Turbine noise driving Brit mad

"Wiggyjane" has described her distress over the noise of the 8-turbine (16-MW) Deeping St Nicholas wind energy facility on the U.K. site "Yes2Wind." Hers is not a so-called "aesthetic" complaint, as she was and still is supportive of wind energy and finds the turbines a fine addition to the landscape.

In response to a question about how far turbines should be from a residence, she writes:

Visually no problem -- they are quite beautiful at times to watch, menacing at others (with dark clouds behind and a storm approaching) but in the main soothing and rhythmic.

Noise -- well that's a different story altogether and will depend on the grid layout, the ground/soil type, your dwelling's position with regard to the predominant wind, the topography, geography and geology ... plus wind shear effects, particularly where there are stable air conditions ...

But we are 903 m (2,963 ft) away from the end of a row of five -- and that isn't far enough -- and we can go another 500 m (1,640 ft) and still have the same issues ... so at least a mile based purely on our experience. [Emphasis added.]

In another discussion, about Deeping St Nicholas, she writes:

I too live in Deeping St Nicholas -- but at the other end ... the northern end of the wind farm, and sadly we do suffer from both aerodynamic modulation and vibration from the low frequency noise. Environmental Health officials have already taken recordings that demonstrate a 20 dB differential between no wind turbine noise and turbine noise when they are running. [20 dB difference is experienced as a quadrupling of the noise level. --ED.]

There is no doubt anymore that some areas in some places near some windfarms DO cause problems. Not enough is really known about why this is the case, but we suspect that it's a combination of geography, topography, air conditions and ground density combined with the actual planting pattern of the turbines. In our case when all five nacelles are pointing at us normal life is impossible as they pick up resonance from each other and create an harmonic that resonates around and within the house, with levels that exceed ETSU [Energy Technology Support Unit of the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry] recommendations. ...

We have always supported the concept -- and indeed the visual look of wind turbines -- and never expected to have our lives totally disrupted and to be advised that it is not worth us building our new extension as our house would currently be unmarketable. ...

To the correspondent that started the thread -- at the southern end of the farm -- in Deeping St Nicholas itself you should have no problem ... and think of us when you sit in your garden enjoying the peace and quiet and go to bed to sleep at night, and stay asleep uninterrupted.

And more on sleep deprivation:

The hum/drone/whine is constant whether the turbines are running or not. [Emphasis added.] 24/7 it does vary a bit in intensity and volume but never goes away. Flicker isn't a real problem. The whoosh and thump noises are only really bad when the wind is in a specific direction (from SSE to SSW) then they top 40 dB(A), which when our ambient noise level is 20-25 dB(A) (pin drop quiet) means that they are very noticeable.

The wind direction also means that when we get all 5 nacelles "firing" at us, we get a harmonic and a quarter octave (???) in the farmyard that can exceed 60 dB(A).

One problem with noise regulations is that they use averages, and any limit is in fact only one that cannot be exceeded typically more than 10% of the time. So even where night-time limits are lower, which is usual, sleep can be still be legally disrupted. As Wiggyjane writes:

The problem is that raw noise measurements do not necessarily equate to ETSU regulations as they are not measured in LQ10's and LQ90's ... but what I can tell you is that our mean ambient is 22-25 dB(A) and last night ... we hit over 60 Db(A) but that was at the peak and would not be valid for ETSU. It made sleep well nigh impossible though -- and was the worst we have had for some months.

See "Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise," by Anthony Rogers et al., for a primer on sound measurement and regulation.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Wind industry complains it isn't favored by E.U.

The European Union (E.U.) has announced its ambitious energy plan, which includes a goal of 21% of electricity generated from renewable sources.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), however, is complaining that the goal does not specify which sources. It wouldn't make sense to do so, but that is clearly the worry for the wind industry, since without mandated support wind is a source that is not practical and therefore would not be widely used.

The E.U. supports all renewable energy, but the EWEA wants special support for wind.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Noam Mohr on meat-eating and the environment

The global costs of a meat diet
The Green Times (Penn Environmental Group), Spring 1997

If you care about the environment, you had better be a vegetarian. Why? Because meat consumption is one of the primary causes of environmental devastation, including the misuse of natural resources, the polluting of water and air, and the destruction of rainforests. All this comes in addition to the immense cruelty to animals and the contribution to the world hunger problem caused by the modern meat industry. In short, a carnivorous environmentalist is a hypocrite. Strong words? take a look at meat industry and judge for yourself.

Modern meat production is both wasteful and destructive. Each pound of steak from feedlot-raised steers that you eat comes at the cost of 5 pounds of grain, 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about twenty-five pounds of eroded topsoil. Indeed, over a third of the North American continent is devoted to grazing, and over a half of this country's cropland is dedicated to growing feed for livestock. What is more, the livestock industry consumes over half of the water used in the US.

In every one of these ways, as discussed below, a vegetarian diet exerts less strain on our resources that does a carnivorous one. ...

Meat production around the globe not only wastes the water it uses, it also pollutes the water it does not use. ...

Perhaps the most devastating environmental impact of America's appetite for meat is deforestation. The primary reason for the destruction of rainforests in countries like Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, is to provide grazing land for cattle, virtually all of which goes not to the poor in these third world nations, but rather is exported to wealthy countries like the United States. ...

Meat production is not only damaging to the environment, but in more immediate ways to the global human population as well. Land that could be used to grow food to feed hungry people is instead used to grow food for the animals we eat.

How environmentalists are overlooking vegetarianism as the most effective tool against climate change in our lifetimes
The McDougall Newsletter, December 2006

Summary: Global warming poses one of the most serious threats to the global environment ever faced in human history. Yet by focusing entirely on carbon dioxide emissions, major environmental organizations have failed to account for published data showing that other gases are the main culprits behind the global warming we see today. As a result, they are neglecting what might be the most effective strategy for reducing global warming in our lifetimes: advocating a vegetarian diet. ...

By far the most important non-CO₂ greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture ["Global Warming Potentials," National Emissions, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency].

Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO₂ greenhouse gases put together [Hansen, James E. and Makiko Sato, "Trends of measured climate forcing agents," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 98, no. 26, 18 Dec. 2001, p. 14778-14783]. Methane is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO₂ ["Global Warming Potentials"]. While atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled ["Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2002," Chapter 1, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, October 2003]. Whereas human sources of CO₂ amount to just 3% of natural emissions, human sources produce one and a half times as much methane as all natural sources ["Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2002"]. In fact, the effect of our methane emissions may be compounded as methane-induced warming in turn stimulates microbial decay of organic matter in wetlands—the primary natural source of methane [Hansen, James E. et al., "Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 97, no. 18, 29 Aug. 2000, p. 9876].

... [U]nlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so that lower methane emissions quickly translate to cooling of the earth. ...

Moreover, the same factory farms responsible for these methane emissions also use up most of the country's water supply, and denude most of its wilderness for rangeland and growing feed. Creating rangeland to feed western nations' growing appetite for meat has been a major source of deforestation and desertification in third world countries. Factory farm waste lagoons are a leading source of water pollution in the U.S. Indeed, because of animal agriculture's high demand for fossil fuels, the average American diet is far more CO₂-polluting than a plant-based one [Pimentel, David and Marcia Pimentel, "Sustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and the Environment", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, col. 78, no. 3, September 2003, p. 660S-663S; Tidwell, Mike, "Food and the Climate Crisis: What You Eat Affects the Sky," Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter, Dec./Jan. 2005].

Click here to see a graph showing the greenhouse effects of various diets.

tags: environment, environmentalism, ecoanarchism, animal rights, vegetarianism

UK coal use up 23% in past year

The U.K. Department of Trade and Industry has released its Energy Trends and Quarterly Energy Prices for the 3rd quarter of 2006:

* Energy consumption in the third quarter of 2006 was 1.9 per cent lower than in the third quarter of 2005

When examining seasonally adjusted and temperature corrected annualised rates:

* Total inland consumption on a primary fuel input basis was 220.0 million tonnes of oil equivalent in the third quarter of 2006, 0.4 per cent higher than the same quarter in 2005.

* Between the third quarters of 2005 and 2006 coal and other solid fuel consumption rose by 21.2 per cent.

* Oil consumption decreased by 1.8 per cent.

* Gas consumption fell by 5.2 per cent.

* Primary electricity consumption decreased by 7.1 per cent.

ELECTRICITY: QUARTER 3 2006

* Fuel used by generators in the third quarter of 2006 was, in total, 1.1 per cent lower than in Q3 2005.

* Coal use during the quarter was 22.9 per cent higher than a year earlier, while gas use was 11.6 per cent down and nuclear sources were down 8.1 per cent due to maintenance and outages in the third quarter of 2006. Hydro sources fell back 6.1 per cent on the level of the third quarter of 2005.

* Total electricity supplied by all generators in third quarter of 2006 was 0.5 per cent lower than a year earlier.

* Overall final consumption of electricity was unchanged from the level in the third quarter of 2005 at 77.4 TWh. Domestic use fell 0.5 per cent, industrial consumption rose by 0.2 per cent and consumption by other final users increased by 0.4 per cent.

                                2006Q3 TWh      Percentage change
                                                 on a year earlier
Electricity supplied from
  Coal                            26.77                +25.3
  Nuclear                         17.24                 -8.1
  Gas                             35.74                -11.0
to
  Industry                        28.18                 +0.2
  Domestic                        23.76                 -0.5
  Other final consumers           23.36                 +0.4

No sign of the "banner year for wind energy."

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

What's missing from wind promotion

fuel consumption per demand after wind energy installation
vs.
fuel consumption per demand before
The "penetration" figure (percentage of total generation provided by wind) usually provided is meaningless, because there are so many other factors operating in the power balance of the grid.

What is needed is proof that wind energy actually reduces the use of other fuels to a degree that justifies its own undeniable negative impacts. Yet that is precisely what is missing from wind promoters' material.

wind power, wind energy

Sierra Club flacks for big energy

The January/February edition of the Sierra Club magazine explores the energy issue, starting off with an essay by the tireless Bill McKibben.

He sets the tone of mockery (of logic, mostly) right away, causing one to wonder just how seriously the Sierra Club wants to be taken in these articles:

Much of what passes for discussion about our energy woes is spent imagining some magic fuel that will save us. Solar power! Fusion power! Hydrogen power!

But not wInd power, Bill?! No -- much of the rest of his article is a paean to wind industry insider Jerome Guillet, a developer of wind energy who boldly envisions more government subsidies to protect his investors.

McKibben is equally courageous, gratuitously attacking most defenders of New England's (and mid-Atlantic) ridgelines as "semi-ridiculous NIVMVDs, or not in view of my deck." He also threatens them, asserting wind "will continue to grow."

This fine nature writing serves only to ignore the many other reasons for opposition, most notably preservation of much needed forest habitat. It is pathetic indeed to see the Sierra Club -- along with many other now mainstream environmental groups -- shutting out environmental concerns and instead acting as peons of big energy.

Another article, by Frances Cerra Whittelsey, looks at the impact of wind turbines on birds and continues the mockery of not only reason but also passion.

Whittelsey first establishes that the decimation of raptors and other birds in Altamont Pass, California, is an exception. (In fact, what is exceptional is that bird deaths have routinely been counted there.) She admits that "at least 22,000 birds, including some 400 golden eagles, have collided with wind turbines (or been electrocuted by power lines) there." Per turbine, however, that's 4.1 birds -- total since the 1980s! That's a lot less than her later-cited study of turbines outside California showing "only" 2.3 birds killed each year per turbine. So if Altamont is a recognized problem, other turbines appear to be even more dangerous to birds ...

Never mind, though, because she then allows the industry trade group American Wind Energy Association assure us that new turbines are safer. Laurie Jodziewicz sez, "today's turbines are taller and more efficient." Yep, they are now "above the flight paths of many birds" -- and now in the flight paths of more birds. And the giant new models are not "more efficient." They are just bigger. More energy per turbine, yes, but not more energy per wind resource, acreage, or area swept by the blades (which are moving 150-200 mph at the tips).

Not reassured? "Some residents remain opposed on aesthetic grounds," writes Whittelsey in an effort to corral anyone left standing after Jodziewicz's not quite incisive analysis. No, Frances. A lot of people remain opposed for other environmental and wildlife concerns as well. You have convinced only a straw doll of your own imagining.

Most people are also not reassured that the industry is now working "to find a means to warn bats away from the spinning blades."

But ultimately, Whittelsey writes, why should we care? Millions of birds are already killed by domestic cats, radio towers, windows, and cars.

With friends like these, wildness ("the preservation of the world," in the words of Henry David Thoreau) clearly doesn't stand a chance.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights

Energy choice: drive cars or eat meat

Excerpts from "Ethics of Biofuels," Sharon Astyk, 28 Dec 2006 (click the title of this post):

[I]f ethanol means that poor countries are taking grain (good food for humans) and converting it to ethanol (gas for people wealthy enough to have cars -- i.e., us) and food for livestock (i.e., meat, which many poor grain producers worldwide are also too poor to have), what we will achieve is total net transfer of food from the poor of the world to the rich of the world, to put in their gas tanks and eat as beef.

Ethical Principle #5 -- Either we must address the more basic injustices that lead to hunger, or we must acknowledge that large-scale use of biofuels will increase hunger and inequity.

[T]he present emphasis on "selling" biofuels as dual purpose, because they can feed animals, ignores the fact that in many poor nations, most meat goes for export, and most poor people can afford to eat little meat.

Ethical Principle #6 - We must make the relationship between biofuels, meat eating and hunger explicit, because we can’t have it all.

Ethanol is booming, despite the fact that it may be a net energy loser. There are enough plants either in existence or being built in Iowa to use every grain of corn grown in the state, and if the ethanol industry gets its way, there will be enough plants to use up fully one half of the US corn crop. Now as might be expected, this makes people from the meat, dairy and poultry lobbies quite nervous. Because right now, more than 70% of all our corn production goes to feed livestock. Take half of the corn away, and we’ll be faced with a problem – do we reduce our meat consumption by 1/3 - 2/3 (the proportion of feed value removed from the grain in ethanol production) in order to fuel our cars, or do we keep eating and pay $6 per gallon for gas? But you will note that no one in the ethanol or biodiesel debate has suggested that if we want cheap, sustainably produced fuel, we ought to go vegetarian as a nation.

The danger, then, is that Americans, being rich, will continue to do both. They will eat meat and they will drive ethanol cars, and because our own grain is going to produce ethanol, we will import more grain, grown in poorer nations, to feed our livestock. We are doing this right now, and it is already raising the price of grain. Poor nations will be unable to compete, and unjust trade policies will continue to have them export food to us while they go hungry.

[T]he energy intensive quality of meat production may necessitate reducing our consumption of animal products ...

Any plan for large scale biofuel production must recognize that the first priority is the restoration of the world's grain reserves back to at least a six month reserve supply, and that expanding those reserves further ought to be a high priority. This would be easy to do, if most of us abjured grain fed meat, but we haven't. And as always, the cost is greatest for the weakest and poorest people in the world.

peak oil, biofuels, vegetarianism