choice whether you kill your meal yourself or not, the same whether you write thousands of words about it or not, the same whether it's grass-fed and free-range or factory-farmed.

Pollan denies that reality and chooses to kill. He is proud that he is a "conscious carnivore," which only makes his choice especially chilling. The only reality indeed is his appetite.

animal rights, vegetarianism

French Academy of Medicine warns of wind turbine noise

Ventdubocage has posted a report from the National Academy of Medicine in France, "Le retentissement du fonctionnement des éoliennes sur la santé de l'homme" ("Repercussions of wind turbine operations on human health"). Click here for the 192-KB PDF.

Following is a translation of a notice of the report by Dr. Chantal Gueniot in "Panorama du Médecin," 20 March 2006:

Wind turbines: The Academy cautious

The harmful effects of sound related to wind turbines are insufficiently assessed, warns the Academy.

Wind turbines, which are multiplying throughout the French countryside, will have to be considered as industrial installations and to comply, by that fact, to specific regulations that take account of the harmful effects of sound as particularly produced by these structures, determined a working group assembled by the National Academy of Medicine and presided over by professor Claude-Henri Chouard (Paris).

People living near the towers, the heights of which vary from 10 to 100 meters, sometimes complain of functional disturbances similar to those observed in syndromes of chronic sound trauma. Studies conducted in the neighborhoods of airports have clearly demonstrated that chronic invasive sound involves neurobiological reactions associated with an increased frequency of hypertension and cardiovascular illness. Unfortunately, no such study has been done near wind turbines. But, the sounds emitted by the blades being low frequency, which therefore travel easily and vary according to the wind, they constitute a permanent risk for the people exposed to them.

Since 2 July 2003, the law has required a construction permit for wind turbines over 12 meters, including an impact study if their [combined] power is over 2.5 megawatts. An investigation conducted by the Ddass [Direction Départementale des Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales] in Saint-Crépin (Charent-Maritime) revealed that sound levels 1 km from an installation occasionally exceeded allowable limits. While waiting for precise studies of the risks connected with these installations, the Academy recommend halting wind turbine construction closer than 1.5 km from residences.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

More about Searsburg turbines

Tom Shea has shared more about his experience as neighbor of the small wind power facility in Searsburg, Vermont (see earlier post, "industrial droning"):

"No one I know has gotten accustomed to these monstrosities. ... I unfortunately have a clear view of these things and can hear them quite learly from inside my house. ... They have destroyed the peace and quiet that my family had enjoyed for over 40 years in this wilderness. They make noise when turning, and make really loud bangs when the turning mechanisms require work, which is just short of constantly."

Regarding the recent tearing off of half a blade on one of the machines:

"I am a chemical engineer, MIT '86. My unprofessional opinion is that there is not a chance that lightning was the cause of this failure."

Despite the company's report that lightning tore off the blade during a storm, some people have questioned that claim. For example:

I expect that the Searsburg blade was broken by a sudden gust from the side, perpendicular to the axis of rotation. In high winds the blades are stopped and turned so that their leading edges face into the wind to minimize stress. This works fine if the wind stays in line with the axis of the windmill. In the event of a sudden sideways gust, at least one of the three blades will be sufficiently vertical to be broadside to the wind and subject to severe stress. Since the blades are not turning there is little centrifugal stress on the blades to keep them straight. This means the blades can be bent to the point of cracking the inelastic fiber reinforcing, causing failure. In mountainous terrain the wind gusts are so variable in direction that this kind of blade failure is likely.

The company would rather claim lightning damage (1) because they probably have insurance against damage by lightning but not by wind and (2) because it doesn't look so good if it's the wind that damages the machines. This is at least the third blade failure at Searsburg.

And remember, these models are relatively small to those being proposed today.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines Vermont