To the editor, Rutland (Vt.) Herald:
Avram Patt (Perspective, Feb. 18) obviously did not read Metcalf's Feb. 11 letter past the first paragraph. Metcalf uses capacity rhetorically in the same way the industry does in leading people to believe that 1,000 megawatts of wind is indeed the same as -- and will thus replace -- 1,000 megawatts of other sources. The rest of the letter does not follow the industry in that misleading use of capacity, but instead cites, e.g., a German government study that 48,000 megawatts of wind capacity would be the same as only 2,000 megawatts of capacity from other sources.
It is Patt who is confused. He has evidently imagined the rest of the letter so he could more easily criticize it. His analogy about a car not burning gas until it's going somewhere is simple-minded. What if the car is sitting in a traffic jam or even a stop light? In city driving, because it must slow down and stop and reaccelerate so much more, the car actually burns more gas although going much smaller distances than it might on a highway. That is a more accurate analogy for much of the grid. If the wind rises, and energy from wind turbines requires other sources to stop or slow down their electricity generation, it does not mean that fuel at those other sources is no longer being burned. They have to stay "warm" to be available when the wind drops again. The few modern plants that can shut down must start up again more often, and that uses more fuel, too.
Wind energy on the grid is not like riding a bike and leaving the car in the driveway, as Patt suggests. Wind energy on the grid is more like riding a bike and having someone follow you in the car in case you get tired (lose your wind, so to speak).
But Patt's complaint (along with his attempted correction) is not only wrong, it is a red herring. After showing wind's minuscule potential contribution to our energy supply, Metcalf's letter is about the substantial noise from the giant machines. As the turbines have recently started operation in Mars Hill, Maine, for example, their noise is now undeniable, robbing people of sleep and the peaceful enjoyment of their homes and land.
He explains that sound is relative. What might be unnoticeable in a city during the day would be intolerable during a typically quiet rural night. And where unnatural noises are not the norm, especially at night, the rhythmic pumping and mechanical grinding of giant wind turbines (augmented by flashing lights) are much more intrusive than their absolute measures (as estimated by the developers) are meant to suggest.
That was the point of Metcalf's letter, and it was completely ignored by Patt. Just as the industry exaggerates the value of electricity from wind, it downplays its negative impacts. Even then, the cost-benefit balance is doubtful. When the facts are not ignored, the costs overwhelm.
Industrial wind turbine facilities are a not only a visual and auditory insult, they degrade and fragment wildlife habitat, they threaten bats and birds, they open up wild areas to sprawl with roads and transmission lines. As Vermont industry rep John Zimmerman has said, "wind turbines don't make good neighbors."
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query maine. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query maine. Sort by date Show all posts
February 26, 2007
August 7, 2012
Western Civilization Is Obsolete
Providing sufficient relief to end physical hardship and formulating a program aimed to achieve social justice is outside the scope of western civilization. Its institutions were not designed to share abundance. On the contrary, they reached their present proportions of planetwide diffusion under an economy of scarcity so organized that only a propertied and privileged minority of mankind, with their middle class retinues, could enjoy e necessaries and comforts, leaving the vast majority in the outer darkness of hunger, malnutrition, periodic famine, inadequate housing, ill health, ignorance, superstition and despair. A social pattern which has served for a thousand years as a means of benefiting the few at the expense of the many must be redesigned and rebuilt before it can serve as an instrument of shared abundance. Until that rebuilding is completed the obsolete social pattern must continue to be one of the chief obstacles blocking the path to social improvement.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that western civilization has had a thousand years to demonstrate its capacity to assimilate and utilize the abundance which science and technology make possible and, barring accidents, inevitable. By any standard of judgment the results of this millenium of testing permit only one interpretation: the outlooks, activities and institutions of western civilization are inadequate to share abundance or to achieve social justice.
First, it has been operated for generations by an aristocratic-business minority to defend and promote minority interests. This minority has concerned itself with the general welfare only in so far as advancing the general welfare furthered minority interests. Consequently, in the chief centers of western civilization (the capitals and the commercial and industrial cities) poverty and riches have existed side by side as two parts of the establishment. The oligarchs drew their necessary cheap exploitable labor and their cannon fodder from among the poor.
The countryside of civilized nations was run by and for the landlords who used unpaid forced labor or wretchedly paid seasonal farm hands to do the necessary work. Poverty was so widespread and exploitation was so savage in the countryside, especially in the more fertile areas, that workers hoping to better their lot fled to city slums as an escape from countryside under-employment, degradation and wretchedness.
Second, throughout their history the civilized oligarchies which decided the policies of European nations, devoted their energies to the concentration and monopoly of wealth and power in their own hands. Their chief source of wealth was the ownership of land in the countryside and of land and capital in the cities. Property ownership, one of the pillars of western civilization, enabled the owners to live without labor and accumulate rent and profit by exploiting the labor power of poverty-ridden peoples.
Third, during the last four centuries of western civilization, oligarchies of the wealthiest and most powerful European nations organized colonial empires in the Americas, Asia and Africa by invading, occupying, and sometimes colonizing the conquered territory, plundering its wealth and using slave labor, forced labor and grossly exploited wage labor to provide the European imperialists with cheap food and raw materials, captive markets and investment opportunities in which they made super profits. Living standards among the colonials were even lower than the poverty levels among workers in the European homelands. Such shocking conditions persisted until colonial independence movements and revolts put an end to the imperial-colonial relationship.
Fourth, the major political preoccupation of West European oligarchs was preparation for war and the waging of wars, organized by the oligarchs and fought by the healthiest and sturdiest sons of the people. The oligarchs planned and officered military operations. During the later centuries businessmen made fortunes providing money, supplies and weapons. It was into these wicked and wasteful enterprises that the West poured its wealth and manpower during five centuries of competitive free enterprise empire building.
Fifth, the economic, political and social institutions of the West were developed during an era of economic scarcity, intensified by the wastes of war and conspicuous consumption. Ideas, practices and institutions generated under conditions of scarcity cannot be adapted easily to conditions resulting from the abundance developed by mechanized and automated assembly lines.
Sixth, during the half century following 1910, western civilization suffered a catastrophic breakdown, including two general, devastating wars; economic inflation, insolvency and depression; planetwide colonial independence movements, and the rise, after 1917, of a socialist sector which presently includes about one-third of the planet.
The accumulation of this mass of damaging evidence led up to the anti-imperialist and essentially anti-western movement which has played so conspicuous a part in the international relations of the 1960s. On the face of the evidence, western civilization stands condemned as inadequate, anti-social and obsolete.
Leaders of western civilization do not aim at adapting their outmoded social apparatus to mechanized productivity with its consequent abundance, shared among the planet’s inhabitants on the basis of need. On the contrary, since 1946 they have utilized the surpluses of their vast mechanical, automated productivity to plan, construct and stockpile weapons of mass destructivity which threaten the existence on the planet of the entire human race.
Advocates of the new capitalism or “people’s capitalism” (symbolized by states like Britain and France, with large public sectors in their economies and an extended welfare program; or most important, the United States — the home of assembly-line production and widely distributed stock ownership in giant trusts and cartels) argue that western civilization has made a come-back and is adapting itself to the mandates of mechanization and abundance. The facts do not support this contention. Not only has widespread poverty continued among members of the Atlantic Alliance, but the Cold War, waged since 1946 against socialism-communism, is directed against the principle that income should be distributed according to need.
The weight of evidence today makes it probable that the coalition of empires and former empires, led by Washington, will fight another general war rather than permit the socialization of the social means of production, the ending of exploitation and unearned income, and the distribution of abundance according to need.
Recent developments, particularly the direction and scope of the Cold War, lead to only one conclusion: western civilization is out of line with presentday trends toward social justice, symbolized by shared abundance, and is the victim of internal contradictions and conflicts which must eventuate in its self-destruction.
(from Chapter VI, The Conscience of a Radical, Scott Nearing, Harborside, Maine: Social Science Institute, 1965)
Buy a copy of the book directly from The Good Life Center, Harborside, Maine.
[Click here for all more excerpts.]
Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that western civilization has had a thousand years to demonstrate its capacity to assimilate and utilize the abundance which science and technology make possible and, barring accidents, inevitable. By any standard of judgment the results of this millenium of testing permit only one interpretation: the outlooks, activities and institutions of western civilization are inadequate to share abundance or to achieve social justice.
First, it has been operated for generations by an aristocratic-business minority to defend and promote minority interests. This minority has concerned itself with the general welfare only in so far as advancing the general welfare furthered minority interests. Consequently, in the chief centers of western civilization (the capitals and the commercial and industrial cities) poverty and riches have existed side by side as two parts of the establishment. The oligarchs drew their necessary cheap exploitable labor and their cannon fodder from among the poor.
The countryside of civilized nations was run by and for the landlords who used unpaid forced labor or wretchedly paid seasonal farm hands to do the necessary work. Poverty was so widespread and exploitation was so savage in the countryside, especially in the more fertile areas, that workers hoping to better their lot fled to city slums as an escape from countryside under-employment, degradation and wretchedness.
Second, throughout their history the civilized oligarchies which decided the policies of European nations, devoted their energies to the concentration and monopoly of wealth and power in their own hands. Their chief source of wealth was the ownership of land in the countryside and of land and capital in the cities. Property ownership, one of the pillars of western civilization, enabled the owners to live without labor and accumulate rent and profit by exploiting the labor power of poverty-ridden peoples.
Third, during the last four centuries of western civilization, oligarchies of the wealthiest and most powerful European nations organized colonial empires in the Americas, Asia and Africa by invading, occupying, and sometimes colonizing the conquered territory, plundering its wealth and using slave labor, forced labor and grossly exploited wage labor to provide the European imperialists with cheap food and raw materials, captive markets and investment opportunities in which they made super profits. Living standards among the colonials were even lower than the poverty levels among workers in the European homelands. Such shocking conditions persisted until colonial independence movements and revolts put an end to the imperial-colonial relationship.
Fourth, the major political preoccupation of West European oligarchs was preparation for war and the waging of wars, organized by the oligarchs and fought by the healthiest and sturdiest sons of the people. The oligarchs planned and officered military operations. During the later centuries businessmen made fortunes providing money, supplies and weapons. It was into these wicked and wasteful enterprises that the West poured its wealth and manpower during five centuries of competitive free enterprise empire building.
Fifth, the economic, political and social institutions of the West were developed during an era of economic scarcity, intensified by the wastes of war and conspicuous consumption. Ideas, practices and institutions generated under conditions of scarcity cannot be adapted easily to conditions resulting from the abundance developed by mechanized and automated assembly lines.
Sixth, during the half century following 1910, western civilization suffered a catastrophic breakdown, including two general, devastating wars; economic inflation, insolvency and depression; planetwide colonial independence movements, and the rise, after 1917, of a socialist sector which presently includes about one-third of the planet.
The accumulation of this mass of damaging evidence led up to the anti-imperialist and essentially anti-western movement which has played so conspicuous a part in the international relations of the 1960s. On the face of the evidence, western civilization stands condemned as inadequate, anti-social and obsolete.
Leaders of western civilization do not aim at adapting their outmoded social apparatus to mechanized productivity with its consequent abundance, shared among the planet’s inhabitants on the basis of need. On the contrary, since 1946 they have utilized the surpluses of their vast mechanical, automated productivity to plan, construct and stockpile weapons of mass destructivity which threaten the existence on the planet of the entire human race.
Advocates of the new capitalism or “people’s capitalism” (symbolized by states like Britain and France, with large public sectors in their economies and an extended welfare program; or most important, the United States — the home of assembly-line production and widely distributed stock ownership in giant trusts and cartels) argue that western civilization has made a come-back and is adapting itself to the mandates of mechanization and abundance. The facts do not support this contention. Not only has widespread poverty continued among members of the Atlantic Alliance, but the Cold War, waged since 1946 against socialism-communism, is directed against the principle that income should be distributed according to need.
The weight of evidence today makes it probable that the coalition of empires and former empires, led by Washington, will fight another general war rather than permit the socialization of the social means of production, the ending of exploitation and unearned income, and the distribution of abundance according to need.
Recent developments, particularly the direction and scope of the Cold War, lead to only one conclusion: western civilization is out of line with presentday trends toward social justice, symbolized by shared abundance, and is the victim of internal contradictions and conflicts which must eventuate in its self-destruction.
(from Chapter VI, The Conscience of a Radical, Scott Nearing, Harborside, Maine: Social Science Institute, 1965)
Buy a copy of the book directly from The Good Life Center, Harborside, Maine.
[Click here for all more excerpts.]
September 14, 2020
Education is to expand experience
Education’s dumbing down frays the bonds of citizenship and is hardest on the poor, says E.D. Hirsch, the man who wrote the book on cultural literacy.
Interviewed by Naomi Schaefer Riley, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 11, 2020
If you have school-age children, the pandemic-induced move to online classes may give you an unusual window into their education. E.D. Hirsch expects you’ll be surprised by “how little whole-class instruction is going on,” how little knowledge is communicated, and how there is “no coherence” from day to day, let alone from year to year.
The current fashion is for teachers to be a “guide on the side, instead of a sage on the stage,” he says, quoting the latest pedagogical slogan, which means that teachers aren’t supposed to lecture students but to “facilitate” learning by nudging students to follow their own curiosity. Everything Mr. Hirsch knows about how children learn tells him that’s the wrong approach. “If you want equity in education, as well as excellence, you have to have whole-class instruction,” in which a teacher directly communicates information using a prescribed sequential curriculum.
Mr. Hirsch, 92, is best known for his 1987 book, “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.” It is an argument for teaching “specifics,” followed by a lengthy list of them – thousands of historical figures, events, concepts and literary works with which, in Mr. Hirsch’s view, educated Americans should be familiar. Heavily weighted toward Western history and civilization, the list provoked charges of elitism. Yet Mr. Hirsch is singularly focused on helping disadvantaged kids. They “are not exposed to this information at home,” he says, so they’ll starve intellectually unless the schools provide it.
He continues the argument in his new book, “How to Educate a Citizen,” in which he describes himself as a heretofore “rather polite scholar” who has become more “forthright and impatient because things are getting worse. Intellectual error has become a threat to the well-being of the nation. A truly massive tragedy is building.” Schools “are diminishing our national unity and our basic competence.”
Mr. Hirsch is nonetheless cheerful in a Zoom interview from a vacation home in Maine, his armchair perched next to a window with a water view. An emeritus professor at the University of Virginia, he normally resides in Charlottesville, where he continues his research and acts as the chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
He cites both history and neuroscience in explaining how education went wrong. It began in the 1940s, when “schools unbolted the desks and kids were no longer facing the teacher.” Instead children were divided into small groups and instructed to complete worksheets independently with occasional input from teachers. “That was also when our verbal test scores went down and the relative ranking of our elementary schools declined on a national level.” On the International Adult Literacy Survey, Americans went from being No. 1 for children who were educated in the 1950s to fifth for those in the ’70s and 14th in the ’90s. And things have only gotten worse. Between 2002 and 2015, American schoolchildren went from a ranking of 15th to 24th in reading on the Program for International Student Assessment.
The problem runs deeper than the style of instruction, Mr. Hirsch says. It’s the concept at its root – “child-centered classrooms,” the notion that “education is partly a matter of drawing out a child’s inborn nature.” Mr. Hirsch says emphatically that a child’s mind is “a blank slate.” On this point he agrees with John Locke and disagrees with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who thought children need to develop according to their nature. Both philosophers make the “Cultural Literacy” list, but “Locke has to make a comeback” among educators, Mr. Hirsch says. “The culture is up for grabs, and elementary schools are the culture makers.”
Mr. Hirsch is a man of the left – he has said he is “practically a socialist.” But he bristles at the idea that kids should read only books by people who look like them or live like them. He recalls how reading outside his own experience enabled him “to gain perspective.” Growing up in Memphis, Tenn., in the 1930s, he says, “there was no one I knew who wasn’t a racist.” In his teens, he picked up Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy” (1944), which “allowed me to escape.” The Swedish sociologist’s survey of American race relations “made a huge impact” on Mr. Hirsch. “I take it as an illustration of how important knowledge is and how important it is to not necessarily become a member of your culture.”
That’s no less true in 21st-century America. “The idea that identity and ethnicity are inborn and indelible from birth is a false view that leads to group hostility,” Mr. Hirsch says. “The idea that there can be an American culture that everyone joins seems to be anathema to some academic thinkers,” Mr. Hirsch says. “But I can’t believe it’s anathema to any normal person in the country who isn’t some social theorist.” It’s fine for children to embrace their particular heritage, he says, but also vital to create an “American ethnicity.” The purpose of elementary schools “is to make children into good citizens.”
That requires knowledge that is “shared nationally, if you’re going to read and write and communicate with one another.” He’s dismayed that people keep getting hung up on the particulars. “I’m fine with arguing about whether it shall be Toni Morrison or Herman Melville. Who cares?” He calls elementary school “a nonpartisan institution,” a view that may seem quaint in an era when schools are adopting ideological curricula like the “1619 Project” and teachers are displaying “Black Lives Matter” banners as their Zoom backgrounds.
Mr. Hirsch wants to correct some of these excesses. He dedicates “How to Educate a Citizen” to the late political scientist Richard Rorty, who died in 2007. Rorty “made a distinction between the political left and the cultural left,” says Mr. Hirsch, who considers himself a man of the former but not the latter. He commends to me a 1994 New York Times article, “The Unpatriotic Academy,” in which Rorty wrote: “In the name of ‘the politics of difference,’ [the left] refuses to rejoice in the country it inhabits. It repudiates the idea of a national identity, and the emotion of national pride.” Mr. Hirsch agrees and longs for the “willingness to sacrifice for the good of society that was very strong” during his early years. “Patriotism is important because we want to make our society work.”
Mr. Hirsch also takes issue with grade schools’ focus on “skills.” Whether it is imparting “critical thinking skills,” “communication skills” or “problem-solving skills,” he says such instruction is a waste of time in the absence of specific knowledge. He describes the findings of the National Academy of Sciences on the subject of the “domain specificity of human skills.” What this means, he explains in the new book, “is that being good at tennis does not make you good at golf or soccer. You may be a talented person with great hand-eye coordination – and indeed there are native general abilities that can be nurtured in different ways – but being a first-class swimmer will not make a person good at hockey.”
He cites the “baseball study,” conducted by researchers at Marquette University in the 1980s, which found that kids who knew more about how baseball was played performed better when answering questions about a text on baseball than those who didn’t understand the game – regardless of their reading level. The conventional response in education circles is that standardized tests are unfair because some kids are exposed to more specific knowledge than others. In Mr. Hirsch’s view that’s precisely why children should be exposed to more content: Educators “simply haven’t faced up to their duty to provide a coherent sequence of knowledge to children.”
There are now about 5,000 schools in the U.S. that use some form of the Core Knowledge curriculum, developed by Mr. Hirsch’s foundation. And research suggests Mr. Hirsch is right. A recent large-scale randomized study of public-school pupils in kindergarten through second grade found that use of the Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum had statistically significant benefits for vocabulary, science knowledge, and social-studies knowledge.
Even in poor neighborhoods, kids at Core Knowledge schools perform well and are admitted to competitive high schools. From the South Bronx Classical Charter School to the public schools in Sullivan County, Tenn., Mr. Hirsch is clearly proud that his ideas have helped the least privileged kids in America.
He questions the idea that children who are exposed to more “experiences” are at an automatic advantage. “That’s what fiction is for,” he quips. And not only fiction. “The residue of experience is knowledge,” he says. “If you get your knowledge from the classroom, it’s just as good as if you got it from going to the opera. Poor kids can catch up.” ...
Asked about the effect of the pandemic and lockdown on children’s emotional well-being, Mr. Hirsch shrugs, then offers an anecdote from a principal at a Core Knowledge school. Before classes began one morning, a second-grade girl approached him and said, “I’m so excited for [sic] today.” When the principal asked why, she said, “Because today we are going to learn about the War of 1812.”
“Gee, I wonder what that’s about,” the principal said.
“I don’t know,” the girl replied. “But today I’m going to find out!”
For Mr. Hirsch, the lesson is clear. No matter the circumstances, “kids delight in learning things.”
Ms. Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
July 30, 2008
Safe setbacks: How far should wind turbines be from homes?
Let's start with what one manufacturer considers to be safe for its workers. The safety regulations for the Vestas V90, with a 300-ft rotor span and a total height of 410 feet, tell operators and technicians to stay 1,300 feet from an operating turbine -- over 3 times its total height -- unless absolutely necessary.
That already is a much greater distance than many regulations currently require as a minimum distance between wind turbines and homes, and it is concerned only with safety, not with noise, shadow flicker, or visual intrusion.
In February 2008, a 10-year-old Vestas turbine with a total height of less than 200 feet broke apart in a storm. Large pieces of the blades flew as far as 500 meters (1,640 feet) -- more than 8 times its total height.
The Fuhrländer turbine planned for Barrington, R.I., is 328 feet tall with a rotor diameter of 77 meters, or just over 250 feet (sweeping more than an acre of vertical air space). According to one news report, the manufacturer recommends a setback of 1,500 feet -- over 4.5 times the total height. In Wisconsin, where towns can regulate utility zoning for health and safety concerns, ordinances generally specify a setback of one-half mile (2,640 ft) to residences and workplaces.
But that may just be enough to protect the turbines from each other, not to adequately protect the peace and health of neighbors. When part of an array, turbines should be at least 10 rotor diameters apart to avoid turbulence from each other. In the case of the proposed 77-meter rotor span in Barrington, that would be 770 meters, or 2,525 feet. For the Gamesa G87, that's 2,850 feet; for the Vestas V90, 2,950 feet -- well over half a mile.
Since the human ear (not to mention the sensory systems of other animals or the internal organs of bats, which, it is now emerging, are crushed by the air pressure) is more sensitive than a giant industrial machine, doubling that would be a reasonable precaution (at least for the human neighbors -- it still doesn't help wildlife).
Jane and Julian Davis, whose home is 930 m (3,050 ft) from the Deeping St. Nicholas wind energy facility in England, were forced by the noise to rent another home in which to sleep. In July 2008 they were granted a 14% council tax reduction in recognition of their loss. It appears in this case that the combination of several turbines creates a manifold greater disturbance.
Sound experts Rick James and George Kamperman recommend a minimum 1 km (3,280 ft) distance in rural areas. James himself suggests that 2 km is better between turbines and homes, and Kamperman proposes 2-3 km as a minimum. German consultant Retexo-RISP also has suggested that "buildings, particularly housing, should not be nearer than 2 km to the windfarm"; and that was written when turbines were half the size of today's models.
Both the French Academy of Medicine and the U.K. Noise Association recommend a minimum of one mile (or 1.5 km, just under a mile) between giant wind turbines and homes. Trempealeau County in Wisconsin implemented such a setback. National Wind Watch likewise advocates a minimum one-mile setback.
Dr. Michael Nissenbaum and colleagues surveyed residents near wind turbines in Maine and found significantly worse sleep and mental health among those living 1.4 km or closer than those living farther from the machines.
Dr. Nina Pierpont, the preeminent expert on "wind turbine syndrome", recommends 1.25 miles (2 km). That is the minimum the Davises insist on as safe as well. In France, Marjolaine Villey-Migraine concluded that the minimum should be 5 km (3 miles). In June 2010, Ontario's environment ministry proposed requirements that offshore wind turbines be at least 5 km from the shoreline.
To protect human health, these distances are simply crude ways to minimize noise disturbance, especially at night, when atmospheric conditions often make wind turbine noise worse and carry it farther even as there is a greater expectation of (and need for) quiet. The World Health Organization says that the noise level inside a bedroom at night should be no greater than 30 dB(A) or 50 dB(C) (the latter measure includes more of the low-frequency spectrum of noise, which is felt as much as, or even more than, heard). A court case in Great Britain resulted in the “Den Brook” amplitude modulation conditions, which define and limit pulsating noise, which is especially intrusive, as any change, outside the dwelling, of >3 dB in the LAeq,125ms (125-millisecond averaged sound level) in any 2-second period at least 5 times in any minute with LAeq,1min (1-minute averaged sound level) ≥28 dB, and such excess occurring within at least 6 minutes in any hour.
Updates:
Since 2008, Queensland, Australia, has limited night-time noise indoors to 30 dB(A) (1-hour average), with limits of 35 dB(A) no more than 10% of the time and 40 db(A) 1%. Respective daytime limits are 5 dB(A) above the night-time limits. They also specify that existing continuous 90% sound levels should not be increased and that variable noise averages should not increase existing sound levels more than 5 dB(A) in the same time period.
Scottish Planning Policy “recommends” a distance of 2 km between wind energy developments and the edge of cities, towns, and villages to reduce visual impact. Since August 2011, Victoria, Australia, has allowed wind turbines within 2 km of a home only with the homeowner's written consent. In April 2013, the Québec, Canada, government approved a 2-km setback from homes in the municipalities of Haut-Saint-Laurent, Montérégie. Citizens groups in Germany suggest a minimum distance of 10 times the total turbine height to residential areas (see this story). Since July 2013, the state of Saxony has required 1 km between wind turbines and residential areas.
In February 2014, Newport, North Carolina, established a 5,000-ft (1.5-km) setback from property lines, a 35-dB limit for noise at the property lines, and a total height limit of 275 feet. The latter two conditions were also established by Carteret County, North Carolina, in February 2014, as well as a 1-mile setback from property lines.
Also see: “Wind turbine setback and noise regulations since 2010”
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights, animal rights
November 14, 2011
Basic Steps of Election Reform
From rosenlake.net:
1) Direct election of the President
Democracy is based on the principle of one person, one vote. The electoral system, however, assigns electors to each state according to their total representation in Congress, in which every state has a number of representatives fairly reflective of its population but also -- no matter its size or population -- 2 senators. In large-population states such as California and Texas, the addition of 2 does not greatly affect the ratio of electors to voters. In low-population states, however, such as Wyoming and Vermont, the addition of 2 effectively triples that ratio. In other words, a Vermonter's vote for President is worth 3 times as much as a Texan's vote. Since the 17th amendment to the Constitution in 1913, U.S. Senators have been directly elected. The President ought to be as well.
Further, because most states assign all their electors to the winner of their popular vote, votes for the loser in that state end up counting as nothing. A Republican, for example, in a consistently Democratic state essentially never gets his or her vote counted for President. (And analysts wonder why turnout is so low.) Until the anachronistic electoral system is abolished, states ought to at least assign their electors in proportion to the popular vote, so the electoral result is a little more reflective of the popular result. Maine and Nebraska do so already.
2) Instant run-off voting
Voters should be comfortable voting according to their true opinion rather than having to strategize their vote. The resulting winner should reflect the general desire of the majority. If, for example, there are 1 "conservative" and 3 "liberal" candidates in an election, the majority may vote "liberal" yet the "conservative" may win -- even though the majority would prefer any of the "liberals." Instant run-off voting allows the voter to specify a 2nd and 3rd choice as well as the 1st choice. If the counting of 1st-choice votes does not produce a majority winner, then the lower-polling candidates are dropped and the 2nd-choice votes on those ballots counted, etc.
3) Proportional representation
With the current winner-takes-all system in most elections for representative bodies, it is typical that more than half of the voters are in fact not represented in government. (Yet, again, analysts wonder why participation is so low.) Representation ought to reflect the opinions of all voters. The Center for Voting and Democracy describes the many ways such "full" representation has been and can be implemented.
[Also see "Is Mandatory Voting a Good Idea?"]
1) Direct election of the President
Democracy is based on the principle of one person, one vote. The electoral system, however, assigns electors to each state according to their total representation in Congress, in which every state has a number of representatives fairly reflective of its population but also -- no matter its size or population -- 2 senators. In large-population states such as California and Texas, the addition of 2 does not greatly affect the ratio of electors to voters. In low-population states, however, such as Wyoming and Vermont, the addition of 2 effectively triples that ratio. In other words, a Vermonter's vote for President is worth 3 times as much as a Texan's vote. Since the 17th amendment to the Constitution in 1913, U.S. Senators have been directly elected. The President ought to be as well.
Further, because most states assign all their electors to the winner of their popular vote, votes for the loser in that state end up counting as nothing. A Republican, for example, in a consistently Democratic state essentially never gets his or her vote counted for President. (And analysts wonder why turnout is so low.) Until the anachronistic electoral system is abolished, states ought to at least assign their electors in proportion to the popular vote, so the electoral result is a little more reflective of the popular result. Maine and Nebraska do so already.
2) Instant run-off voting
Voters should be comfortable voting according to their true opinion rather than having to strategize their vote. The resulting winner should reflect the general desire of the majority. If, for example, there are 1 "conservative" and 3 "liberal" candidates in an election, the majority may vote "liberal" yet the "conservative" may win -- even though the majority would prefer any of the "liberals." Instant run-off voting allows the voter to specify a 2nd and 3rd choice as well as the 1st choice. If the counting of 1st-choice votes does not produce a majority winner, then the lower-polling candidates are dropped and the 2nd-choice votes on those ballots counted, etc.
3) Proportional representation
With the current winner-takes-all system in most elections for representative bodies, it is typical that more than half of the voters are in fact not represented in government. (Yet, again, analysts wonder why participation is so low.) Representation ought to reflect the opinions of all voters. The Center for Voting and Democracy describes the many ways such "full" representation has been and can be implemented.
[Also see "Is Mandatory Voting a Good Idea?"]
October 22, 2011
Cutting down trees
They have thus dammed all the larger lakes, raising their broad surfaces many feet; Moose-head, for instance, some forty miles long, with its steamer on it; thus turning the forces of nature against herself, that they might float their spoils out of the country. They rapidly run out of these immense forests all the finer, and more accessible, pine timber, and then leave the bears to watch the decaying dams ... The wilderness experiences a sudden rise of all her streams and lakes, she feels ten thousand vermin gnawing at the base of her noblest trees, many combining drag them off, jarring over the roots of the survivors, and tumble them into the nearest stream, till the fairest having fallen, they scamper of to ransack some new wilderness, and all is still again. It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them, — to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. He speaks of a "berth" of timber, a good place for him to get into, just as a worm might. ...
The character of the logger's admiration is betrayed by his very mode of expressing it. If he told all that was in his mind, he would say, it was so big that I cut it down and then a yoke of oxen could stand on its stump. He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more than the tree. Why, my dear sir, the tree might have stood on its own stump, and a great deal more comfortably and firmly than a yoke of oxen can, if you had not cut it down. What right have you to celebrate the virtues of the man you murdered?
The Anglo-American can indeed cut down and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. he ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them. Before he has learned his a b c in the beautiful but mystic lore of the wilderness which Spenser and Dante had just begun to read, he cuts it down, coins a pine-tree shilling, (as if to signify the pine's value to him,) puts up a deestrict school-house, and introduces Webster's spelling-book.
environment, environmentalism, animal rights
The character of the logger's admiration is betrayed by his very mode of expressing it. If he told all that was in his mind, he would say, it was so big that I cut it down and then a yoke of oxen could stand on its stump. He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more than the tree. Why, my dear sir, the tree might have stood on its own stump, and a great deal more comfortably and firmly than a yoke of oxen can, if you had not cut it down. What right have you to celebrate the virtues of the man you murdered?
The Anglo-American can indeed cut down and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. he ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them. Before he has learned his a b c in the beautiful but mystic lore of the wilderness which Spenser and Dante had just begun to read, he cuts it down, coins a pine-tree shilling, (as if to signify the pine's value to him,) puts up a deestrict school-house, and introduces Webster's spelling-book.
—Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods
environment, environmentalism, animal rights
April 25, 2016
Why Bernie Sanders is the best bet for winning the Presidency
Here’s why Bernie Sanders is the best bet for the Democrats winning the Presidency in November (besides the high — and always growing — negative ratings of Hillary Clinton (in contrast to Sanders’s always growing favorable ratings), the numerous and consistent polls showing Sanders doing much better than she against Trump, particularly in crucial swing states, and Clinton’s extensive baggage of ethical lapses, harmful decisions, and even criminal behavior that become increasingly exposed).
Remember that the Presidency is determined by winner-takes-all electors from each state and the District of Columbia. (Only Maine and Nebraska choose electors more proportionally.) (Also remember, regarding the results reported below, that the DNC and the Clinton machine cheated – superdelegate bullying, lying, voter suppression, limiting voting sites, disrupting voting, not counting votes, the drastic differences between exit polls and reported results, especially in districts with electronic voting machings – which got increasingly worse as Sanders’ effort to overwhelm the odds with honesty and turnout continued to succeed.)
In the 10 “blue” states that have voted so far, Sanders has won the votes by an average of 60–40. All 5 states in tomorrow’s primary are “blue”. [Update: With Clinton winning 4 of those 5 states, Sanders’ average is now 55%–45%.] The remaining “blue” states are Oregon (May 17 [update: still 55%–45%]) and California and New Jersey. The District of Columbia, also “blue”, votes on June 14 (update, July 7: 52%–48%).
In the 2 “light blue” states (where the Republican presidential candidate won 1 of the last 4 elections) that have voted so far, Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has won the votes by an average of 56–44. Adding them to the above, Sanders has won 59%–42% (pardon the rounding errors) of the votes [update: 55%–45%]. The only “light blue” state yet to vote is New Mexico (June 7 [update: 52%–48%]).
In the 6 “purple” states (which went for the Republican and Democrat twice each) that have voted so far, Clinton has won the votes by an average of 57–41. Adding them to the above, Sanders has still won an average of 53%–46% of each state’s votes [update: 50%–50%].
Only 1 of the 2 “light red” states (where the Republican candidate won 3 of the last 4 elections) has voted so far, North Carolina, where Clinton won the votes 55%–41%. Adding it to the above, Sanders has still won the votes in each state by an average of 51–48. The “light red” state yet to vote is Indiana (May 3). [Update: With Sanders winning Indiana 53%–48%, he has still won the votes in all of the above states by an average of 51–48 (update: 49%–50%).]
In the “red” states, Clinton has won the votes in each so far by an average of only 52–46 [update, May 11: 51–46]. Taking out the Dixie (former Confederacy) states, Sanders has won an average of 62%–36% of each “red” state’s votes [update, May 11: 61%–36%; June 7: 58%–38%], suggesting the possibility of a nascent “prairie populism” that could give Democrats a chance to win some of those states. All of the Dixie states have voted, and the “red” ones — the only block where Clinton has been consistently strong, and the source of her delegate lead — are very unlikely to go “blue”. The remaining “red” states are West Virginia (May 10 [update: Sanders won 51%–35% (local candidate Paul Farrell got 9%)]), Kentucky (May 17 [update: 46%–47%), and Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota (June 7 [update: 51%–45%, 64%–26%, and 49%–51%, respectively).
At the Democratic Party Convention (July 25–28), 2,384 delegates are required for nomination as the party’s candidate. With 715 “super” delegates available, who are not bound by the results of the primaries and caucuses, a minimum of 1,669 “pledged” delegates (those assigned by the results of the primaries and caucuses) is needed to be a viable candidate for the nomination. Sanders crossed that threshold on June 7.
Unfortunately, not just for the Party but more importantly for the country as a whole, the Democratic establishment (ie, those superdelegates), long in the thrall of the Reaganite DLC, would probably rather lose than turn the Party over to a progressive populist who might actually steer the country into a better direction than they have done.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Schedule_and_results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#/media/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
Remember that the Presidency is determined by winner-takes-all electors from each state and the District of Columbia. (Only Maine and Nebraska choose electors more proportionally.) (Also remember, regarding the results reported below, that the DNC and the Clinton machine cheated – superdelegate bullying, lying, voter suppression, limiting voting sites, disrupting voting, not counting votes, the drastic differences between exit polls and reported results, especially in districts with electronic voting machings – which got increasingly worse as Sanders’ effort to overwhelm the odds with honesty and turnout continued to succeed.)
In the 10 “blue” states that have voted so far, Sanders has won the votes by an average of 60–40. All 5 states in tomorrow’s primary are “blue”. [Update: With Clinton winning 4 of those 5 states, Sanders’ average is now 55%–45%.] The remaining “blue” states are Oregon (May 17 [update: still 55%–45%]) and California and New Jersey. The District of Columbia, also “blue”, votes on June 14 (update, July 7: 52%–48%).
In the 2 “light blue” states (where the Republican presidential candidate won 1 of the last 4 elections) that have voted so far, Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has won the votes by an average of 56–44. Adding them to the above, Sanders has won 59%–42% (pardon the rounding errors) of the votes [update: 55%–45%]. The only “light blue” state yet to vote is New Mexico (June 7 [update: 52%–48%]).
In the 6 “purple” states (which went for the Republican and Democrat twice each) that have voted so far, Clinton has won the votes by an average of 57–41. Adding them to the above, Sanders has still won an average of 53%–46% of each state’s votes [update: 50%–50%].
Only 1 of the 2 “light red” states (where the Republican candidate won 3 of the last 4 elections) has voted so far, North Carolina, where Clinton won the votes 55%–41%. Adding it to the above, Sanders has still won the votes in each state by an average of 51–48. The “light red” state yet to vote is Indiana (May 3). [Update: With Sanders winning Indiana 53%–48%, he has still won the votes in all of the above states by an average of 51–48 (update: 49%–50%).]
In the “red” states, Clinton has won the votes in each so far by an average of only 52–46 [update, May 11: 51–46]. Taking out the Dixie (former Confederacy) states, Sanders has won an average of 62%–36% of each “red” state’s votes [update, May 11: 61%–36%; June 7: 58%–38%], suggesting the possibility of a nascent “prairie populism” that could give Democrats a chance to win some of those states. All of the Dixie states have voted, and the “red” ones — the only block where Clinton has been consistently strong, and the source of her delegate lead — are very unlikely to go “blue”. The remaining “red” states are West Virginia (May 10 [update: Sanders won 51%–35% (local candidate Paul Farrell got 9%)]), Kentucky (May 17 [update: 46%–47%), and Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota (June 7 [update: 51%–45%, 64%–26%, and 49%–51%, respectively).
At the Democratic Party Convention (July 25–28), 2,384 delegates are required for nomination as the party’s candidate. With 715 “super” delegates available, who are not bound by the results of the primaries and caucuses, a minimum of 1,669 “pledged” delegates (those assigned by the results of the primaries and caucuses) is needed to be a viable candidate for the nomination. Sanders crossed that threshold on June 7.
Unfortunately, not just for the Party but more importantly for the country as a whole, the Democratic establishment (ie, those superdelegates), long in the thrall of the Reaganite DLC, would probably rather lose than turn the Party over to a progressive populist who might actually steer the country into a better direction than they have done.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Schedule_and_results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#/media/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
August 11, 2012
What Is.
It’s extremely dangerous to stop growing because at that point you begin to die. It’s extremely dangerous to commit yourself to one idea. Be careful you’re not caught in your own net.
We live from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, and at each point we are a little different. we are not the same twice on any two occasions. When you realize that, it becomes extremely important that the next minute be better than the last one. If you’re going to change, change for the better, not the worse. No question you will change, the only question is the direction. If there is no change, this is the open door to death. Life is a progression. It is not a standing still. It is either a plus or a minus.
— Scott Nearing (1883–1983), obituary interview with Jean Hay, May 1981 (from Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life, Jean Hay Bright, Brightberry Press, Dixmont, Maine, 2003)
Q: I would like to know whether you believe in God.
What is God? If you can tell us what you mean by the term, we can discuss the matter. If not, there's no way to get down to specifics.
If you think of God as a heavenly Father who can be nudged or cajoled into granting benefits and excusing delinquencies . . . no, we do not believe.
If you think of God as an arbitrary, autocratic ruler of the universe to be propitiated and worshiped . . . our answer, again, would be no.
If “your” God is a tribal chief, a God of battle, and a leader of a chosen people . . . we do not believe in Him (or Her).
However, if you see God as the unity of all things, including rocks, grass, beasts, clouds, stars, and humans . . . if your God incorporates the above and the below, the plus and the minus, the killer and the killed, the sinner and the saint, the creator and the destroyer . . . yes, we believe.
— Helen and Scott Nearing, ‘Homesteading Tools, Dividing Household Chores, and other Wisdom from Helen and Scott Nearing’, Mother Earth News, March/April 1981
All religions have truth in them, and all can be accepted in part. But there is no religion higher than truth, and Truth is the whole magnificent universe. What is. We believe in that — and strive to lend a hand.
— Helen and Scott Nearing, letter, 10 May 1981, in reply to response to above (from Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life)
Satyan nasti paro dharmah
We live from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, and at each point we are a little different. we are not the same twice on any two occasions. When you realize that, it becomes extremely important that the next minute be better than the last one. If you’re going to change, change for the better, not the worse. No question you will change, the only question is the direction. If there is no change, this is the open door to death. Life is a progression. It is not a standing still. It is either a plus or a minus.
— Scott Nearing (1883–1983), obituary interview with Jean Hay, May 1981 (from Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life, Jean Hay Bright, Brightberry Press, Dixmont, Maine, 2003)
Q: I would like to know whether you believe in God.
What is God? If you can tell us what you mean by the term, we can discuss the matter. If not, there's no way to get down to specifics.
If you think of God as a heavenly Father who can be nudged or cajoled into granting benefits and excusing delinquencies . . . no, we do not believe.
If you think of God as an arbitrary, autocratic ruler of the universe to be propitiated and worshiped . . . our answer, again, would be no.
If “your” God is a tribal chief, a God of battle, and a leader of a chosen people . . . we do not believe in Him (or Her).
However, if you see God as the unity of all things, including rocks, grass, beasts, clouds, stars, and humans . . . if your God incorporates the above and the below, the plus and the minus, the killer and the killed, the sinner and the saint, the creator and the destroyer . . . yes, we believe.
— Helen and Scott Nearing, ‘Homesteading Tools, Dividing Household Chores, and other Wisdom from Helen and Scott Nearing’, Mother Earth News, March/April 1981
All religions have truth in them, and all can be accepted in part. But there is no religion higher than truth, and Truth is the whole magnificent universe. What is. We believe in that — and strive to lend a hand.
— Helen and Scott Nearing, letter, 10 May 1981, in reply to response to above (from Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life)
Satyan nasti paro dharmah
August 23, 2014
Wind Health Impacts Dismissed in Court?
By Eric Rosenbloom, President, National Wind Watch:
At the renewable energy industry PR site Energy & Policy Institute, dead-ender Mike Barnard claims that whenever concerns of health impacts from industrial wind turbine noise are raised at law, they are rejected. In the 49 cases from English-speaking countries that he presents, however, only 2 involved an operating wind energy facility. And in both, the facility was found to be in violation of the law. The rest involve only the existing legal framework for approving industrial wind facilities, which involves the weighing of often competing interests — and the evidence shows most clearly that national, state, or provincial interests generally trump local concerns in the matter of energy development.
Almost all of the remaining 47 (or 44, since 2 of them are duplicates and 1 is the transcript of the hearing for one of the listed cases) involve appeals of project approvals, and the issue concerns only the possibility of health impacts despite the government’s judgement and the developer’s reassurances. Oddly, 11 of them do not even consider health effects or they consider them only very narrowly (eg, shadow flicker, autism). And several of them recognize that should health effects occur, they should indeed be taken seriously. One of the rulings (Heritage Wind Farm Development Inc., Decision on Preliminary Question, Decision 2011-239, Alberta, 2012) dismisses the developer’s wish to operate the turbines at night, in violation of the conditions of the project approval. Another ruling (Hulme v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor, 2011) upholds amplitude modulation (“whooshing”) noise conditions that have prevented the developer from proceeding despite project approval.
As stated in Fata v. Director, Ministry of the Environment (Ontario, 2014), “Tribunals are creatures of statute.” The laws guiding the permitting of large wind energy facilities are narrow and virtually arbitrary regarding setbacks and noise limits. Until the facility is actually operating, the developer’s word is golden and the regulations are generous. After construction, the resulting impacts are weighed against the burden on the developer to mitigate them. Nonetheless, as noted above, in both post-construction cases presented by Barnard, the courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
Furthermore, Barnard completely ignores the many cases that have been settled out of court, the energy company buying the plaintiff’s property rather than defending the charges of adverse health effects in public. Such settlements also typically impose gag orders on the sellers. Two examples are the purchase of several homes in Ontario and the home of Jane and Julian Davis in England.
Then there is the non–English-speaking world. One pertinent example is from Portugal, where the Supreme Court in 2013 ordered the shutting down and removal of 4 turbines near a farm because of sleep disturbance and other health effects. In late 2011, Denmark added limits of indoor low-frequency noise to its regulations, recognizing one of the unique characteristics of wind turbine noise and its health impacts. In July 2021, the Toulouse (France) Court of Appeal rewarded a couple 110,000 euros in compensation for the health impacts from noise and flashing from neighboring wind turbines.
Update: On March 25, 2022, the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia, ruled that noise from the Bald Hills Wind Farm at Tarwin Lower created a nuisance to its neighbors, ordering damages and an injunction to stop emitting noise at night: “Noise from the turbines on the wind farm has caused a substantial interference with both plaintiffs’ enjoyment of their land, specifically, their ability to sleep undisturbed at night in their own beds in their own homes.”
Update: On March 8, 2024, the High Court of Ireland ruled that noise from wind turbines in Ballyduff, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, created unreasonable interference to its neighbors. “I find that two features in particular of the WTN [wind turbine noise] AM [amplitude modulation] render the WTN an unreasonable interference. First, there are frequent and sustained periods during which the AM manifests typical AM values at a level widely acknowledged to be associated with high levels of annoyance. Second, this WTN displays periods of thump AM. The oral evidence of all four plaintiffs and the Webster-Rollo diary entries all suggest that thump AM, together with its association vibration, is the most intrusive quality of the WTN. This thump AM vastly adds to the nuisance posed by the wind farm. In combination, I find that this is WTN which reasonable people would find it impossible to habituate to.”
Far from exhaustive, Barnard’s list is also not representative of legal opinion, ignoring planning decisions and regulations that consider the adverse health effects of wind turbine noise. Just one example is a North Lincolnshire project that was “rejected because of the ‘serious effect’ it would have on eight-year-old autistic twin boys living nearby”, based on the evidence from an existing project behind their home. [Also see: search for “health” and “noise” in news items at National Wind Watch tagged “victories”]
In the tables below, only the last columns (“comments”) have been added to the originals.
Australia
| Case | Project | Location | Year | Type | Decision | comments |
| Cherry Tree Farm Pty Ltd. v. Mitchell Shire Council | Cherry Tree | Victoria | 2013 | Civil | In favor of developer | [bad link in original] permit application (allowed, with conditions, including noise limits) – “The Tribunal has no doubt that some people who live close to a wind turbine experience adverse health effects … there is not sufficient evidence to establish that the proportion of the population residing in proximity to a wind farm which experiences adverse health effects is large enough to warrant refusal of a land use that is positively encouraged by planning policy. … This view is strengthened when the proximity is required to be no less than 2 kilometres.” [emphasis added] |
| Paltridge and Ors v. District Council of Grant and Anor | Allendale East | South Australia | 2011 | Environment | Against developer (visual amenity) | appeal of planning consent (upheld) |
| Cherry Tree Farm Pty Ltd v. Mitchell Shire Council | Cherry Tree | Victoria | 2013 | Civil | In favor of developer | [bad link in original; apparently duplicate entry of Cherry Tree Farm Pty Ltd. v. Mitchell Shire Council (2013), above] |
| Quinn & Ors v. Regional Council of Goyder & Anor | Hallett | South Australia | 2010 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeal of planning consent – ‘[T]he framers of the Development Plan must have known that, even in a sparsely populated rural area such as the locality of the proposed wind farm, there will be residents who will be able to hear the turbines, and a small percentage of those residents are likely to be annoyed.’ (ie, tough) |
| King & Anor v. Minister for Planning; Parkesbourne-Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc v. Minister for Planning; Gullen Range Wind Farm Pty Limited v. Minister for Planning | Gullen Range | New South Wales | 2010 | Environment | In favor of developer | 3 appeals of project approval, none regarding health |
| The Sisters Wind Farm Pty Ltd v. Moyne SC | Sisters Wind Farm | Victoria | 2010 | Civil | Against developer (exceeds updated noise standards) | appeal of permit refusal (dismissed) – ‘It is our view that actual adverse health effects aside from the annoyance aspects of noise impact remain unproven. We do however accept that certain individuals have a much higher sensitivity to noise than others, but the impact of noise from the turbines, which is a fluctuating rather than a steady noise, does cause significant distress even at a low noise level.’ |
| Acciona Energy Oceania Pty Ltd v. Corangamite SC | Newfield | Victoria | 2008 | Civil | In favor of developer | appeal of permit refusal (upheld) – ‘There is no evidence of health impacts that persuades us that rejection of the permit application is warranted given the proposal’s compliance with the applicable standards. [emphasis added] If there are significant issues arising then there needs to be some independent assessment and documentation leading, if required, to variations in the standards applied in Victoria.’ |
| Perry v. Hepburn SC | Hepburn Wind | Victoria | 2007 | Civil | In favor of developer | appeal of permit approval (dismissed) – ‘There is no evidence of health impacts that persuades us that rejection of the permit application is warranted given the proposal’s compliance with the applicable standards.’ [emphasis added] |
| Synergy Wind Pty Ltd v. Wellington SC | Yarram | Victoria | 2007 | Civil | In favor of developer | appeal of permit refusal (dismissed), health concerns raised only in reference to shadow flicker |
| Thackeray v. Shire of South Gippsland | Toora | Victoria | 2001 | Civil | In favor of developer | appeal of permit approval (dismissed), health concerns not raised |
| Hislop & Ors v. Glenelg SC | Cape Bridgewater | Victoria | 1998 | Civil | In favor of developer | permit application (approved), health concerns not raised |
Canada
| Case | Project | Location | Year | Type | Decision | comments |
| Fata v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Bow Lake | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) – ‘Tribunals are creatures of statute.’ |
| 13-124 Kroeplin v. MOE | Armow | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | [bad link in original] appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| 13-096 Platinum Produce Company v. MOE | South Kent | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeal of project approval (dismissed) |
| Drennan v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | K2 Wind Huron County | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| Ostrander Point GP Inc. and another v. Prince Edward County Field Naturalists and another | Ostrander Point | Ontario | 2014 | Higher | In favor of developer | [bad link in original] appeal of revocation of project approval (upheld), appeal of dismissal of appeal regarding harm to birds and alvar (dismissed), and appeal of dismissal of appeal regarding harm to human health (dismissed) |
| 1646658 Alberta Ltd., Bull Creek Wind Project | Bull Creek | Alberta | 2014 | Utility | In favor of developer | [bad link in original] application for project approval (approved) |
| Wrightman v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Adelaide | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| Bain v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Ernestown Wind Farm | Ontario | 2014 | Environment | In favor of developer | [no link in original] appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| Bovaird v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Melancthon Extension | Ontario | 2013 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeal of project approval (dismissed) |
| Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Ostrander Point | Ontario | 2013 | Environment | Against developer due to endangered turtle | appeals of project approval (dismissed regarding human health; allowed regarding plant life, animal life or natural environment) – overturned in Ostrander Point GP Inc. and another v. Prince Edward County Field Naturalists and another (2014), above |
| Monture v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Haldimand Summerhaven project | Ontario | 2012 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| Monture v. Director, Ministry of the Environment (Monture 2) | Haldimand Grand Renewable Wind | Ontario | 2012 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) |
| Chatham-Kent Wind Action Inc. v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | South Kent | Ontario | 2012 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeal of project approval (dismissed) |
| Heritage Wind Farm Development Inc., Decision on Preliminary Question, Decision 2011-239 | Heritage Wind Farm | Alberta | 2012 | Utility | Against developer | application for variance of approval condition to shut down turbines at night (dismissed) |
| Erickson v. Director, Ministry of the Environment | Chatham Kent Suncor | Ontario | 2011 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeals of project approval (dismissed) – ‘While the Appellants were not successful in their appeals, the Tribunal notes that their involvement and that of the Respondents, has served to advance the state of the debate about wind turbines and human health. This case has successfully shown that the debate should not be simplified to one about whether wind turbines can cause harm to humans. The evidence presented to the Tribunal demonstrates that they can, if facilities are placed too close to residents. The debate has now evolved to one of degree. The question that should be asked is: What protections, such as permissible noise levels or setback distances, are appropriate to protect human health? … Just because the Appellants have not succeeded in their appeals, that is no excuse to close the book on further research. On the contrary, further research should help resolve some of the significant questions that the Appellants have raised.’ |
| Hanna v. Ontario (Attorney General) | Wind farm enabling legislation | Ontario | 2011 | Higher | In favor of industry | challenge of provincial setback requirements (dismissed) – ‘[U]nder s. 11 of the EBR, the minister must take every reasonable step to consider all ten principles, a process which involves a policy-laden weighing and balancing of competing principles. … The health concerns for persons living in proximity to wind turbines cannot be denigrated, but they do not trump all other considerations. … It is not the court's function to question the wisdom of the minister's decision, or even whether it was reasonable. If the minister followed the process mandated by s. 11 of the EBR, his decision is unassailable on a judicial review application.’ |
| McKinnon v. RMs Martin and Moosomin, Red Lily Wind | Red Lily | Saskatchewan | 2010 | Civil | In favor of developer | motion for injunction (dismissed) |
New Zealand
| Case | Project | Location | Year | Type | Decision | comments |
| New Zealand Wind Farms Limited v. Palmerston North City Council | Te Rere Hau | Palmerston North | 2013 | Higher | In favor of developer | [link same as Palmerston North City Council v. New Zealand Windfarms Limited (2012), below] |
| Meridian Energy Limited v. Hurunui Bistrict and Canterbury Regional Councils | Hurunui | North Canterbury | 2013 | Environment | In favor of developer | application for project consent (granted) |
| Palmerston North City Council v. New Zealand Windfarms Limited | Te Rere Hau | New Zealand | 2012 | Environment | Against developer | challenge of noise compliance (granted) – update, Dec. 2017 |
| Mainpower NZ Limited v. Hurunui District Council | Mt. Cass | Canterbury | 2011 | Environment | In favor of developer | appeal of consent refusal (upheld) – ‘we accept that there can be no guarantee of absolute protection for the health and wellbeing of their child [with autism]’ (only health concern raised) |
| Rangitikei Guardians Society Inc v. Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council | Project Central Wind | Taihape | 2010 | Environment | In favor of developer | [no link in original] appeal of project consent (dismissed) |
United Kingdom
| Case | Project | Location | Year | Type | Decision | comments |
| South Northamptonshire Council & Anor v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor | Spring Farm Ridge | Northamptonshire | 2013 | Higher | Against developer | appeal of upheld appeal of planning refusal (upheld), health concerns not raised |
| Hulme v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor | Den Brook | Devon | 2011 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of conditions of redetermined planning approval (upheld appeal of dismissed appeal of upheld appeal of planning refusal (dismissed) – upheld amplitude modulation noise condition, health concerns not raised |
| Barnes & Anor v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government | Crosslands Farm | Cumbria | 2010 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of upheld appeal of planning refusal (rejected), health concerns not raised |
| Tegni Cymru Cyf v. The Welsh Ministers & Anor | Gorsedd Bran | Denbighshire | 2010 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of rejected appeal of planning refusal (upheld), health concerns not raised |
| Hulme, R (on the application of) v. Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government | Den Brook | Devon | 2010 | Higher | In favor of developer | [hearing of Hulme v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Anor (2011), above] |
| Tegni Cymru Cyf v. The Welsh Ministers & Anor | Gorsedd Bran | Denbighshire | 2010 | Higher | Against developer | appeal of Tegni Cymru Cyf v. The Welsh Ministers & Anor (2010), above, health concerns not raised |
| The Friends of Hethel Ltd, R (on the application of) v. Ecotricity | Lotus Cars | Norfolk | 2009 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of planning permission, health concerns not raised |
| North Devon District Council, R (on the application of) v. Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform & Anor | Fullabrook Down | Devon | 2008 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal and application for judicial review of planning permission (appeal dismissed, permission to apply for judicial review granted), health concerns not raised |
| CRE Energy Ltd Re: A Decision Of The Scottish Ministers [2006] ScotCS CSOH_131 (29 August 2006) | Borrowston | Scotland | 2006 | Higher | Against developer | appeal of planning refusal, health concerns not raised |
United States
| Case | Project | Location | Year | Type | Decision | comments |
| Town of Falmouth v. Town of Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals & others | Falmouth | Massachusetts | 2013 | Higher | Against developer | motion for injunction (allowed) – turbines off 7pm-7am Mon-Sat, Sun, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's – update: complete shutdown ordered in June 2017 |
| Lawrence J. Frigault et al., Respondents-Appellants, v. Town of Richfield Planning Board et al., Apellants-Respondents, et al., Respondent. | Monticello Winds | New York | 2013 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of upheld appeal of permit approval (upheld), health concerns not raised |
| The Blue Mountain Alliance; Norm Kralman; Richard Jolly; Dave Price; Robin Severe; and Cindy Severe, Petitioners, v. Energy Facility Siting Council; and Site Certificate Holder Helix Windpower Facility, LLC. Respondents. | Helix Wind Power Facility | Oregon | 2013 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of certificate approval ignoring country setback ordinance, health concerns not specifically raised |
| Friends of Maine Mountains v. Board of Environmental Protection | Saddleback Ridge | Maine | 2012 | Higher | Against developer | appeal of permit approval (upheld) – ‘Because the Board is responsible for regulating sound levels in order to minimize health impacts—and because when doing so it determined that the appropriate nighttime sound level limit to minimize health impacts is 42 dBA—the Board abused its discretion by approving Saddleback's permit applications.’ |
| Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury et al. v. Board of Environmental Protection et al. | Record Hill | Maine | 2011 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of permit approval (dismissed) |
| Application of Buckeye Wind, LLC., for a Certificate to Construct Wind–Powered Electric Generation Facilities in Champaign County, Ohio; Union Neighbors United et al., Appellants; Power Siting Board et al., Appellees | Champaign County | Ohio | 2010 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of project approval (dismissed), health concerns not raised – ‘the board acted in accordance with all pertinent statutes and regulations’ |
| Arthur and Elke Plaxton, Appellants v. Lycoming County Zoning Hearing Board and Laurel Hill Wind Energy, LLC. | Laurel Ridge | Pennsylvania | 2009 | Higher | In favor of developer | challenge of county zoning amendments (dismissed), health concerns not specifically raised |
| Roberts v. Manitowoc County Board of Adjustment | Twin Creeks Wind Park | Wisconsin | 2006 | Higher | In favor of developer | appeal of permit approval (dismissed), health concerns not specifically raised |
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights
May 9, 2007
National Wind Watch comments on National Academies report on impacts of wind energy
Press release:
Rowe, Mass., May 9, 2007 -- On May 3, 2007, the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies of Science released its report on the "Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects". The report states:
Because the use of wind energy has some adverse impacts, the conclusion that a wind-energy installation has net environmental benefits requires the conclusion that all of its adverse effects are less than the adverse effects of the generation that it displaces.
Such official analysis is exactly what has been missing in the careless push for wind energy, according to National Wind Watch (NWW), a coalition of individuals and action groups fighting inappropriate wind energy development in the U.S. and around the world.
Although commending the recognition of negative impacts, which neighbors and many observers have long been attesting to, NWW notes the report includes nine references from the main American industry trade group, three from the British, and three from the Danish. These are not cited as examples of how the industry self-protectively spins information but rather as reliable information about impacts. That not only calls into question some of the report's assessment of the extent of adverse impacts, it also illustrates the hurdles that people who defend wildlife, the landscape, and their homes still have to overcome.
The usual line from wind promoters is that the problems that wind energy solves are much worse than any that wind energy itself causes, e.g., more birds would die if wind turbines were not built (because of climate change caused by fossil fuels). But the argument is stacked. Neither part of it has been rigorously examined -- neither the premise that wind energy on the grid brings significant benefits, nor the assumption that its negative impacts on the environment, communities, and individual lives are anything but minimal. Only citizens' groups such as those associated with National Wind Watch have dared to demand accountability in the heedless industry and government push to develop wind.
It is welcome that the NRC report, although it glosses over the many adverse impacts of industrial wind development, nonetheless recognizes the need for studying them. NWW hopes that this quasi-official report will start to turn around the studious dismissal of increasingly obvious and significant problems.
Examination of wind's claims of benefit also need a hard look. With more than a decade of experience in Denmark and Germany, it is absurd to still cite carbon reductions according to industry theory instead of actual experience. We need to know the documented effect of wind (a highly variable and intermittent nondispatchable energy source) on emissions on the grid.
The report unquestioningly repeats the sales claim that the average annual output from wind is 30% of its capacity, even though the reality is quite different. According to figures from the 2007 Annual Energy Outlook of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Information Agency (IEA), the output in 2005 was only 21% of capacity.
As to effects on wildlife, although it acknowledges that impacts are poorly studied the report repeats the cant that the slaughter of raptors at Altamont Pass in California is an aberration and mostly due to older turbines -- an obviously dubious claim. Deaths are mounting with every new facility. The first-year study (by a company-picked firm) of the 120-turbine "Maple Ridge" facility in northern New York estimated that 3,000 to 6,000 birds and bats were killed there last year.
The report also determines that the toll on bats is only a problem in the mid-Atlantic, which is the only place where it's been well documented. But just two days before the NRC report was released, Michael Daulton of the National Audubon Society testified before the U.S. House Natural Resources Wildlife Subcommittee that bats in Missouri are attracted to wind turbines. Merlin Tuttle, president of Bat Conservation International, has stated, "We're finding kills even [by] the most remote turbines out in the middle of prairies, where bats don't feed."
Donald Fry, director of the Pesticides and Birds Program, American Bird Conservancy, testified also on May 1, 2007, to the U.S. House Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans Subcommittee:
The wind energy industry has been constructing and operating wind projects for almost 25 years with little state and federal oversight. They have rejected as either too costly or unproven techniques recommended by [the National Wind Coordinating Committee] to reduce bird deaths. The wind industry ignores the expertise of state energy staff and the knowledgeable advice of Fish and Wildlife Service employees on ways to reduce or avoid bird and wildlife impacts. ... The mortality at wind farms is significant, because many of the species most impacted are already in decline, and all sources of mortality contribute to the continuing decline.
Finally, concerning human impacts the report is regrettably vague in both its findings and its recommendations. Wind turbines are giant industrial installations, and here again, just as with birds and bats, the assumption is backwards. Of course there are adverse impacts. As Wendy Todd, who lives 2,600 feet from the new wind energy facility on Mars Hill, Maine, testified to her state legislature on April 30, 2007: "Noise is the largest problem but shadow flicker and strobe effect are close behind. ... Some find that it makes them dizzy and disoriented; others find that it can cause headaches and nausea." Although this report is perhaps the first quasi-official study to acknowledge that fact, it still puts the burden of proof on the wrong people.
Before we destroy another landscape, natural habitat, community, or individual human life, governments at every level, conservation groups, and environmentalists need to seriously assess the claims made to promote and defend industrial wind energy development.
National Wind Watch information and contacts are available at www.wind-watch.org.
January 21, 2012
The piddling contribution of wind power in New England
ISO New England: Seasonal Claimed Capability (SCC), Jan 2012 report
Total New England Claimed Capability (MW)
Winter (March): 34407.889; 125.964 (0.366%) from WIND
Summer (August): 31766.431; 50.735 (0.160%) from WIND
The SCC of Intermittent Power Resources generator assets are determined using the median of net output from the most recently completed Summer Capability and Winter Capability Periods across the Summer (HE 14-18) and Winter (HE 18-19) Intermittent Reliability Hours, respectively.
The ISO-NE report lists 34 wind-powered generators, only 26 providing any winter and 24 summer capability (two of which because they are still under construction or not yet connected and therefore deleted from the list below).
Note that several of these figures are obviously bogus, with round numbers and summer values an even fraction of the winter value suggesting developer reports rather than actual data, and the 80% claimed capacity for one of the Otis Air Force Base turbines is clearly impossible.
Therefore, the ISO-NE report of 0.37% of its power in winter and 0.16% in summer is an exaggeration of the true situation. That piddling contribution includes the output from nine very large wind energy facilities, all on mountain ridges that used to provide important forested habitat.
(Note that the 42-MW Mars Hill Wind Farm in Maine is not included here, because it is outside of the ISO-NE network. And according to the New England Wind Forum of the U.S. Department of Energy, there are two other large facilities currently under construction — Record Hill Wind Project [50 MW] in Byron and Roxbury, Me. and Kingdom Community Wind [63 MW] in Lowell, Vt. — and five more that have been permitted — Cape Wind [468 MW] and Hoosac Wind Energy Project [30 MW] in Mass., Spruce Mountain [19 MW] in Me., Granite Reliable Power Windpark [99 MW] in N.H., and Georgia Mountain Community Wind [12 MW] in Vt.; the Hoosac and Granite projects are in fact under construction, and the Record Hill project is operating.)
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Total New England Claimed Capability (MW)
Winter (March): 34407.889; 125.964 (0.366%) from WIND
Summer (August): 31766.431; 50.735 (0.160%) from WIND
The SCC of Intermittent Power Resources generator assets are determined using the median of net output from the most recently completed Summer Capability and Winter Capability Periods across the Summer (HE 14-18) and Winter (HE 18-19) Intermittent Reliability Hours, respectively.
The ISO-NE report lists 34 wind-powered generators, only 26 providing any winter and 24 summer capability (two of which because they are still under construction or not yet connected and therefore deleted from the list below).
| generator | capacity (kW) | winter | summer |
| MA: | |||
| BARNSTABLE_DPW_ID1545 | 200 | 80 (40%) | 14 (7%) |
| BARTLETTS OCEAN VIEW FARM WIND | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| BERKSHIRE WIND POWER PROJECT | 15000 | 6988 (46.6%) | 1704 (11.4%) |
| CITY OF MEDFORD WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| HOLY NAME CC JR SR HIGH SCHOOL | 600 | 0 | 0 |
| HULL WIND TURBINE II | 1800 | 458 (25.4%) | 52 (2.3%) |
| HULL WIND TURBINE U5 | 660 | 180 (27.3%) | 46 (7.0%) |
| IPSWICH WIND FARM 1 | 1600 | 342 (21.4%) | 125 (7.8%) |
| JIMINY PEAK WIND QF | 1500 | 0 | 0 |
| MOUNT ST MARY-WRENTHAM MA WIND | 100 | 4 (4.0%) | 2 (2.0%) |
| NATURE'S CLASSROOM WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| NM-STONE | 600 | 6 (1%) | 0 |
| NOTUS WIND I | 1650 | 500 (30.3%) | 187 (11.3%) |
| OTIS_AF_WIND_TURBINE | 1500 | 199 (13.3%) | 125 (8.3%) |
| OTIS_WT_AFCEE_ID1692 | 1500 | 1200 (80%) | 1200 (80%) |
| PRINCETON WIND FARM PROJECT | 3000 | 582 (19.4%) | 157 (52.3%) |
| RICHEY WOODWORKING WIND QF | 600 | 0 | 0 |
| TEMPLETON WIND TURBINE | 1650 | 401 (24.3%) | 74 (4.5%) |
| TOWN_OF_FALMOUTH_WIND_TURBINE | 1650 | 133 (8.1%) | 6 (0.4%) |
| ME: | |||
| BEAVER RIDGE WIND | 4500 | 1240 (27.6%) | 466 (10.4%) |
| FOX ISLAND WIND | 4500 | 159 (3.5%) | 0 |
| KIBBY WIND POWER | 132000 | 34590 (26.2%) | 13375 (10.1%) |
| ROLLINS WIND PLANT | 60000 | 20860 (34.8%) | 6207 (10.3%) |
| SPRUCE MOUNTAIN WIND | 19000 | 9000 (47.4%) | 4500 (23.7%) |
| STETSON II WIND FARM | 25500 | 6740 (26.4%) | 2602 (10.2%) |
| STETSON WIND FARM | 57000 | 15725 (27.6%) | 7056 (12.4%) |
| NH: | |||
| LEMPSTER WIND | 24000 | 8518 (35.5%) | 2457 (10.2%) |
| RI: | |||
| NE ENGRS MIDDLETOWN RI WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| PORTSMOUTH ABBEY WIND QF | 660 | 0 | 0 |
| TOWN OF PORTSMOUTH RI WIND QF | 1500 | 159 (10.6%) | 178 (11.9%) |
| VT: | |||
| SEARSBURG WIND (listed in Mass.) | 6600 | 900 (13.6%) | 202 (3.1%) |
| SHEFFIELD WIND PLANT | 40000 | 17000 (42.5%) | 10000 (25.0%) |
| TOTAL WIND | 459420 | 125964 (27.4%) | 50735 (11.0%) |
Note that several of these figures are obviously bogus, with round numbers and summer values an even fraction of the winter value suggesting developer reports rather than actual data, and the 80% claimed capacity for one of the Otis Air Force Base turbines is clearly impossible.
Therefore, the ISO-NE report of 0.37% of its power in winter and 0.16% in summer is an exaggeration of the true situation. That piddling contribution includes the output from nine very large wind energy facilities, all on mountain ridges that used to provide important forested habitat.
(Note that the 42-MW Mars Hill Wind Farm in Maine is not included here, because it is outside of the ISO-NE network. And according to the New England Wind Forum of the U.S. Department of Energy, there are two other large facilities currently under construction — Record Hill Wind Project [50 MW] in Byron and Roxbury, Me. and Kingdom Community Wind [63 MW] in Lowell, Vt. — and five more that have been permitted — Cape Wind [468 MW] and Hoosac Wind Energy Project [30 MW] in Mass., Spruce Mountain [19 MW] in Me., Granite Reliable Power Windpark [99 MW] in N.H., and Georgia Mountain Community Wind [12 MW] in Vt.; the Hoosac and Granite projects are in fact under construction, and the Record Hill project is operating.)
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
September 23, 2010
Wind industry continues to lie
Here are a couple of examples of the alternate reality in which wind industry executives operate, hoping that the rest of the world will join them.
In today's Daily Mail report about the U.K.'s new sprawling wind energy facility off the coast of Kent, an unnamed spokesman for Renewable UK, responding to criticism that this 13.5-square-mile, £780 million plant will produce at an average of only 35-40% of its capacity, said, ‘You have to bear in mind that coal and gas-fired power stations don’t work at full capacity either – and even nuclear power stations are taken off line.’
He does not mention that other power stations are used according to demand, not the whims of the wind. Using a peaking plant (at full rated power) 35% of the time, that is, when you need it, is very different from wind turbines producing power, at variable rates, whether you need it or not. An average of 35% is meaningless: If it can not be produced on demand, it is worthless. Wind turbines produce at or above their average rate — whatever it might turn out to be — only about 40% of the time — at whatever times the wind wills.
Also in the article, an item in the sidebar says that it "generates power at wind speeds between 8mph and 55mph". Elsewhere in the article, however, it is noted that the the plant will generate at full capacity only if the wind is blowing at 16 metres per second, i.e., 36mph. Below that speed, production falls precipitously. At 8mph, it is barely a trickle. Furthermore, after the wind gusts above 55mph and the turbines shut down, they don't start up again until the wind goes down to 45mph.
Let us now turn our attention to Vermont, where the founder of anemometer maker NRG Systems David Blittersdorf (his wife Jan is still CEO; David went on to Earth Turbines and then All Earth Renewables, which applied for millions of dollars of grants this year, so Mr B got himself appointed to the state committee disbursing the grants ...). As reported by the Rutland Herald, Blittersdorf gave a talk about wind power at the annual meeting of the Castleton Historical Society.
He said that "wind power is practically unsubsidized when compared to power sources like oil and nuclear energy." Federal financial interventions and subsidies in the energy market were examined by the Energy Information Administration in 2008. They found that wind energy received $23.37 per megawatt-hour of its electricity production in 2007, compared with 44 cents for coal, $1.59 for nuclear, and 25 cents for natural gas and oil.
He also said that "many of the objections to wind power, such as danger to birds and concerns about noise, are no longer true due to newer technology". In fact, "newer technology" simply consists of taller towers with larger blades, which now reach well into the ranges of migrating birds, both large and small. Every post-construction survey of a wind energy facility continues to report more deaths than predicted. (And yet permitting agencies and bird protection organizations continue to believe the developers' assessments.) In addition to birds, the toll on bats has become an increasingly alarming concern. The size of modern turbines has also only increased, not decreased noise problems. Everywhere that wind turbines are erected within 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) of homes, people complain of disturbed sleep, consequent stress and irritability, and often worse health problems that may be a direct result of the throbbing low-frequency noise on the balance organs of the inner ear. (And yet permitting agencies and neighbors continue to believe the developers' reassurances; the latest victims of this willful obtuseness reside on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine.) Again, the problems with wind have only become worse with "newer technology"..
And so he said that the only real remaining objection is the aesthetic one: "Some folks don't want to see a wind turbine on a mountain. We have to choose something. By denying wind power, you're supporting coal, oil and nuclear energy."
Bullshit and bullshit. Not to mention, the aesthetic objection is valid, considering that wind turbine facilities are generally built in previously undeveloped rural and even wild areas. You can't have environmentalism without aesthetics. Vermont doesn't allow billboards on the highways. It essentially bans all development above 2,000 feet on the mountains. 400-feet-high machines blasted into the ridges and connected by wide straight heavy-duty roads are rightly seen as an insult to what we hold dear.
Anyway, many objections — as described about birds, bats, and noise — remain. And the benefits to be weighed against those "aesthetic" costs are hard to find. By denying wind power, you're not supporting other forms of energy any more than you are by promoting wind power. Because wind, which answers only to the whims of Aeolus, not to the actual minute-to-minute needs of the grid, has not replaced and can not replace other forms of energy on the electric grid.
David Blittersdorf may think it's worth killing birds and bats, destroying the neighbors' health, and wrecking the landscape in the belief that if we erect ever more wind turbines we might actually see some positive effect (ignoring all the havoc wreaked to get there). But instead he denies that these well documented impacts actually occur. That is quite disturbing.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont
In today's Daily Mail report about the U.K.'s new sprawling wind energy facility off the coast of Kent, an unnamed spokesman for Renewable UK, responding to criticism that this 13.5-square-mile, £780 million plant will produce at an average of only 35-40% of its capacity, said, ‘You have to bear in mind that coal and gas-fired power stations don’t work at full capacity either – and even nuclear power stations are taken off line.’
He does not mention that other power stations are used according to demand, not the whims of the wind. Using a peaking plant (at full rated power) 35% of the time, that is, when you need it, is very different from wind turbines producing power, at variable rates, whether you need it or not. An average of 35% is meaningless: If it can not be produced on demand, it is worthless. Wind turbines produce at or above their average rate — whatever it might turn out to be — only about 40% of the time — at whatever times the wind wills.
Also in the article, an item in the sidebar says that it "generates power at wind speeds between 8mph and 55mph". Elsewhere in the article, however, it is noted that the the plant will generate at full capacity only if the wind is blowing at 16 metres per second, i.e., 36mph. Below that speed, production falls precipitously. At 8mph, it is barely a trickle. Furthermore, after the wind gusts above 55mph and the turbines shut down, they don't start up again until the wind goes down to 45mph.
Let us now turn our attention to Vermont, where the founder of anemometer maker NRG Systems David Blittersdorf (his wife Jan is still CEO; David went on to Earth Turbines and then All Earth Renewables, which applied for millions of dollars of grants this year, so Mr B got himself appointed to the state committee disbursing the grants ...). As reported by the Rutland Herald, Blittersdorf gave a talk about wind power at the annual meeting of the Castleton Historical Society.
He said that "wind power is practically unsubsidized when compared to power sources like oil and nuclear energy." Federal financial interventions and subsidies in the energy market were examined by the Energy Information Administration in 2008. They found that wind energy received $23.37 per megawatt-hour of its electricity production in 2007, compared with 44 cents for coal, $1.59 for nuclear, and 25 cents for natural gas and oil.
He also said that "many of the objections to wind power, such as danger to birds and concerns about noise, are no longer true due to newer technology". In fact, "newer technology" simply consists of taller towers with larger blades, which now reach well into the ranges of migrating birds, both large and small. Every post-construction survey of a wind energy facility continues to report more deaths than predicted. (And yet permitting agencies and bird protection organizations continue to believe the developers' assessments.) In addition to birds, the toll on bats has become an increasingly alarming concern. The size of modern turbines has also only increased, not decreased noise problems. Everywhere that wind turbines are erected within 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) of homes, people complain of disturbed sleep, consequent stress and irritability, and often worse health problems that may be a direct result of the throbbing low-frequency noise on the balance organs of the inner ear. (And yet permitting agencies and neighbors continue to believe the developers' reassurances; the latest victims of this willful obtuseness reside on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine.) Again, the problems with wind have only become worse with "newer technology"..
And so he said that the only real remaining objection is the aesthetic one: "Some folks don't want to see a wind turbine on a mountain. We have to choose something. By denying wind power, you're supporting coal, oil and nuclear energy."
Bullshit and bullshit. Not to mention, the aesthetic objection is valid, considering that wind turbine facilities are generally built in previously undeveloped rural and even wild areas. You can't have environmentalism without aesthetics. Vermont doesn't allow billboards on the highways. It essentially bans all development above 2,000 feet on the mountains. 400-feet-high machines blasted into the ridges and connected by wide straight heavy-duty roads are rightly seen as an insult to what we hold dear.
Anyway, many objections — as described about birds, bats, and noise — remain. And the benefits to be weighed against those "aesthetic" costs are hard to find. By denying wind power, you're not supporting other forms of energy any more than you are by promoting wind power. Because wind, which answers only to the whims of Aeolus, not to the actual minute-to-minute needs of the grid, has not replaced and can not replace other forms of energy on the electric grid.
David Blittersdorf may think it's worth killing birds and bats, destroying the neighbors' health, and wrecking the landscape in the belief that if we erect ever more wind turbines we might actually see some positive effect (ignoring all the havoc wreaked to get there). But instead he denies that these well documented impacts actually occur. That is quite disturbing.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont
January 27, 2007
Noise, birds, permit madness
The wind energy facility on Mars Hill in Maine is still under construction, but the 16 operating turbines are already causing noise problems:
Residents have also noticed a disappearance of wildlife and are dismayed by the how much the mountain has been destroyed. The story from the Bangor Daily News is archived at National Wind Watch. See a photograph of one of the turbine sites under construction at Vermonters With Vision (another UPC project for the Vermont town of Sheffield is currently in the permitting process).
Another story that makes the developers' lines harder to believe is that of another buzzard killed by turbine blades in Forss, Scotland. According to the Aberdeen Press and Journal, "The buzzard was one of a pair, with its local nest also including a nine-month fledgling." The report went on to state, "Work is under way to build a further four turbines at the site."
Finally, are wind energy developments held to unfairly prejudiced standards in the permitting process? Perhaps it's the other way around. (See a relevant piece in The Examiner by Tim Carney about big energy -- particularly wind turbine manufacturer GE (who bought the business from Enron) -- making sure the way is cleared for and taxpayers fund their predations.)
This comes from The Journal of Newcastle (again, via National Wind Watch):
the best way to describe it is you step outside and look up thinking there's an airplane. It's like a high-range jet, high-low roar, but with the windmills, there's a sort of on and off "phfoop ... phfoop ... phfoop" noise.One of the turbines has even been shut down. Residents are understandably worried about what it will be like when all 28 turbines start running next month. This is a project of UPC Wind under the name Evergreen Wind Power. They (surprise!) said noise from the towers would not be an issue. But (surprise!) it is. People are already being kept from a good night's sleep and can no longer hear the gentle sounds of the natural environment.
Residents have also noticed a disappearance of wildlife and are dismayed by the how much the mountain has been destroyed. The story from the Bangor Daily News is archived at National Wind Watch. See a photograph of one of the turbine sites under construction at Vermonters With Vision (another UPC project for the Vermont town of Sheffield is currently in the permitting process).
Another story that makes the developers' lines harder to believe is that of another buzzard killed by turbine blades in Forss, Scotland. According to the Aberdeen Press and Journal, "The buzzard was one of a pair, with its local nest also including a nine-month fledgling." The report went on to state, "Work is under way to build a further four turbines at the site."
Finally, are wind energy developments held to unfairly prejudiced standards in the permitting process? Perhaps it's the other way around. (See a relevant piece in The Examiner by Tim Carney about big energy -- particularly wind turbine manufacturer GE (who bought the business from Enron) -- making sure the way is cleared for and taxpayers fund their predations.)
This comes from The Journal of Newcastle (again, via National Wind Watch):
Last July Tynedale Council refused permission for Ali Johnson's [paralysed from the neck down in a rugby accident in September 2004] father, Ken, to build a three-bed [specially-equipped] bungalow on the grounds of his own home at Wolf Hills Farm, Coanwood, near Haltwhistle in Northumberland, saying that regulations didn't allow for any new developments in open countryside because they wouldn't fit in with the surroundings. ...wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, Vermont, anarchism, animal rights
But the same council has now decided those rules and regulations don't apply to a 165ft wind speed recording mast despite admitting in its own documents that it "would represent an intrusive feature" and be "alien and incongruous" -- because it would only be in place for three years.
Yet that same mast, according to Doncaster-based Harworth Power which applied for planning permission, could eventually be used to try to get the go ahead for up to 24 permanent giant wind turbines above rural Northumberland.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)