The Oxen at the Intersection: Review

A Collision (or, Bill and Lou Must Die: A Real-Life Murder Mystery from the Green Mountains of Vermont), by pattrice jones (2014, Lantern Books)

This book is a page-turner. Jones is an excellent writer. She provides not only a history of the whole fiasco of the plan to kill rather than retire the oxen Bill and Lou, and the efforts to save them, but also a concise overview of the mythologies, intersections of power relationships and prejudice, and psychologies that came into play. It is both a valuable case study for social activists and a good introduction to the holistic anti-oppression perspective of eco-feminism.

Regarding the case itself, Jones seems to betray some personal rancor over what can well be seen as "hijacking" of the issue by others not directly involved (Jones' sanctuary had been approached by concerned alumni). Critiques of some of those are warranted, but they probably wouldn't have mattered if there was more direct "face-to-face" interaction, which Jones notes as perhaps the biggest shortcoming. However, she doesn't acknowledge the difficulty of direct action in this case: Poultney is rather far from everywhere as well as unfamiliar to almost all of the activists involved. And rights activists in Vermont simply do not go against the farming industry. Even the abuses revealed in late 2009 by HSUS at Bushway Packing, an "Animal Welfare Approved" slaughterhouse where organic dairy farms sent their male calves to be turned into veal, made barely a ripple. In another case in the late 2000's, a jogger in Greensboro noticed a pile of dead and dying animals on a farm, alerted authorities, and – nothing happened. As in these cases, the media, when they paid attention at all, only helped to support the "right-to-farm" viewpoint and discourage questioning of what farmers actually do to their animals.

One interesting and damning aspect of the Green Mountain College farm program is revealed in the book regarding their treatment of animals. Jones describes Princess, a cow who was given to them from someone who had bought her from an "agricultural college". It was clear that Princess had been abused (beyond the "normal" routines of animal ag), and Jones had written about her just before the Bill and Lou affair began, not knowing what college she had come from. When the campaign to save Bill and Lou began, people at the college recognized Princess and accused Jones of a concerted campaign against them. Jones also describes the visit of a couple of her colleagues during an open house at the college, where they saw a calf with so many burrs around his penis that he couldn't easily urinate. That calf was later sold, no questions asked, on Craig's List, with the stipulation that the buyer never reveal where they got it – which appears to have been a condition for saving Princess as well. As Jones points out, the head of the college farm program is a mathematician. It is an extension of his own hobby farm, with the added inexperience (and callousness) of college students. The animals seem to be neglected and abused and then disposed of, without acknowledgement, when they become too much trouble. As Jones also notes from the visit, the college garden was smaller than the one at their sanctuary. And as satellite pictures show, the college's acres of meadow are far from enough to sustain more than a very few animals (for meat, that is; used for produce, they could in fact feed quite a few humans). In other words, the farm is a sham, but worse, the animals are treated like toys for these very unserious dabblers.


Princess
Back to the problem of direct communication, as Jones makes clear, the bottom line was that the college was not at all open to discussion, even within their own walls. They were determined to prove a point, their authority, their "mastery". Closed off as they were, then, it was clearly the chaotic clamor of the social media–fired campaign to save Bill and Lou that at least saved Bill (whose actual fate, however, remains a mystery; for that matter, the actual fate of Lou also remains a mystery). And as Jones notes, it was the uncontrolled barrage of telephone calls to nearby slaughterhouses that stopped the original scheduled plan to turn both of them into hamburgers.

Jones also mentions her doubts about the effectiveness of gory photos and videos of animal abuse and suffering in the fight for animal rights. I agree. People are already desensitized and, as the "conscious carnivore" pushback shows, actually relish the fact that a life is sacrificed for their passing enjoyment. As the chef in Peter Greenaway's film "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover" observes, people like to feel that they are eating death. Shocking pictures only serve to reinforce the very viewpoint we are attempting to change. As with the picture of the Green Mountain College student grinning maniacally in a hand-scrawled "Death to Chickens" T-shirt holding a dead rooster up by its legs, or the students screaming at protesters that even though they're "vegetarian" they were "excited" to eat Bill and Lou, the people who need to be persuaded away from harming animals are more likely to embrace the imagery, to fling it back defiantly. Disturbing pictures can be effective – if they are used effectively for specific messages and/or to specific audiences, not for indiscriminate shock value.

Anyhow, this book is a stimulating and inspiring read, an insightful analysis of the mostly failed effort to save these two lives. It is also very nicely typeset.


Last known photograph of Lou and Bill, Nov. 10, 2012.
Lou was reportedly killed before dawn of the next day.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont, ecofeminism

Vermont's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

According to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, in 2011, Vermont’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were approximately 8.11 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent. This represents a return to 1990 levels.

• 46% of those emissions were from transportation
• 32% from residential / commercial / industrial fuel use
• 10% from agriculture
• 5% from electricity consumption
• 4% from various industrial processes
• 3% from waste in landfills

Note that electricity consumption is a very minor contributor (granted, that’s due in large part to the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, which is closing down later this year; but it’s also due to the predominance of hydro, especially that imported from Québec). So it seems all the more stupid to wreck the state’s ridgeline ecosystems to erect strings of giant wind turbines, which at best amount to little more than merely symbolic greenwashing anyway, or to pave acres of open fields with solar panels.

Wind turbine platform and road, Lowell Mountain - photo by Steve Wright

Also see: 
How many cows is wind energy equal to?
Vermont’s Rumsfeld Strategy [bombing the wrong targets]

environment, environmentalism, Vermont

Why Not Wind: an open letter

To whom it may concern:

This is a brief representation of the reasons industrial-scale wind is a destructive boondoggle that only fools – or worse – would approve.

Unlike “conventional” power sources, wind does not follow demand. As the Bonneville Power Authority in the Pacific Northwest of the USA has shown (www.wind-watch.org/pix/493), the relationship between load and wind generation is essentially random. That means that wind can never replace dispatchable sources that are needed to meet actual demand.

The contribution of wind generation is therefore an illusion, because the grid has to supply steady power in response to demand, and as the wind rises and falls, the grid maintains supply by relying on its already built-in excess capacity.

That is also why meaningful reductions in carbon emissions are not seen: because fuel continues to be burned in “spinning reserve” plants which are kept active to kick into electricity production when needed for meeting surges in demand or, now, drops in the wind. Denmark’s famously high wind penetration is possible only because it is connected to the large Nordic and German grids – so that Denmark’s wind power actually constitutes a very small fraction of that total system capacity. To make further wind capacity possible (despite a public backlash that has essentially stopped onshore wind development since 2003), Denmark is now building a connection to the Dutch grid.

Another reason that meaningful reductions in carbon emissions are not seen is that the first source to be modulated to balance wind is usually hydro. This is seen quite clearly in Spain, another country with high wind penetration: The changes in electricity from hydro are an almost exact inverse of those from wind (https://demanda.ree.es/generacion_acumulada.html). This is also seen in the USA’s Pacific Northwest (http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx).

Finally, on systems with sufficient natural gas–powered generators, which can ramp on and off quickly enough to balance wind’s highly variable infeed, wind forces those generators to operate far less efficiently than they would otherwise. It is like stop-and-go city versus steady highway driving. According to several analyses (e.g., www.wind-watch.org/doc/?p=1568), the carbon emissions from gas + wind are not significantly different from gas alone and in some cases may be more.

And again, whatever the effect, wind is always an add-on. The grid must be able to operate reliably without it, because very often, and often for very long stretches of time, wind is indeed in the doldrums: It is not there.

And beware the illusion of “average” output. The fact is that any wind turbine or group of turbines generates at or above its average rate (which is typically 20%–30% of the nameplate capacity, depending on the site) only about 40% of the time. Because of the physics of extracting energy from wind, the rest of the time production approaches zero.

As an add-on, therefore, its costs are completely unnecessary and wasteful. And even if, by some miracle, it were a reliable, dispatchable, reasonably continuous source, its costs would still be enormous – not only economically, but also environmentally. Wind is a very diffuse resource and therefore requires a massive mechanical system to catch any useful amount. That means ever larger blades on ever taller towers in ever larger groupings. And the only places where that is feasible are the very places we need to preserve as useful agricultural land, scenic landscapes that are so important to our souls (and to tourism), and wild land where the natural world can thrive.

Besides the obvious damage to the land of heavy-duty roads for construction and continued maintenance, huge concrete platforms, new powerlines, and substations (while making no meaningful contribution to the actual operation of the grid) and the visual intrusion of 150-metre (500-ft) structures with strobe lights and rotating blades, there are serious adverse impacts from the giant airplane-like blades cutting through 6,000–8,000 square metres (1.5–2 acres) of vertical airspace both day and night: pulsating noise (including infrasound which is felt more than heard) that carries great distances and disturbs nearby residents (especially at night, when there is a greater expectation of – and need for – quiet and atmospheric conditions often augment the noise), even threatening their physical health, pressure vortices that kill bats by destroying their lungs, blade tip speeds of 300 km/h that also kill bats as well as birds, particularly raptors, many of which are already endangered, and vibration that carries through the tower into the ground with effects on soil integrity and flora and fauna that have yet to be studied.

In short, the benefits of industrial-scale wind are minuscule (if that), while its adverse impacts and costs are great. Its only effect is to provide greenwashing (and tax avoidance) for business-as-usual energy producers and lip-service politicians, while opening up to vast industrial development land that has been otherwise fiercely protected – most disturbingly by many of the same groups now clamoring for wind.

Industrial-scale wind is all the more outrageous for the massive flow of public money into the private bank accounts of developers. It is not surprising to learn that Enron established the package of subsidies and regulatory “innovations” that made the modern wind industry possible. Or that in Italy, the Mafia was an early backer of developers. It is indeed a criminal enterprise: crony capitalism, anti-environment rapaciousness, and hucksterism at its most duplicitous.

After decades of recorded experience, there is no longer any excuse to fall for it.

 ~~
Eric Rosenbloom
President, National Wind Watch, Inc. (www.wind-watch.org)

Mr Rosenbloom lives in Vermont, USA, where he works as a science editor, writer, and typographer. He has studied and written about wind energy since 2003. He was invited to join the board, and then elected President (a wholly volunteer position), of National Wind Watch in 2006, a year after it was founded by citizens from 10 states who met to share their concerns about the risks and impacts of wind energy development. National Wind Watch is a 501(c)(3) educational charity registered in Massachusetts.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Betraying the Environment

Suzanna Jones writes at Vt. Digger:

There is a painful rift among self-described environmentalists in Vermont, a divide that is particularly evident in the debate on industrial wind. In the past, battle lines were usually drawn between business interests wanting to “develop” the land, and environmentalists seeking to protect it. Today, however, the most ardent advocates of industrial buildout in Vermont’s most fragile ecosystems are environmental organizations. So what is happening?

According to former New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges, this change is symptomatic of a broader shift that has taken shape over many years. In his book “Death of the Liberal Class,” Hedges looks at the failure of the Left to defend the values it espouses – a fundamental disconnect between belief and action that has been corrupting to the Left and disastrous for society as a whole. Among other things, he argues, it has turned liberal establishments into mouthpieces for the power elite.

Historically, the liberal class acted as watchdog against the abuses of capitalism and its elites. But over the last century, Hedges claims, it has traded that role for a comfortable “seat at the table” and inclusion in “the club.” This Faustian bargain has created a power vacuum – one that has often been filled by right-wing totalitarian elements (think Nazi Germany and fascist Italy) that rise to prominence by ridiculing and betraying the values that liberals claim to champion.

Caving in to the seduction of careerism, prestige and comforts, the liberal class curtailed its critique of unfettered capitalism, globalization and educational institutions, and silenced the radicals and iconoclasts that gave it moral guidance – “the roots of creative and bold thought that would keep it from being subsumed completely by the power elite.” In other words, “the liberal class sold its soul.”

From education to labor to agriculture and environmentalism, this moral vacuum continues to grow because the public sphere has been abandoned by those who fear being labeled pariahs. Among the consequences, Hedges says, is an inability to take effective action on climate change. This is because few environmentalists are willing to step out of the mainstream to challenge its root causes – economic growth, the profit system, and the market-driven treadmill of consumption.

Hedges’ perspective clarifies a lot. It explains why so many environmental organizations push for “renewable” additions to the nation’s energy supply, rather than a reduction of energy use. It explains why they rant and rail against fossil fuel companies, while studiously averting their eyes from the corporate growth machine as a whole. In their thrall to wealthy donors and “green” developers (some of whom sit on their boards), they’ve traded their concern about the natural world for something called “sustainability” – which means keeping the current exploitive system going.

It also makes clear why Vermont environmental organizations like the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Vermont Natural Resources Council – as well as the state’s political leadership – have lobbied so aggressively to prevent residents from having a say regarding energy development in their towns. By denying citizens the ability to defend the ecosystems in which they live, these groups are betraying not only the public, but the natural world they claim to represent. Meanwhile, these purported champions of social justice turn their backs as corporations like Green Mountain Power make Vermonters’ homes unlivable for the sake of “green” energy.

Hedges’ perspective also explains why environmental celebrity Bill McKibben advocates the buildout of industrial wind in our last natural spaces – energy development that would feed the very economy he once exposed as the source of our environmental problems. Behind the green curtain are what McKibben calls his “friends on Wall Street,” whom he consults for advice on largely empty PR stunts designed to convince the public that something is being accomplished, while leaving the engines of economic “progress” intact. Lauded as the world’s “Most Important Environmental Writer” by Time magazine, McKibben’s seat at the table of the elites is secured.

In this way the “watchdogs” have been effectively muzzled: now they actually help the powerful maintain control, by blocking the possibility for systemic solutions to emerge.

Environmentalism has suffered dearly at the hand of this disabled Left. It is no longer about the protection of our wild places from the voracious appetite of industrial capitalism: it is instead about maintaining the comfort levels that Americans feel entitled to without completely devouring the resources needed (at least for now). Based on image, fakery and betrayal, it supports the profit system while allowing those in power to appear “green.” This myopic, empty endeavor may be profitable for a few, but its consequences for the planet as a whole are fatal.

Despite the platitudes of its corporate and government backers, industrial wind has not reduced Vermont’s carbon emissions. Its intermittent nature makes it dependent on gas-fired power plants that inefficiently ramp up and down with the vicissitudes of the wind. Worse, it has been exposed as a Renewable Energy Credit shell game that disguises and enables the burning of fossil fuels elsewhere. It also destroys the healthy natural places we need as carbon “sinks,” degrades wildlife habitat, kills bats and eagles, pollutes headwaters, fills valuable wetlands, polarizes communities, and makes people sick­ – all so we can continue the meaningless acts of consumption that feed our economic system.

Advocates for industrial wind say we need to make sacrifices. True enough. But where those sacrifices come from is at the heart of our dilemma. The sacrifices need to come from the bloated human economy and those that profit from it, not from the land base.

We are often told that we must be “realistic.” In other words, we should accept that the artificial construct of industrial capitalism – with its cars, gadgets, mobility and financial imperatives – is reality. But this, too, is a Faustian bargain: in exchange we lose our ability to experience the sacred in the natural world, and put ourselves on the path to extinction.

[See also: 
“Exploitation and destruction: some things to know about industrial wind power” (2006)
“Thought for the day: left vs. right”

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism

The real agenda of school choice opponents: protecting privilege

Perhaps Steve Nelson should have heeded his feelings of “caution and ambivalence” before submitting his jeremiad against school choice (“Real Agenda of School-Choice Advocates,” Valley News [West Lebanon, N.H.], January 5). It is difficult to imagine a more awkward and inappropriate source of such a lamentation than the head of an expensive private school in Manhattan [The Calhoun School].

Nelson is rightly concerned about quality, but erroneously states, “The one comprehensive study done to date shows that charters on balance do slightly worse than the public schools they replaced.” Assuming that he is referring to the “National Charter School Study” by the Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), the 2013 report actually states that “charter schools now advance the learning gains of their students more than traditional public schools in reading[, and] academic growth of charter students in math [...] is now comparable to the learning gains in traditional public schools.” CREDO also separately studied Louisiana, which Nelson singled out for condemnation: “The charter school sector in Louisiana has a trend of strong results.”

Obviously, not all private or charter schools are commendable, voucher systems are far from ideal, and profiteers exploiting a real need are rightly decried. But students who are failed by their public school don’t have time to wait for improvements. They need those alternatives now. It certainly doesn’t help to accuse their parents of tearing apart “the connective tissue of our nation” for trying to do what’s best for their children.

Since Nelson defended his own alternative school as decidedly not rending “America’s social fabric,” he would have done better to suggest more progressive ways to expand such options for others. As noted by Ginia Bellafante in the same day’s New York Times, Mayor Bill De Blasio’s newly appointed Schools Chancellor, Carmen Fariña, has high praise for a network of charter schools serving the poorest neighborhoods of Brooklyn. And the cover story of the Valley News featured the Ledyard Charter School, which impressively meets the needs of many area students for an alternative to the regular high schools. Not only the schools and students, but society as a whole would clearly benefit from more support for such alternatives.

A progressive approach to education requires choice for all, not just the rich.

human rights, Vermont

350.org: Just Another Wall St Greenwash Department

Cory Morningstar writes at Counterpunch:

Anne Petermann writes: ... “if you focus solely on eliminating fossil fuels without changing the underlying system, then very bad things will take their place because it is the system itself that is unsustainable. It is a system designed to transform ‘natural capital’ and human labor into gargantuan profits for an elite few: the so-called ‘1%.’ Whether it’s driven by fossil fuels or biofuels or even massive solar and wind installations, the system will continue to devour ecosystems, displace forest-based communities, Indigenous Peoples and subsistence farmers from their lands, crush labor unions and generally make life hell for the vast majority of the world’s peoples. That is what it does.”

... the so-called climate movement has sabotaged any chance of mitigating a full scale global ecological collapse, having instead cleared the way for corporate profiteering, deforestation, fund-raising and full-out omnicide. ...

A key design element within the non-profit industrial complex is that “movements” are created top down. In the case of Rockefeller’s 350.org/1Sky, the game is simply this: 350.org locals take their marching orders straight from the top (350.org International) while “the top” (McKibben et al) take their marching orders directly from their funders – and in the case of 350.org’s Do the Math Tour, those funders are Wall Street investors.

McKibben, along with key 350.org staff, developed the divestment campaign in consultation with Ceres Investors – referred to fondly as their “Wall Street friends.”

Such loyalties are par for the course in the corporate enviro world where Wall Street execs can be referred to as “our Wall Street friends.” Never mind that Wall Street is the very root cause of our multiple and ever accelerating ecological and economic crises, not to mention the global food crisis. These crises are not truly “crisis” in a spontaneous sense, rather they are strategic by design with the aim of furthering corporate profit, which is simply insatiable. ...

One must take note of 350.org’s obsession with fossil fuels exclusively. With certainty, 350.org, in tandem with the non-profit industrial complex, is strategically preparing the populace to accept what Guy McPherson calls the “third industrial revolution.” This “climate wealth” agenda will include false solutions such as biomass, unbridled “green” consumerism, carbon market mechanisms such as REDD, etc. What it will not include is: the urgent necessity to destroy the expanding military empire, to transition from/dismantle our current economic system, to address the industrialized livestock industry, to massively scale back and conserve, to employ tactics of self-defense by any means necessary, nor anything else that is imperative to address if we are to mitigate full-out omnicide. [See also: : “White House misinformation and inaction regarding greenhouse gases”.] In a nutshell, the agenda will not include anything that would actually pose any meaningful threat to the system. It’s always divide and conquer with the corporate/elite-funded NGOs. The point is to ensure the masses fight meaningless battles and never “connect the dots,” to use 350.org’s phrase. Just like the Avaaz founder MoveOn.org, 350.org successfully induces consent. ...

We are about to witness the global transition to profitable false solutions under the guise of “green economy” coupled with the complete commodification/privatization of the shared commons by the world’s most powerful corporations. All while they simultaneously greenwash themselves as noble stewards of the Earth.

[Also see:  “Activist Malpractice” by Michael Donnelly]

environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism

Wishful thinking of wind energy proponents

To the Editor, Vermont Standard [July 3, 2013]:

Kurt Staudter claims knowledge from a quarter-century of working in the electric industry, but one big fact seems to have passed him by (“Not in My Back Yard, but OK in Yours,” While We Were Sleeping, June 27). It’s been decades since the U.S. has burned any significant amount of oil for electricity. While 9/11 may have been about oil, particularly that in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. seems to have invaded and remained in Afghanistan to gain uncontested access to central Asian gas fields. Wind energy has nothing to do with oil, which is used for transport and heating, but it depends a great deal on natural gas.

As Staudter knows, the electric grid has to maintain a steady flow of power equal to demand second by second. Since wind is highly variable, it needs to be balanced by generators that can ramp quickly up or down as needed to maintain steady power. Such generators are fueled by natural gas. So wind energy, rather than moving us away from the causes of 9/11, contributes instead to the “reasons” for continuing U.S. aggression in central Asia that makes another 9/11 more, not less, likely.

Staudter must also know that operating a generating plant with frequent rapid ons and offs wastes fuel and wears down the machinery faster. Several analyses have found that combined-cycle gas turbines alone — which are more efficient and possible without the balancing needs of wind — would have no more, or would have even less, emissions than open-cycle gas turbines required to work with wind.

Finally, Staudter says wind is cheap. If that’s his “trump card,” then we should all welcome fracking, tar sands, and mountaintop-removal coal. But in fact, turning wind into electricity is not cheap. It is a diffuse source of energy, so it requires a massive sprawling infrastructure to collect any meaningful amount — in addition to the balancing generators to make it useful to the grid. The simple fact is that wind energy requires subsidies covering two-thirds of the cost (thank you, ratepayers and taxpayers) to make any profit.

At best, wind turbines represent wishful thinking. But the industrialization of wild and rural places at such great public and ecological cost makes them much worse: a symbol of waste, folly, and profiteering. In other words, business as usual.

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

How wind energy gets paid for

On his blog Energy in New Hampshire, Mike Mooiman of Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., has written an informative piece about wind energy revenues, which is excerpted below.

Wind farms get revenue from a number of sources. The first is from the sales of electricity, which could be via a power purchase agreement (PPA), such as the one the Groton operation has with NSTAR, that sets a fixed price for the price of generated electricity, or if could be by direct sales into the ISO-NE electricity pool where prices are set by supply of and demand for electricity. Prices for electricity sold into the ISO-NE pool can be highly variable over time as I noted in It Don’t Come Easy and there are considerable price swings, even over a day, as shown by the chart below which provides 5 minute electricity prices for last Thursday, June 2, 2013.

In the first quarter of 2013, the three NH wind farms earned almost $9.2 million dollars on total electricity sales of 112,084 MWh to earn an average of $82/MWh (8.2¢/kWh):

• The Lempster operation output was remarkably high, particularly for the month of January, and they are showing capacity factors for the quarter of 0.42 which is surprisingly large. The average price they received for their electricity was $77.17 and, at times, it was as high as $102.99/MWh. Clearly they have an attractive power purchase agreement with PSNH.


• After a miserable year last year, the Granite Reliable operation did much better with a first quarter capacity factor at 0.29 which is up from last year’s value of 0.15. The bulk, 83%, of their sales went to the two Vermont utilities at rates averaging $96.57/MWh. However, there were times they were selling into the ISO-NE electricity pool at rates as low as $0.66/MWh.


• The Groton Wind operation is now up and running and all their sales went to NSTAR Electric at $51.65. Their overall capacity factor for the first quarter was 0.25.

([T]he reason for the low output and capacity factor for the Granite Reliable operation in 2012 was that ISO-NE had put in place curtailment orders for several New England wind farms. This meant that they were required to reduce the amount of electricity they were delivering into the grid even if they could produce more. The curtailment orders included the Granite Reliable operation, which had to ratchet down its output to about 50% of its rated capacity of 99 MW. The reasons behind the curtailment orders appear to be reduced demand for electricity as well as grid load imbalances in certain areas. Wind-based electricity is a challenge for the electrical grid operator, ISO-NE, as electricity production from these operations is highly variable and, with the growing number of wind operations, the variability of electricity supply has increased. At the same time, the grid operator has to manage the output from fossil fuel and nuclear power plants that supply a great deal of our base load power and that cannot rapidly be turned up or down in response to varying output from wind farms. Curtailment orders for these wind farms is one way to manage the variability but that does leave the owners of these operations with unused capacity and lost revenue opportunities.)

The other source of revenue for wind farms is from sales of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) – the so-called green tags which I discussed in It Don’t Come Easy – which allow generators of renewable energy to sell the renewable energy attributes separately from the underlying electricity. The pricing for Class 1 RECs, which is the class that wind generated electricity falls into, is also variable but prices are presently high due to elevated demand. In fact, the prices are bumping up against the alternative compliance payments for the Class 1 RECs of $65/MWh. Alternative compliance payments are the fines that state-regulated utilities have to pay if they do not meet their renewable energy quotas and they set a cap on the REC market. Class 1 NH wind REC prices have risen from their lows of $15 in 2010 to their present value of about $62/MWh. Here is a link to a great article on recent Class 1 REC pricing.

Another revenue source for wind operations, albeit an indirect one, is that associated with production tax credits (PTCs) for wind generation. The PTC is a federal incentive program for the wind industry that provides producers of wind-generated electricity a tax credit of [now, for new facilities] $23.00 for every MWh [2.3¢/kWh] of produced electricity for the first 10 years of the project. I know the PTC is a tax credit and not a revenue item, but for the purposes of my analysis this week, I am including the revenue category. But to do so, I must calculate its before-tax equivalent. A tax credit of $23/MWh is equivalent to a revenue item of $35.38/MWh [3.6¢/kWh] for a company with a 35% federal tax rate.

In some cases, wind operations that sell electricity into the ISO-NE pool might receive payments for holding capacity available should demand increase and ISO-NE needs to draw on more generators. These payments can be considerable and for the Granite Reliable operation they are of the order of $151,000 per month. These are fixed payments but for the basis of my comparison, I have, on the basis of the Granite Reliable capacity payments, calculated them to be equivalent to $8.30/MWh (assuming a capacity factor of 0.25).

These four revenue items total $187/MWh, which is equivalent to $0.187/kWh. Compare this to the ~$0.08/kWh we typically pay for energy portion of our electricity bills at our homes. ... Subsidies [which we pay for in our tax bills] generated by the RECs and PTCs provide 50% or more of the revenue equivalents for these operations. [And the relatively high prices of PPAs are driven by state renewables portfolio standards (RPS’s) which create an artificial demand for such sources.]

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms

The Politics of the Pasture

James McWilliams writes:

Green Mountain College, from the founding of Cerridwen Farm in 1997 to its decision to kill Bill and Lou in 2012, was seeking to do what it genuinely thought best to do: farm in a way that modeled an environmentally sound alternative to industrial agriculture. The school loved the idea. The students loved the idea. The media loved the idea. It was extremely popular in every progressive corner. Replacing industrial agriculture with sustainable agriculture has become one of the most inspiring goals of the twenty-first century. GMC, through 22 acres known as Cerridwen Farm, aimed to play a direct role in this emerging revolution. ...

When animal advocates seized upon a controversy — the decision to kill and eat Bill and Lou — to argue that GMC’s pursuit of “sustainable agriculture” obscured basic moral consideration for animals, an unusually high-profile debate unfolded. That debate explored something that has, for the most part, enjoyed a free pass through an otherwise bramble-ridden landscape of agrarian discourse: the intensifying role of animal exploitation in “sustainable agriculture.” This book has tried to sketch out and analyze the depth and breath of that debate. As I hope has been made clear, animal advocates have made a strong case for not raising animals to slaughter and eat. They have effectively highlighted the ethical problem of killing sentient beings for unnecessary purposes. Repeatedly, and with varying levels of respect, they have demanded, sometimes forthrightly, that this quandary be acknowledged and explained by the advocates of small-scale animal agriculture at GMC.

In response, GMC never provided a serious answer. Ever. They provided excuses, but never did they make a sufficient ethical case in favor of killing the animals they supposedly loved for food they merely wanted rather than needed. More often than not, their primary battle tactic was to hyperbolize a few incendiary comments made by a few hotheads in the animal rights movement and deem themselves the innocent and helpless victim of vicious intimidation. I don’t buy for a moment that anyone at GMC ever felt truly in danger, but, as we’ll see, they put on an Oscar-worthy performance promoting their own victimhood.

As an advocate for animal rights and social justice, I’ve come to believe something very strongly: when a group seeking to reform an oppressive institution (in this case industrial agriculture) does so by relying on the exploitation of other sentient beings (in this case, two oxen), that group will eventually assume the tactics of the oppressors. They will, in other words, take the low road to perdition despite their articulated intentions to elevate themselves in the name of a nobler mission. To put a finer point on it, when a group of agricultural reformers seeks to dismantle industrial agriculture and its state sponsorship while simultaneously encouraging the single most important habit required to sustain industrial agriculture — eating animals — that group will find itself aligned, in the end, with the oppression of industrial agriculture.

Well, we’re at the end. And, in ways that could not be more affirmative of my thesis had I scripted them, GMC, in the wake of Lou’s death and the resulting vituperation that followed, has explicitly and implicitly aligned itself with American agribusiness. Indeed, GMC and Big Beef hopped in bed, divided the world into those who did and did not eat animals, and proceeded to do what those who exploit animals for a living do so very well: they consolidated their power and exploited the weakest.

environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism

Wind industry wants to silence inquiry

Editor of the Reformer:

Charlene Ellis and Fred Taylor (letter, April 6) write that "Only with a concerned effort by all of us to formulate renewable energy policies based on science, rather than propaganda, will be able to protect the Vermont landscape we cherish." Yet they ignore that call and only defend their smearing of those fighting to protect Vermont's ridgelines from energy development with smearing them some more.

Despite their call for science, they simply ignore the possibility, let alone the clear evidence, that giant wind turbines erected on sensitive ridgelines do more harm than good. Instead, they accuse anyone who questions such industrial development as dupes of fossil fuel, as if the biggest wind developer in the U.S. isn't coal giant Florida Power and Light (aka Nextera), as if the biggest turbine manufacturer isn't nuclear and gas plant (and military weaponry) giant General Electric, as if Enron and George W. Bush weren't the ones who more than anyone created the modern U.S. wind industry.

Science rather than propaganda seems to be precisely what Ellis and Taylor do not want, as they cite only pro-wind hype and demonize all who disagree with them. One is reminded of Joseph McCarthy more than Rachel Carson, of an enthusiasm for censorship and slander more than honest discussion.

Their need to explain it as an "ultra-conservative" plot hatched last year in Washington also apparently prevents them from learning much about their neighbors fighting big wind in Vermont, particularly that the fight goes back more than 10 years, from the seeds planted with the erection of 11 Zond turbines (bought by Enron the next year, then by GE in 2002) in Searsburg in 1996. The statewide advocacy group Energize Vermont arose from the fight to protect the ridges west of Rutland which began at least 5 years ago. They build on the work of the Kingdom Commons Group, the Glebe Mountain Group, Ridge Protectors, and many others that have brought Vermonters of every political leaning together in common cause. And there are countless other such groups around the world, from Oaxaca (where Reporters Without Borders last week condemned international companies and the state for the harassment, arrests, and physical abuse of journalists covering wind energy development on Zapoteca land) to Denmark (where virtually no new onshore wind capacity has been added since 2002), New Zealand to Germany, India to Ireland.

The fight to protect our landscapes from poorly considered, profit-driven, big energy development that does such clear harm to the environment, to human and other animal habitats, has always represented — and does so still — a concerted effort by informed citizens to use science guided by the heart rather than profit or tribal dogma.

The provision of S.30 that most scared industry was for greater involvement of host and affected neighboring communities in the permitting process. Informed citizens thinking for themselves seem to be exactly what they don't want, or more cynically, can't afford.

• Opinion piece: What's the origin of Vermont's anti-wind sentiment? Fred Taylor and Charlene Ellis, Brattleboro Reformer, March 15, 2013.
• Response letter: Not a Koch Bros. flack. Sally Warren, Brattleboro Reformer, March 18, 2013.
• Response to response: Beware of 'wind warriors'. Charlene Ellis and Fred Taylor, April 6, 2013.
• Two responses to that response: April 16, 2013

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont

Cropland better used for feeding humans

To the Editor (Valley News, April 10, 2013):

Chuck Wooster ("Upper Valley Is an Animal Landscape," April 7) observes, "Most of the agricultural land in the Upper Valley is upland pasture, too steep for cultivating for crops." Yet he also tells us that the sheep he doesn't slaughter "spend all winter devouring ... one luscious bale of hay after another."

In other words, animal agriculture in the Upper Valley depends on a tremendous amount of plant cultivation. As Wooster notes about the grain used for larger-scale animal agriculture, the land that grows hay can be used for crops "that could more efficiently be fed directly to humans."

Feedlots and deforestation demonstrate the stark reality of all animal agriculture as wasteful, cruel, and unnecessary.

environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism, Vermont

“17 Reviews” — wind turbine noise and human health

[Now 45 reviews! Go to wndfo.net/revs for just the non-government, non-industry reviews.]

In January 2012, Australian anti-tobacco/pro-wind public health activist Simon Chapman compiled a “Summary of main conclusions reached in 17 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health”. His list, which not surprisingly ignores many reviews and commentaries that support health concern, and which misinterprets even these 17 to support his and the industry’s determination to dismiss health concerns, has since been used tirelessly (and tiresomely) as a rhetorical cudgel by the wind industry.

In December 2012, Wayne Gulden in Ontario examined Chapman’s “17 reviews”: He found that: 3 of the reviews didn’t even discuss wind turbines; only 4, maybe 5, were peer reviewed, including one of the reviews that didn’t mention wind turbines; only 1 was independent from pro-wind interests (but was not peer reviewed); and the majority based their conclusions on only 4 studies, added to which Gulden suggests a 5th, published after most of the reviews in Chapman’s list:

• Nissenbaum, Michael; Aramini, Jeffery; and Hanning, Christopher. Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health. Noise & Health, September-October 2012, 14:60, 237-43.
• Shepherd, Daniel; McBride, David; Welch, David; Dirks, Kim; and Hill, Erin. Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health-related quality of life. Noise & Health, September-October 2011, 13:54, 333-9.
• van den Berg, Frits; Pedersen, Eja; Bouma, Jelte; and Bakker, Roel. Visual and acoustic impact of wind turbine farms on residents. Project WINDFARMPerception, University of Groningen and Göteberg University, June 3, 2008.
• Pedersen, Eja; and Persson Waye, Kerstin. Wind turbine noise, annoyance and self-reported health and well-being in different living environments. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2007 Jul;64(7):480-6.
• Pedersen, Eja; and Persson Waye, Kerstin. Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise — a dose-response relationship. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2004 Dec;116(6):3460-70.

(Update, October 7, 2013: Do your own review:  Click here for access to 21 published studies (2003–2012) of health effects of industrial wind turbine noise.)

By using the “17 reviews” as a cudgel against its perceived enemies, the industry hopes nobody actually looks at them for themselves. The fact is, they express uncertainty more than anything and generally recognize the validity of and need for more study of the health effects of wind turbine noise. They certainly do not claim that there are no adverse health effects from wind turbines (because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). Here are quotes from each of the 17 reviews that serve the opposite of Chapman’s aim (most of them by courtesy of Gulden’s summary, where links are provided):

1. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection: Wind turbine health impact study: report of independent expert panel: “it is possible that noise from some wind turbines can cause sleep disruption” (critiques of the Mass. DEP review can be seen here, here, here, and here) (update: In June 2013, based on continuing collection of information Mass. DEP convened a Wind Turbine and Noise Technical Advisory Group to assess and regulate noise impacts)
2. Oregon wind energy health impact assessment: “people who reported annoyance outdoors were more likely to report sleep interruption, feeling tense and stressed, and feeling irritable. Annoyance indoors was positively associated with sleep interruption.”
3. Fiumicelli D: Windfarm noise dose-response: a literature review (Acoustics Bulletin): “uncertainty about human response to wind turbine noise”
4. Bolin K et al: Infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines: exposure and health effects (Environmental Res Let): “statistically significant association between wind turbine noise and self-reported sleep disturbance”
5. Knopper LD, Ollson CA: Health effects and wind turbines: a review of the literature (Environmental Health): “wind turbines can be a source of annoyance for some people”
6. UK Health Protection Agency: Report on the health effects of infrasound: “Artificial sources of infrasound include ... wind turbines”
7. Australia National Health and Medical Research Council: Wind turbines and health: a rapid review of the evidence: “any potential impact on humans can be minimised by following existing planning guidelines” (this is the only review that thus completely denies the problem [Simon Chapman himself, who is not a physician nor an acoustician, was one of the ‘peer reviewers’]; nevertheless, the same group, ie, the National Health and Medical Research Council [NHMRC] of Australia, stated regarding this “rapid review” that “relevant authorities should take a precautionary approach”, and their own study is ongoing).  Update, February 25, 2014: Chapman has added the NHMRC consultation draft report, Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health, to his list. It concludes: “Further high quality research is needed.”
8. King, A (Chief Medical Officer of Health, Ontario): The potential health impact of wind turbines: “sound measurements at residential areas around wind turbines and comparisons with sound levels around other rural and urban areas, to assess actual ambient noise levels prevalent in Ontario, is a key data gap that could be addressed. An assessment of noise levels around wind power developments and other residential environments, including monitoring for sound level compliance, is an important prerequisite to making an informed decision on whether epidemiological studies looking at health outcomes will be useful.”
9. UK Health Protection Agency: Environmental noise and health in the UK: “noise from wind farms ... these are all subjects that are in need of study”
10. Minnesota Department of Health, Environmental Health Division: Public health impacts of wind turbines: “Sleeplessness and headache are the most common health complaints and are highly correlated (but not perfectly correlated) with annoyance complaints.”
11. Canadian Wind Energy Association: Addressing concerns with wind turbines and human health: “CanWEA is a non-profit trade association”
12. Colby et al: Wind turbine sound and health effects: an expert panel review: “Prepared for: American Wind Energy Association and Canadian Wind Energy Association”
13. Colby D, Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit: The health impact of wind turbines: a review of the current white, grey and published literature: precursor of the above
14. US National Research Council: Impact of wind energy development on humans (in: Environmental impacts of wind-energy projects: “In the absence of extensive data, this report focuses mainly on appropriate methods for analysis and assessment and on recommended practices in the face of uncertainty. ... Low-frequency vibration and its effects on humans are not well understood. Sensitivity to such vibration resulting from wind-turbine noise is highly variable among humans. ... More needs to be understood regarding the effects of low-frequency noise on humans.”
15. Jakobsen J: Infrasound emission from wind turbines (J Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control): “a simple assessment of the ‘normal’ wind turbine noise suggests a fair explanation of the adverse public reaction”
16. Leventhall G: Low frequency noise and annoyance (Noise & Health): “Low frequency noise, the frequency range from about 10Hz to 200Hz, has been recognised as a special environmental noise problem, particularly to sensitive people in their homes. Conventional methods of assessing annoyance, typically based on A-weighted equivalent level, are inadequate for low frequency noise and lead to incorrect decisions by regulatory authorities. There have been a large number of laboratory measurements of annoyance by low frequency noise, each with different spectra and levels, making comparisons difficult, but the main conclusions are that annoyance of low frequencies increases rapidly with level. Additionally the A-weighted level underestimates the effects of low frequency noises.” Leventhall had also previously (2003) written a “Review of published research on low frequency noise and its effects” for the U.K. government, noting that “dBA underestimates annoyance for frequencies below about 200Hz. ... Table 5 shows very adverse effects from low frequency noise levels which are close to the threshold and which do not exceed A-weighted limits. ... Infrasound exposure is ubiquitous in modern life ... and as an emission from many artificial sources ... including wind turbines. ... There is no doubt that some humans exposed to infrasound experience abnormal ear, CNS, and resonance induced symptoms that are real and stressful.”
17. Pedersen, E (Sweden Environmental Protection Agency): Noise annoyance from wind turbines: a review: “Noise from wind turbines is not at all as well studied as for instance noise from road traffic. As the number of studies is low no general conclusions could be drawn. However, ... annoyance from wind turbine noise: is to a degree correlated to noise exposure; occurs to a higher degree at low noise levels than noise annoyance from other sources of community noise such as traffic. ... Wind turbine noise: is, due to its characteristics, not easily masked by background noise; is particularly poorly masked by background noise at certain topographical conditions.”

Then there are reviews that Chapman chooses not to include, for example:

Senate inquiry into the social and economic impact of rural wind farms (2010), Australia: “The Committee: considers that the noise standards adopted by the states and territories for the planning and operation of rural wind farms should include appropriate measures to calculate the impact of low frequency noise and vibrations indoors at impacted dwellings; ... recommends that the Commonwealth Government initiate as a matter of priority thorough, adequately resourced epidemiological and laboratory studies of the possible effects of wind farms on human health; ... recommends that the National Acoustics Laboratories conduct a study and assessment of noise impacts of wind farms, including the impacts of infrasound; recommends that the draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines be redrafted to include discussion of any adverse health effects and comments made by NHMRC regarding the revision of its 2010 public statement.”

Literature review 2013: association between wind turbine noise and human distress, by Ian Arra and Hazel Lynn: “All studies rejected the Null Hypothesis (no association between wind turbine noise and human distress). In other words, evidence of association was found (weak evidence: Level 4 and 5). No published peer-reviewed study showed no association. Three studies showed dose-response relationship. The studies are level 4 or 5 (a weak type of evidence). Nevertheless, [they] strongly warrant further research (multiple studies, multiple designs, investigating multiple hypothesis).” Update, May 24, 2014: Systematic review 2013: Association between wind turbines and human distress. Cureus 6(5):e183. “In this review, we have demonstrated the presence of reasonable evidence (Level Four and Five) that an association exists between wind turbines and distress in humans. The existence of a dose-response relationship (between distance from wind turbines and distress) and the consistency of association across studies found in the scientific literature argues for the credibility of this association.”

Wind farm noise and human perception: a review (April 2013), by Noise Measurement Services, Australia: “The hypothesis from this Review is that serious harm to health occurs when a susceptible individual is so beset by the noise in question that he or she suffers recurring sleep disturbance, anxiety and stress. Research for the Review suggests that 5% to 10% of the individuals living in the vicinity of a large wind farm will experience serious harm to their health. The observed markers for serious health effects are: wind farm noise level of LAeq 32 dB or more outside the residence; and wind farm noise is heard or is perceptible (felt) at levels above the individual’s threshold of hearing inside the home.”

(Update 2, October 3, 2013: “32 reviews”. Wind turbine noise, Christopher Hanning and Alun Evans, BMJ 2012;344:e1527 (Published 8 March 2012): “A large body of evidence now exists to suggest that wind turbines disturb sleep and impair health at distances and external noise levels that are permitted in most jurisdictions ... Sleep disturbance may be a particular problem in children, and it may have important implications for public health. ... Robust independent research into the health effects of existing wind farms is long overdue.”)

Update, May 7, 2013:  “19 reviews”?  Two more “official reviews” were issued in April that Chapman or his acolytes will no doubt add to his list: 1) Wind Farms, Sound and Health, by the Department of Health, Victoria, published in “Technical information” and “Community information” forms; and 2) Report on Health Impacts of Wind Turbines, prepared for the Scottish Government by Sabine von Hünerbein, Andy Moorhouse, Dani Fiumicelli, and David Baguley of the University of Salford, Manchester (“a rapid, desk based analysis of ... literature specified by the Scottish government, peer-reviewed original studies and recent peer-reviewed literature reviews”).

The Victorian Department of Health pamphlet concludes, “Wind farm sound, including low levels of low frequency sound, may be audible to nearby residents. Audible noise from any source, including windfarms, can cause annoyance, resulting in prolonged stress and other health effects.” It also insists, “There is no evidence that sound which is at inaudible levels can have a physiological effect on the human body. This is the case for sound at any frequency, including infrasound.” This clearly means evidence that they choose to consider, because there is indeed such evidence, and it is a growing area of research (see, e.g., the links here). The pamphlet also compares wind turbine infrasound favorably against one’s own heartbeat and breathing, but (ignoring the cited measurements being selective and simplistic) that may in fact be part of the problem as an external source forces itself on the body’s own physical rhythms. Update, May 28, 2013:  Wind Watch has posted two letters to the Victorian Department of Health pointing out shortcomings of their information sheets: 1) from Alec Salt and Jeffery Lichtenhan about the direct physiological effects of low-frequency noise; and 2) from Colin Hansen about the unique characteristics of wind turbine noise.

Von Hünerbein has produced government policy–affirming reports about wind turbine noise before, and this is only the latest. The tone of her conclusions makes her bias clear: in short, although there may well be problems, even to causing ill health, measures to prevent that would be too burdensome for the development of wind energy. “The review shows there to be evidence for annoyance due to WT noise. There is also some evidence for sleep disturbance which has found fairly wide, though not universal, acceptance. It should be noted that environmental noise from other sources such as road traffic and aircraft noise is a known causes of annoyance and sleep disturbance so to find these effects from WTs is not unexpected. Some authors label these effects as health effects and others do not. If low frequency noise and infrasound was an issue an as yet unproven method of human response would have to be involved. Universally agreed noise mitigation strategies have not been identified. Generally noise issues can be minimised by conservative noise limits. Set-back distances are also used internationally but have a number of disadvantages. The relevant [and much criticized] UK guideline document ETSU-R-97 has been derived from research on the response to noise and aims to provide a reasonable degree of protection to noise sensitive listeners; without unduly restricting the development of WT renewable energy resources.”

Update, May 23, 2013:  “20 reviews”!  At least here — Chapman is still at 19, having added the information sheets from the Victoria Department of Health and another government report: Wind Turbines and Health, by Patricia Fortin, Karen Rideout, Ray Copes, and Constance Bos of the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, February 2013.

“The sound level associated with wind turbines at common residential setbacks ... may lead to annoyance and sleep disturbance. ... Sleep interruption has been associated with wind turbine sound among residents living less than 2.5 km from turbines, particularly when sound levels are above 45 dBA at night; however, some people report noise annoyance from wind turbines at outdoor sound levels below 40 dBA and at lower levels than other sources of environmental noise. When aerodynamic modulation (swishing sound) occurs, wind turbine sound may be perceived as more annoying than steady sound or “white noise.” ... [I]f the noise has an outdoor A-weighted level, which corrects measurements to the low-level frequency sensitivity of the human ear, of 40 dBA, there is a risk that some residents will be annoyed by low-frequency noise even indoors. A small increase in sound level at low frequency can result in a large increase in perceived loudness and may be difficult to ignore, even at relatively low sound pressure levels, increasing the potential for annoyance when there is a sizeable low frequency component. It is suggested that problems can be reduced with an outdoor limit of 35 dBA for large wind turbines.”

Update, May 24, 2013:  “24 reviews”.  Public health effects of siting and operating onshore wind turbines, Conseil Supérieur de la Sante, Belgium, publication no. 8738, 3 April 2013: “Modern wind turbines are unlikely to have any direct effects on health and well-being other than annoyance and possibly sleep disturbance. Both annoyance and disturbed sleep can, however, lead to undue stress, which may adversely affect the health and well-being of those concerned. ... It follows that the operation of wind turbines or wind farms may affect the quality of life (i.e. health and well-being), but in a complex fashion that depends on a variety of interrelated factors. ... [L]a nuisance attribuée au bruit du fonctionnement des éoliennes, tant en phase d’éveil que lors du sommeil, constitue un effet environnemental majeur sur la santé. [Annoyance attributed to the operation of wind turbines, while awake as much as during sleep, constitutes a major environmental health impact.] ... The noise levels due to the operation of wind turbines and wind farms near people’s homes should comply with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and WHO Europe guidelines for day-time and night-time noise exposure in order to avoid serious annoyance and (self-reported) sleep disturbance. This would lead to [outside] sound levels below 45 dB(A) during day-time and 40 dB(A) at night. ... Belgium should participate in or take the initiative for an international study on the possible specific impacts of wind turbine operation on the health and well-being of those living in their vicinity.”

Update, May 27, 2013:  “25 reviews”.  There are also older reviews, predating the work of Nina Pierpont and Sarah Laurie, the two physicians primarily attacked by wind advocates for “causing” health problems by documenting them, for example:

Eoliennes, sons et infrasons: Effets de l’éolien industriel sur la sante des hommes (Wind turbines, noise, and infrasound: effects of industrial wind turbines on human health), by Marjolaine Villey-Migraine, Université Paris II–Panthéon-Assas, December 2004: “Les aérogénérateurs émettent des infrasons, ceci n’est controversé par personne. ... Il nous paraît immoral de la part de cet organisme [Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maitrise de l’Energie] d’affirmer, sans référence aucune, que les infrasons émis par les éoliennes sont parfaitement inoffensifs, et d’autre part, de faire état de soi-disant “mesures”, alors qu’on ne peut prouver l’impact de infrasons des éoliennes sur l’homme que par des études épidémiologiques. ... Les sons et infrasons émis par les éoliennes ont un impact certain sur la santé de l’homme et peuvent gâcher la vie des gens. ... Les promoteurs éoliens ont la responsabilité de mettre en place les mesures adéquates pour diminuer les risques d’atteinte à la santé des riverains des éoliennes, en les éloignant des habitations non de 500 m comme ils le suggèrent dans leurs publications, mais à 1600 m en tenant compte de sons, et au minimum à 5 km en tenant compte des infrasons.” (“Wind turbines emit infrasound, this is not disputed by anyone. ... It seems to us immoral on the part of this organization [Agency of the Environment and Energy Management] to assert, without any reference, that infrasound emitted by wind turbines is perfectly harmless, and furthermore, to make claims of so-called “action,” but that we can not prove the impact of wind turbine infrasound on humans by epidemiological studies. ... Noise and infrasound emitted by wind turbines have a definite impact on the health of humans and can harm people’s lives. ... Wind developers have a responsibility to put in place adequate measures to reduce the risks of damage to the health of residents living near wind turbines by siting turbines no closer to homes than – not 500 m as suggested in their publications – but 1600 m considering audible noise and at least 5 km considering infrasound.”)

Le retentissement du fonctionnement des éoliennes sur la santé de l’homme (Repercussions of wind turbine operations on human health), by Claude-Henri Chouard, l’Académie nationale de médecine, France, March 2006: “Qu’il soit très intense, ou qu’il représente une pollution sonore plus modérée, le bruit est le grief le plus fréquemment formulé à propos des éoliennes. Il peut avoir un impact réel, et jusqu’ici méconnu, sur la santé de l’homme. ... [I]l serait souhaitable, par précaution, que soit suspendue la construction des éoliennes d’une puissance supérieure à 2,5 MW situées à moins de 1500 mètres des habitations.” (“Whether it is quite intense or it represents a more moderate noise pollution, noise is the complaint most frequently made concerning wind turbines. It can have a real impact, and so far disregarded, on human health. ... It would be desirable, as a precaution, to halt the construction of wind turbine facilities greater than 2.5 MW closer than 1500 meters from homes.”)

Location, location, location: An investigation into wind farms and noise, by The Noise Association, U.K., July 2006: “[W]ind farm noise generates many more complaints than equivalent levels of noise from most other sources, including road noise. ... [L]ow-frequency noise is much more disturbing indoors than outside ... Dr Geoff Leventhall agrees there are times when ‘A’ weighting is not entirely adequate: “Audible low-frequency noise does have annoying characteristics which are not shown in conventional environmental noise measures, such as A-weighting.” ... There has never been any dispute that wind turbines generate infrasound. ... Wind Farm noise, in common with noise generally, affects different people in different ways, but the evidence suggests there is rarely a problem for people living more than 1-1.5 miles from a turbine.”

(Update, October 24, 2013:  “33 reviews”. Infraschall von Windkraftanlagen als Gesundheitsgefahr (Infrasound from wind turbines as a health hazard), Erwin Quambusch and Martin Lauffer, ZFSH/SGB–Zeitschrift für die sozialrechtliche Praxis 08/2008: “Windkraftanlagen erzeugen unzweifelhaft Infraschall. Im Gegensatz zu den Äußerungen von Behörden und den den Anlagenbetreibern nahestehenden Institutionen, Infraschall sei “völlig harmlos”, verweist eine zunehmende Zahl von Wissenschaftlern auf die gesundheitliche Gefährlichkeit des Infraschalls. Die Gefahr stellt sich inzwischen als so hinreichend wahrscheinlich dar, dass an die Stelle der bisher gepflegten Ignoranz staatliche Maßnahmen der Gefahrenabwehr und der Gefahrenvorsorge treten müssen. Solange und soweit die Gesundheitsgefahren nicht durch technische oder ähnliche Vorkehrungen abgewehrt werden können, können Errichtung und Betrieb der Anlagen nur zulässig sein, wenn diese außerhalb der Sichtweite zu Wohngebieten liegen.” (“There is no doubt that wind turbines produce infrasound. In contrast to the pronouncements of the authorities, plant operators, and related institutions that infrasound is “completely harmless”, there are an increasing number of scientists noting the health risks of infrasound. The risk is sufficient that new regulations are required for prevention. As long as and to the extent that the health risks are not prevented by technical or similar guidelines, construction and operation of these plants should be allowed only if they are out of sight of residential areas.”)

Update, August 2, 2013:  “28 reviews”.  Report on the Health Impacts of Wind Farms, Sarah Taylor, Director of Public Health & Planning, National Health Service Shetland, 15th July 2013: “It is generally accepted that the primary effect of low frequency noise on people is annoyance. Annoyance is recognised as a critical health effect, and is associated in some people with stress, sleep disturbance, and interference with daily living. There is an increasing body of evidence that noise levels associated with wind farms cause annoyance, in a dose-related response. ... A range of symptoms are attributed to the noise of wind turbines in people living close to them, which are those associated with general environmental noise exposure, and are often also described as stress symptoms. They include headache, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, and are often described in relation to annoyance. ... [I]t is recognised that low level noise from wind turbines is more often found to cause annoyance than similar levels from other sources. Some consider that the common cause of complaints from wind farms is not associated with low frequency noise but with the audible modulation of the aerodynamic noise, especially at night. There is also evidence that some people perceive the low frequency noise components of wind turbine noise, and that these are more significant at night and with large wind turbines. ... Regardless of whether the perceived impacts of noise from wind farms are physiological or psychological in nature, they are considered to cause adverse health effects through sleep disturbance, reducing the quality of life and as a source of annoyance which sometimes leads to stress related symptoms. ... Conclusions: Wind turbines are known to cause a number of effects that have an impact on health: risks from ice throw and structural failures that are minimised by appropriate setback distances; noise and shadow flicker that are sources of annoyance, sleep disturbance and symptoms of stress in some people. Current mitigations do not entirely deal with the annoyance caused by wind farms, the results of which are a cause of distress and related ill health for a number of people living in the vicinity.”

Update, September 26, 2013:  “29 reviews”.  Kirjallisuuskatsaus – Tuulivoiman terveysvaikutukset (Literature review – Health effects of wind power), Saara Huttunen, Johanna Kohl, and Nina Wessberg, Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus (Technical Research Centre of Finland) for Suomen Tuulivoimayhdistys (Finnish Wind Power Association), 16.8.2013: This industry report concludes that all adverse health effects are merely a problem of public relations.

Update, October 3, 2013:  “30 reviews”.  Health impact of wind farms, Donata Kurpas, Bozena Mroczek, Beata Karakiewicz, Krzysztof Kassolik, and Waldemar Andrzejewski, Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine 2013, Vol 20, No 3, 595–605: “Short description of state of the art: The nuisance caused by wind turbines is stereotypically linked with the noise that they produce. Nevertheless, the visual aspect of wind farms, opinions about them, and sensitivity to sound seem to be of the greater importance. ... Health effects are more probably associated with some environmental factors leading to annoyance or frustration. All types of studies share the same conclusion: wind turbines can provoke annoyance. ... The influence of wind turbines on human emotional and physical health is a relatively new field of research. Further analyses of these issues are justified, especially because none of the studies published in peer-reviewed journals so far meet the criteria for cohort or case-control studies. ... The authors did not analyse coherent publications or website documents (study by M. Alves-Pereira and N.C. Branco and the study by N. Pierpont).” [The authors also missed the Nissenbaum 2012 paper in Noise & Health, which appeared after their submission. And they assert that noise from wind turbines cause only subjective effects, despite the evidence under review of interference with, e.g., sleep, and physiological effects.] “The authors are involved in community public consultations with the advocates of new projects” [rather a major conflict of interest to be mentioned only in passing].

Update, October 7, 2013:  “32 reviews”.  Bedeutung des Ausbaus der Windenergie für die menschliche Gesundheit (Consequences of wind energy for health), Dorothee Twardella, Sachgebiet Arbeits- und Umweltmedizin/-epidemiologie, Bayerisches Landesamt für Gesundheit und Lebensmittelsicherheit (Division of Labor and Environmental Medicine/Epidemiology, Bavarian State Office of Health and Food Safety), Umwelt und Mensch – Informationsdienst (Environment and People Information Service), No. 3, September 2013, pp. 14-19: “Belästigung und Schlafstörungen durch Schallimmissionen im Hörschallbereich können nicht völlig ausgeschlossen werden. Über die alleinige Betrachtung der direkten gesundheitlichen Risiken hinaus wäre eine Analyse der direkten und indirekten Risiken und auch Chancen, die sich durch die Umstellung von fossilen Energieträgern auf Windenergie ergeben, im Sinne einer Gesundheitsfolgenabschätzung sinnvoll.” (“Annoyance and sleep disturbance caused by noise cannot be ruled out. A health impact assessment is needed to evaluate systematically the direct and indirect risks as well as benefits of the substitution of fossil energy with wind energy.”)

Update, November 13, 2013:  “35 reviews”. 

Infraljud från vindkraftverk – en förbisedd hälsorisk (Infrasound from wind turbines – an overlooked health hazard), Håkan Enbom and Inga Malcus Enbom, Lakartidningen (Journal of the Swedish Medical Association), 2013 Aug 7-20;110(32-33):1388-9: “Infraljud från vindkraftverk påverkar innerörat och utgör en möjlig hälsorisk för personer med migrän eller annan typ av central sentitisering. Regelverket för nyetablering av vindkraftverk bör revideras med hänsyn tagen till denna omständighet, anser artikelförfattarna.” (“Infrasound from wind turbines affects the inner ear and is a potential health risk for people with migraine or other type of central sentitisation. Regulations for construction of wind turbines should be revised, taking this fact into account.”)

Industrial Wind Turbines, Human Variability, and Adverse Health Effects, Michael A. Nissenbaum, New England College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Reporter, Volume 2 Issue 38 Fall 2013: “In summary, in many IWT projects, the preconstruction sound modeling has underestimated the eventual real world sound levels those turbine projects eventually produce. When coupled with the underappreciated human physiological responses to the type of noise large turbines produce (adverse sleep and mental health effects), this has had real world consequences for those living near them. The relationship of noise to sleep disturbances is established. The biological plausibility of sleep disturbances resulting in ill health is settled science. Chronic noise exposure leads to chronic sleep disturbance in many of those exposed, often resulting in ill health. Observed adverse human effects must trump preconstruction sound modeling; changes in practice must occur when there are errors. It’s all about distance when siting decisions are made.”

Update, January 12, 2014:  “36 reviews”.  Wind turbines: is there a human health risk? Jennifer Roberts and Mark Roberts, Journal of Environmental Health, April 2013, Volume 75, No. 8. Also: Evaluation of the Scientific Literature on the Health Effects Associated with Wind Turbines and Low Frequency Sound, Prepared for Wisconsin Public Service Commission Docket No. 6630-CE-302, October 20, 2009; and Wind Turbines and Exposure to Low-Frequency Sound, Exponent Heath Sciences News Release, Volume 6, 2010. “[T]he authors present a literature review to determine whether LFS leads to negative human health effects. In the reviewed studies the authors found that annoyance plays a large role in people’s perception of wind turbines and additional research is warranted” (“About the Cover”). “Although limited, research has demonstrated that LFS can elicit adverse physical health effects, such as vibration or fatigue, as well as an annoyance or unpleasantness response. ... [T]he association and particular pathway between LFS specifically generated from wind turbines, annoyance, and adverse physical health effects have yet to be fully characterized. Hence, additional epidemiological research studies are warranted” (poster presentation, Jennifer Roberts, 4 July 2012, 7th International Conference on the Science of Exposure Assessment). [These authors also appear to ignore the Nissenbaum et al. study in Noise & Health (2012).]

Update, June 19, 2014:  “37 reviews”.  Wind turbines and human health, Loren Knopper, Christopher Ollson, et al., Frontiers in Public Health 2014;2:63: “Setbacks should be sound-based rather than distance-based alone. Preference should be given to sound emissions of ≤40 dB(A) for non-participating receptors, measured outside, at a dwelling, and not including ambient noise. ... Post construction monitoring should be common place to ensure modeled sound levels are within required noise limits. If sound emissions from wind projects is in the 40–45 dB(A) range for non-participating receptors, we suggest community consultation and community support. Setbacks that permit sound levels >45 dB(A) (wind turbine noise only; not including ambient noise) for non-participating receptors directly outside a dwelling are not supported due to possible direct effects from audibility and possible levels of annoyance above background. When ambient noise is taken into account, wind turbine noise can be >45 dB(A), but a combined wind turbine–ambient noise should not exceed >55 dB(A) for non-participating and participating receptors. Our suggested upper limit is based on WHO conclusions that noise above 55 dB(A) is ‘considered increasingly dangerous for public health,’ is when ‘adverse health effects occur frequently, a sizeable proportion of the population is highly annoyed and sleep-disturbed’ and ‘cardiovascular effects become the major public health concern, which are likely to be less dependent on the nature of the noise.’”

Update, June 21, 2014:  “38 reviews”.  ‘Wind turbine syndrome’: fact or fiction? Amir Farboud, R. Crunkhorn, & A. Trinidade, Journal of Laryngology & Otology, Volume 127, Issue 03, March 2013, pp 222-226: “There is some evidence of symptoms in patients exposed to wind turbine noise. The effects of infrasound require further investigation.”

Update, July 7, 2014:  “39 reviews”.  A Review of Wind Turbine Noise Perception, Annoyance and Low Frequency Emission, Con Doolan, Wind Engineering, Volume 37, No. 1, 2013, pp 97-104: “Low-frequency noise levels from wind turbines may exceed audibility thresholds and thus it is possible that they are correlated with annoyance. A review of studies related to general low-frequency noise annoyance shows there are similarities with annoyance studies involving wind turbine noise. ... noise levels may comply with existing environmental noise guidelines based on the dB(A) scale yet still cause annoyance due to the uniqueness of low-frequency noise problems. However, there is very little information (level, spectral balance, temporal qualities, etc) regarding low-frequency noise in people’s homes affected by wind turbines. ... Thus more research is needed in understanding the fundamental aspects of wind turbine low-frequency noise generation, propagation and perception.”

Update, September 19, 2014:  “40 reviews”. Wind turbine infra and low-frequency sound: warning signs that were not heard, Richard R. James, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 32(2) 108-127 (2012): “There is sufficient research and history to link the sensitivity of some people to inaudible amplitude-modulated infra and low-frequency noise to the type of symptoms described by those living near industrial wind turbines.”

Update, December 8, 2014:  “42 reviews”. Health effects related to wind turbine noise exposure: a systematic review, Jesper Hvass Schmidt and Mads Klokker, PLoS ONE 9(12): e114183 (2014): “At present it seems reasonable to conclude that noise from wind turbines increases the risk of annoyance and disturbed sleep in exposed subjects in a dose-response relationship. There seems to be a tolerable limit of around L_Aeq of 35 dB. Logically, accepting higher limits in legislations may lead to increased numbers of annoyed subjects. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that a cautious approach is needed when planning future wind farms. Furthermore, there is an indication that noise annoyance and sleep disturbance are related and that disturbed sleep potentially can lead to adverse health effects. These conclusions are, however, affected by a potential risk for selection and information bias even in the larger cross-sectional studies providing the current best evidence. The evidence for adverse health effects other than sleep disturbance is primarily supported by case-series reports which certainly may be affected by various sources of bias. Larger cross-sectional surveys have so far been unable to document a relationship between various symptoms such as tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo, headache and exposure to wind turbine noise. One limitation causing this could be that most studies so far have only measured L_Aeq or L_den. An additional focus on the measurement of low-frequency sound exposure as well as a more thorough characterisation of the amplitude modulated sound and the relationship between objective and subjective health parameters could lead to different conclusions in the future. Finally, in regards to the objective measurement of health-related disorders in relation to wind turbine noise, it would be valuable to demonstrate if such health-related outcomes fluctuate depending on exposure to wind turbine noise.”

And an older review from Switzerland:  Eoliennes et santé humaine, Nicole Lachat, June 2011: “Le présent dossier a permis de mettre en évidence, sur la base des travaux de nombreux auteurs, que les contrariétés dues aux éoliennes sont bien réelles, qu’elles ont des effets néfastes avérés sur la santé et que ces effets ne sont pas seulement auditifs.” (“This review presents the evidence, based on the work of numerous authors, that disturbances due to wind turbines are quite real, that they have harmful effects on health and that those effects are not just auditory.”)

Update, February 1, 2015:  “43 reviews”. Wind turbines and health: a critical review of the scientific literature, Robert J. McCunney, Kenneth A. Mundt, W. David Colby, Robert Dobie, Kenneth Kaliski, and Mark Blais, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2014 Nov;56(11):e108-30: “The Canadian Wind Energy Association funded this project.” These authors produced the similar review for the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations in 2009. “Epidemiological studies have shown associations between living near wind turbines and annoyance.”

Update, May 21, 2017:  “44 reviews”. Nuisances Sanitaires des Éoliennes Terrestres, Patrice Tran Ba Huy, Académie Nationale de Médecine, France, May 9, 2017: “[L]e caractère intermittent, aléatoire, imprévisible, envahissant du bruit généré par la rotation des pales, survenant lorsque le vent se lève, variant avec son intensité, interdisant toute habituation, peut indubitablement perturber l’état psychologique de ceux qui y sont exposés. Ce sont notamment les modulations d’amplitudes causées par le passage des pales devant le mât qui sont dénoncées comme particulièrement dérangeantes. [The intermittent, random, unpredictable, invasive character of the noise generated by the rotation of the blades, arising when the wind rises and varying along with its intensity, preventing habituation, can undoubtedly disturb the psychological state of those who are exposed to it. These include amplitude modulation caused by the passage of the blades in front of the mast, which is noted as particularly disturbing.]

“[L]e groupe de travail recommande: ... de revenir pour ce qui concerne leur bruit (et tout en laissant les éoliennes sous le régime des Installations Classées pour le Protection de l’Environnement) au décret du 31 août 2006 relatif à la lutte contre les bruits du voisinage (relevant du code de Santé publique et non de celui de l’Environnement), ramenant le seuil de déclenchement des mesures d’émergence à 30 dB A à l’extérieur des habitations et à 25 à l’intérieur.” [The working group recommends returning to the decree of 31 August 2006 concerning the fight against neighborhood noise, reducing the the threshold for emergency measures to [ambient levels] 30 dBA outside residences and 25 dBA inside [limiting wind turbine noise to +5 dBA in daytime (7am–10pm) and +3 dBA at night (10pm–7am)].]

Update, May 30, 2017:  “45 reviews”. Wind Turbine Noise & Human Health: A Review of the Scientific Literature, Vermont Department of Health, May 2017: “[A]nnoyance attributed to wind turbine noise by respondents was associated with migraines, dizziness, tinnitus, chronic pain, hair cortisol concentrations (an indicator of stress), blood pressure, and self-reported sleep quality. Efforts to minimize annoyance should address both noise and non-noise related factors. In order to minimize annoyance attributed to noise, an annual limit of 35 dBA coupled with community engagement could be considered.”

Go to wndfo.net/revs for just the non-government, non-industry reviews.

Undertake your own review — Click here for a list of, and access to, 21 published studies (2003–2012) of health effects of industrial wind turbine noise.

Also see the tables from “Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Noise Exposure: A Systematic Review” by JH Schmidt and M Klokker (2014)

Also:  “There is clear evidence of an annoyance or irritability caused by the acoustic signal from wind turbines that appears to be greater compared to other equivalent-level environmental noise such as airport or road traffic noise. In this regard, wind turbine noise is unique in having low-frequency signal components including infrasound (below 20 Hz). The sounds that are audible have a distinct amplitude modulation component, generally described as a “swish” or “thump”. This rhythmic characteristic makes the noise difficult to ignore or to adapt to, and its enhanced perception compared to un-modulated noise appears to contribute to its increased annoyance factor. Biological health issues can arise when the irritability and annoyance leads to sleep disturbance and stress.” —On the biological plausibility of Wind Turbine Syndrome, Robert Harrison, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 2015, Vol. 25, No. 5, 463–468.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights