The Koch Attack on Solar Energy

The Editorial Board of the New York Times today published a rather misleading piece about moves to tax solar panels, which already commonly enjoy an exemption from property taxation. Property taxes are egregiously regressive and tend to punish homeowners for positive changes to their property, but favoring only the improvements made by one industry suggests cynical manipulation, not an interest in general reform. And indeed, that is not what the editorial is interested in.

For the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.

Whatever the intention driving the Kochs might be, there are a number of aspects to these battles that are ignored in this editorial. Like the targeted tax exemptions to favor one industry group, “incentives for renewable energy” are shamelessly biased. If the goal were truly to reduce carbon emissions or pollution, then that would be the stated requirement. Instead, these laws specify only the theoretical means, usually limited to wind and solar, not allowing hydro, and often specifying in-state generation. Furthermore, they make no provisions for monitoring the results on emissions. In effect, they simply tell utilities which suppliers they can and can not buy from without regard to actual effect. Indeed, one of the changes being fought by the wind industry in Ohio is to simply remove those purchasing directives from the renewables and efficiency standards, i.e., to let the utilities, not industry lobbyists, determine how best to achieve the goals.

As for net-metering, it is far from the equal exchange implied in the editorial. While homeowners get to install solar panels on the cheap by using the grid as a battery, net-metering laws generally require utilities to pay a hefty premium for taking the overflow. So not only are solar panel owners relying on a grid they no longer pay for, utilities have to pay them handsomely for dumping their excess production. Hence the logic of a tax on solar panels: to help pay for the grid that they continue to use.

Demonizing the Koch brothers, “big polluters”, and “big carbon” in these discussions is no more acceptable than the demonizing of all things Obama that the editorial decries about “Koch Carbon” ads. Nor is automatically defending all things Obama. In fact, Ken Lay of Enron, with the help of George W. Bush, essentially created the modern wind industry as a heavily subsidized darling of environmentalists. (Bush was keynote speaker at the 2010 American Wind Energy Association conference.)

The coal producers’ motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. ... Renewables are good for economic as well as environmental reasons, as most states know. (More than 143,000 now work in the solar industry.)

Coal isn’t even a part of Koch Industries activities. Piping natural gas, however, is, and in terms of actual electricity production, natural gas is the fastest growing source, driven in large part by the need for generators that can react quickly enough to the highly fluctuating production of wind. (Ironically, if it did not have to contend with wind, natural gas generators could be built to be almost twice as efficient.)

Nor is coal threatened by solar and wind. It is the increase of natural gas that has reduced coal’s share of electricity generation. Because it takes several hours for a large coal plant to start up, it can not shut down as solar and especially wind production rises, because that production will fall again, usually unpredictably. That means coal must still be burned even while not producing electricity. Furthermore, world demand for (cheap) electricity is only increasing, and U.S. coal is increasingly exported to those markets.

The only threat to coal profits would be enforcement of environment and labor laws, but fighting for that would recognize that even so-called progressives are indeed users of coal, which is hard to nuance in a simple-minded fund-raising appeal or media event.

As for jobs, the solar and wind lobbies count every ancillarily involved contract as a job. The lawyer who draws up leases, the consultant who adapts the boilerplate environmental review, the concrete company that pours foundations, the lunch truck that hits a construction site on its rounds — these are all counted as “jobs in solar and wind”, even though they all existed before and will continue to exist after.

(According to Wikipedia, Koch Industries employs 50,000 people in the U.S. and 20,000 in other countries. Is that a justification per se for anything?)

That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it’s deliberately misleading. This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change.

Again, this editorial might appeal to Obama apologists and corporate-allied environmentalists, but it does so by being deliberately misleading.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, ecoanarchism

Grass-Fed Beef Won’t Save the Planet

George Wuerthner, January 22, 2010

Excerpts:

Researcher Nathan Pelletier of Nova Scotia has found that GHG emissions are 50 percent higher from grass-fed than from feedlot cows.

One of the major consequences of having cattle roaming the range is soil compaction. Soil compaction reduces water penetration, creating more run-off and erosion. Because water cannot percolate into the soil easily, soil compaction from cattle creates more arid conditions — a significant problem in the already arid West, but also an issue in the East since the soils are often moister for a longer period of time. Moist soils are more easily compacted. Soil compaction also reduces the space in the top active layer of soil where most soil microbes live, reducing soil fertility.

There are far more ecological problems I could list for grass-fed beef, but suffice to say cattle production of any kind is not environmentally friendly.

The further irony of grass-fed beef is that consumption of beef products is not healthy despite claims to the contrary. There may be less fat in grass-fed beef, but the differences are not significant enough to warrant the claim that beef consumption is “healthy.” There is a huge body of literature about the contribution of red meat to major health problems including breast, colon, stomach, bladder, and prostate cancer. The other dietary related malady is the strong link between red meat consumption and heart disease.

Another health claim is that grass-fed beef has more omega-3 fats, which are considered important for lowering health attack risks. However, the different between grain-fed and grass-fed is so small as to be insignificant, not to mention there are many other non-beef sources for this: Walnuts, beans, flax seeds, winter squash, and olive oil are only some of the foods that provide concentrated sources of omega-3 fats. Arguing that eating grass-fed beef is necessary or healthier grain-fed beef is like claiming it is better to smoke a filtered cigarette instead of a non-filtered one.

environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism

Important new molecule in the biology of dementia

Anthony L. Komaroff, NEJM Journal Watch, April 8, 2014

Two molecules — β-amyloid and tau — are important in the biology of Alzheimer disease. Yet, high concentrations of them, either alone or together, do not seem to be sufficient to cause the disease.

In a study in the March 27 issue of Nature (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13163), researchers evaluated the molecules produced in the brains of older people with preserved cognitive function or with dementia and identified a candidate molecule called REST, which is important in embryonic brain development. The production of REST is silenced after embryonic development is completed, but is turned back on in aging brains. The researchers discovered that production continues in healthy older people with preserved cognition — but switches off in people with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer disease, or one of several other dementing diseases. REST deficiency was most striking in areas that are most affected in Alzheimer disease. Experiments showed that REST protects neurons from the toxic effects of β-amyloid and oxidative stress and protects against apoptosis (which is programmed cell death). Deleting the gene for REST in mice led to age-related neurodegeneration.

The REST molecule might protect the brain against age-related degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer disease. This molecule now becomes an important focus in understanding the underlying biology of dementia, as well as a target for therapeutics. Not all new and exciting putative disease-related molecules stand the test of time, but many experts are betting that this one will.

[[[[ ]]]]
REST and stress resistance in ageing and Alzheimer’s disease

Tao Lu, Liviu Aron, Joseph Zullo, Ying Pan, Haeyoung Kim, Yiwen Chen, Tun-Hsiang Yang, Hyun-Min Kim, Derek Drake, X. Shirley Liu, David A. Bennett, Monica P. Colaiácovo & Bruce A. Yankner

Nature 507, 448–454 (27 March 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13163

Abstract

Human neurons are functional over an entire lifetime, yet the mechanisms that preserve function and protect against neurodegeneration during ageing are unknown. Here we show that induction of the repressor element 1-silencing transcription factor (REST; also known as neuron-restrictive silencer factor, NRSF) is a universal feature of normal ageing in human cortical and hippocampal neurons. REST is lost, however, in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. Chromatin immunoprecipitation with deep sequencing and expression analysis show that REST represses genes that promote cell death and Alzheimer’s disease pathology, and induces the expression of stress response genes. Moreover, REST potently protects neurons from oxidative stress and amyloid β-protein toxicity, and conditional deletion of REST in the mouse brain leads to age-related neurodegeneration. A functional orthologue of REST, Caenorhabditis elegans SPR-4, also protects against oxidative stress and amyloid β-protein toxicity. During normal ageing, REST is induced in part by cell non-autonomous Wnt signalling. However, in Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies, REST is lost from the nucleus and appears in autophagosomes together with pathological misfolded proteins. Finally, REST levels during ageing are closely correlated with cognitive preservation and longevity. Thus, the activation state of REST may distinguish neuroprotection from neurodegeneration in the ageing brain.

The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer (1968)

I had washed my hair, and it now floated, light and bushy, around my head. The rainwater had made it soft and smooth. Looking in the mirror I cut it short so that it just covered my ears, and I contemplated my tanned face under its sun-bleached cap of hair. It looked very strange, thin, with slight hollows in the cheeks. Its lips had grown narrower, and I felt this strange face was marked by a secret need. As there were no human beings left alive to love this face it struck me as quite superfluous. It was naked and pathetic, and I was ashamed of it and wanted nothing to do with it. My animals were fond of my familiar smell, my voice and my movements. I could easily cast off my face; it was needed no longer. At this thought a feeling of emptiness rose up in me, which I had to get rid of at any price. I looked for some kind of work to do, and told myself that in my situation it was childish to mourn a face, but the tormenting sense that I had lost something important would not be driven away.

[[[ ]]]
I have always been fond of animals, in the slight and superficial way in which city people feel drawn to them. When they were suddenly all I had, everything changed. There are said to have been prisoners who have tamed rats, spiders and flies and begun to love them. I think they acted in accordance with their situation. The barriers between animal and human come down very easily. We belong to a single great family, and if we are lonely and unhappy we gladly accept the friendship of our distant relations. They suffer as we do if pain is inflicted on them, and like myself they need food, warmth and a little tenderness.

[[[ ]]]
But if time exists only in my head, and I’m the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I’m owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time. Really these thoughts are quite meaningless. Things happen, and, like millions of people before me, I look for a meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow me to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in the event itself. If I casually step on a beetle, it will not see this event, tragic for the beetle, as a mysterious concatenation of universal significance. The beetle was beneath my foot at the moment when my foot fell; a sense of well-being in the daylight, a short, shrill pain and then nothing. But we’re condemned to chase after a meaning that cannot exist. I don’t know whether I will ever come to terms with that knowledge. It’s difficult to shake off an ancient, deep-rooted megalomania. I pity animals, and I pity people, because they’re thrown into this life without being consulted. Maybe people are more deserving of pity, because they have just enough intelligence to resist the natural course of things. It has made them wicked and desperate, and not very lovable. All the same, life could have been lived differently. There is no impulse more rational than love. It makes life more bearable for the lover and the loved one. We should have recognized in time that this was our only chance, our only hope for a better life. For an endless army of the dead, mankind’s only chance has vanished for ever. I keep thinking about that. I can’t understand why we had to take the wrong path. I only know it’s too late.

(translated by Shaun Whiteside)

The importance of reduced meat and dairy consumption for meeting stringent climate change targets

Abstract
For agriculture, there are three major options for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: 1) productivity improvements, particularly in the livestock sector; 2) dedicated technical mitigation measures; and 3) human dietary changes. The aim of the paper is to estimate long-term agricultural GHG emissions, under different mitigation scenarios, and to relate them to the emissions space compatible with the 2 °C temperature target. Our estimates include emissions up to 2070 from agricultural soils, manure management, enteric fermentation and paddy rice fields, and are based on IPCC Tier 2 methodology. We find that baseline agricultural CO₂-equivalent emissions (using Global Warming Potentials with a 100 year time horizon) will be approximately 13 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070, compared to 7.1 Gton CO₂eq/year 2000. However, if faster growth in livestock productivity is combined with dedicated technical mitigation measures, emissions may be kept to 7.7 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070. If structural changes in human diets are included, emissions may be reduced further, to 3–5 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070. The total annual emissions for meeting the 2 °C target with a chance above 50 % is in the order of 13 Gton CO₂eq/year or less in 2070, for all sectors combined. We conclude that reduced ruminant meat and dairy consumption will be indispensable for reaching the 2 °C target with a high probability, unless unprecedented advances in technology take place.

Fredrik Hedenus, Stefan Wirsenius, Daniel J. A. Johansson
Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

Climatic Change. Published online 28 March 2014.
doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1104-5

environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism

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

Three-dimensional chess

While U.S. President Obama denies involvement in Ukraine yet decries the remarkably restrained government response to violent protesters as repressive and antidemocratic, even as his Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs is recorded going over her plans for regime change, and nonsensically insists that (democratically elected) Ukraine President Yanukovich has refused to negotiate with protesters when it is clearly the other way around, here are a few pieces from Counterpunch about this week's state of the great game (of hypocrisy).

Masking Tragedy in Ukraine, by Chris Floyd

Obama Pushes for Regime Change in Venezuela, by Mark Weisbrot

Do We Care About People If They Live in Bahrain? by David Swanson

human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

More on science fetishization

The corporate bullies of GMOs, wind power, “smart” meters, etc. invariably appeal to “science” to dismiss concerns of harm and tout the claims of good. But the actual good is invariably the benefit to their companies’ or research teams’ viability and profits. There is no questioning of their necessity or consideration of what is to be lost or taken away (e.g., farming freedom, open and wild spaces, privacy, etc.).

Their appeal to science is amoral. Their defenders apparently believe that a conclusion is “good” simply for being reached logically. And that criticism of science, however logical, can not in fact be so, because logic has already determined that it is good.

The problem, of course, is an infantile division of human thought between “rational” and “emotional”. Both religion and science operate with both, but the latter claims the exclusive mantle of “reason” and then self-servingly stops there. Any questioning of what science does in the name of reason, or what companies do under the name of science, is called an attack on reason itself, even when it is itself quite reasonable.

The business of science, as its own gatekeeper, is often deaf to reason outside its own self-serving logic. A prime example is the swallowing by GMO supporters of the claim that Roundup-Ready crops would reduce pesticide use, when they are expressly designed to tolerate the company’s own pesticide, thus removing an important check on that pesticide’s use. The result has indeed been an increase in pesticide use, and the “anti-science fear-mongers” who warned of super-weeds and the threat to monarch butterflies have been proved correct. While “golden rice” has been talked about for many years without any practical results, the actual results of GMO “research” have been “terminator” genes to prevent seed saving and plants that produce their own pesticides, as well as pesticide-tolerant crops. Even if golden rice were a beneficial reality, it has nothing to do with all that is wrong with the GMO business.

The assertion that humans have always manipulated the genes of plants and animals illustrates the amoral logic that actually, in the service of corporate science, avoids thought. There is a big difference between selecting the results of a plant or animal’s own natural processes and splicing genes between species and even kingdoms. The latter represents a violation of the natural order that science purports to study.

Reason without consideration of ethics or morals, or simply without considering potential harms or seriously assessing actual benefits, is a mark of a sociopath. Human reason is not a good in itself. It is ultimately self-serving: hence the term “rationalization”. And rationalization of corporate depredation and profit — along with demonization of those who question it — is not science.

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

Social aspects of wind energy development

“When people are talking about changing the way we harness and use energy, industrial wind instead entrenches a centralized and inefficient system. When people are talking about reducing the burning of fossil fuels, industrial wind entrenches the grid’s dependence on them. When people are talking about moderating the corporate control of society, industrial wind entrenches the worst of predatory and crony capitalism that works to move more public money into private hands, transfering the common wealth of the many into the pockets of a few without regard for human, societal, or environmental cost. Big wind operates much like — and is often firmly embedded in — the military-industrial-banking complex subverting democracy and fairness by making politics a stepping stone to private riches, with the frisson of riding a wave of green-technology utopianism. Only those who have sworn allegiance to their program are citizens of their country. The rest of us are only resources to exploit and barriers to overcome.”

—from Wind Energy Primer

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

And down with all kings but King Ludd!

He may censure great Ludd’s disrespect for the Laws Who ne’er for a moment reflects That foul Imposition alone was the cause Which produced these unhappy effects Let the haughty no longer the humble oppress Then shall Ludd sheath his conquering Sword His grievances instantly meet with redress Then peace will be quickly restored

“The concerns and causes and methods vary, but there is to it all, at bottom, the message that is unmistakable Luddistic:  Beware the technological juggernaut, reckon the terrible costs, understand the worlds being lost in the world being gained, reflect on the price of the machine and its systems on your life, pay attention to the natural world and its increasing destruction, resist the sedutive catastrophe of industrialism.”

—Kirkpatrick Sale, Rebels Against the Future (1995)

environment, environmentalism, human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Martin Luther King in his own words

New York, New York, April 4th, 1967 (“Beyond Vietnam”), and
Memphis, Tennessee, April 3rd, 1968 (“I Have Been to the Mountain Top”).

From V. to Eternity . . .

V. by Thomas Pynchon (1963):

But they produced nothing but talk and at that not very good talk. A few like Slab actually did what they professed; turned out a tangible product. But again, what? Cheese Danishes. Or this technique for the sake of technique — Catatonic Expressionism. Or parodies on what someone else had already done.

So much for Art. What of Thought? The Crew had developed a kind of shorthand whereby they could set forth any visions that might come their way. Conversations at the Spoon had become little more than proper nouns, literary allusions, critical or philosophical terms linked in certain ways. Depending on how you arranged the building blocks at your disposal, you were smart or stupid. Depending on how others reacted they were In or Out. The number of blocks, however, was finite.

“Mathematically, boy,” he told himself, “if nobody else original comes along, they’re bound to run out of arrangements someday. What then?” What indeed. This sort of arranging and rearranging was Decadence, but the exhaustion of all possible permutations and combinations was death.

[] [] [] [] [] [] []
. . .
V-2: Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
V. 3.0 (Beyond the One and Zero): Bleeding Edge (2013)
cf. William Gaddis (1955): The Recognitions

 ̤
--m--V--w--
 ̇

Sabra and Shatila

Democracy Now: Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)

Amiri Baraka: Poet-Playwright-Activist Who Shaped Revolutionary Politics, Black Culture


Remembering Amiri Baraka: Part 2

Democracy Now: The 1971 burglary that exposed FBI crimes

"It Was Time to Do More Than Protest": Activists Admit to 1971 FBI Burglary That Exposed COINTELPRO

From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After 43 Years of Silence (Part 2)


The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther (Dec. 4, 2009)

Have a fascist new year.

In a year-end wrap-up of U.S. politics last week, which I caught on NPR by chance, the guest noted how both Democrats and Republicans have lost favor. The host, oblivious to reality, or perhaps determinedly fending it off, asked if this provided an opportunity for a third party, "something more centrist".

In that question, he persisted in the story line that the Democrats are the party of the left and the Republicans the party of the right, which has in fact never been true. The Democrats and Republicans as a whole have always marched hand in hand as two faces of one imperial capitalist party, sometimes playing the game as understood by the NPR host to keep their control. Thus, for example, during campaigns, if not while governing, Democrats once reached out to unions, Republicans to the upwardly mobile. It shifts with time and demographics, but the parties deftly divide the market between them.

There is no "center" between them. They represent two styles of imperial capitalism. Occasional individuals may break ranks on single issues, but they dare not truly break away and challenge the narrow range of action allowed by this system, let alone the assumptions of hegemonic exploitation as necessary to their comfort.

What the NPR host lacked is perspective, perhaps honesty. The center is not between the two imperial capitalist parties, but between the people and that government. The center is not some magic place of smorgasbord compromise, but a place of mediation. It is real government in communication with the people, not as targets of marketing to keep them buying a bill of goods, but as citizens.

It is the difference between democracy and fascism.

human rights, animal rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Wind displaces hydro, not fossil fuels

As a follow-up to an earlier post looking at the generation patterns in Spain and northwestern USA, here are a couple more pictures:

It's pretty clear from the Spanish graph that it is hydro power that is varied in response to fluctuation of demand as well as of wind power.

And the same thing is clear from the Bonneville graph: It is hydro power that is varied in response to both demand and changing wind. The thermal power generation line remains virtually constant.

In other words, wind power on the grid is not reducing the use of fossil fuels.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Sleep clears brain of toxic metabolites

Anthony Komaroff writes in New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch:

We all know that without enough sleep, mood and cognition are impaired. Certain central nervous system conditions, including migraines and seizures, become more frequent and severe with a lack of sleep. When animals are kept from sleeping, they ultimately die.

Clearly, we need to sleep. But why? In a study in the October 18, 2013, issue of Science (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1241224), researchers report on a technique they developed for measuring the interstitial space in the brains of living mice. That space is bathed by cerebrospinal fluid that is produced by the choroid plexus and pumped back into the blood in the meninges. The researchers found that, during sleep and anesthesia, the interstitial space increased by 60%. The functional result of this expansion is that many metabolites of neurons and glial cells that spill into the interstitial space are cleared from the space much more rapidly, enter the blood, and are detoxified by the liver. These molecules include β‐amyloid and tau, which build up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer disease. When sleeping animals are aroused, the clearance of toxic metabolites slows markedly.

The researchers speculate that, at least in mice, the buildup of toxic metabolites in the interstitial space in the brain is a trigger for sleep, and that a key purpose of sleep is to clear these metabolites. Maybe the reason we feel restored after a good night’s sleep is because the brain has freed itself of toxins. This hypothesis is arresting in its simplicity and could prove to be profoundly important in human biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1245798).

Emily Underwood comments:

Scientists have long speculated that one of the functions of sleep is to restore and repair the brain, but whether this is a “core” purpose of sleep remains controversial. Now, a paper published in Science this week on page 373 provides direct experimental evidence that the mouse brain cleans itself during sleep, by expanding channels between neurons that allow an influx of cerebrospinal fluid. The fluid flushes out detritus such as amyloid proteins, which accumulate as plaques in Alzheimer's disease, twice as fast when mice are sleeping as when they are awake.

Suzana Herculano-Houzel comments:

We know from personal experience that sleep is not just another brain state but a basic requirement for normal brain function while we are awake. Mental fatigue, poor decision-making, impaired learning, and a heightened risk of migraine and epileptic attacks ensue when we are sleep deprived — and chronic and complete insomnia ultimately lead to death in humans, rats, and flies alike. Why does normal brain function deteriorate with prolonged waking and require sleep to be restored? On page 373 in this issue, Xie et al. report that during sleep, waste products of brain metabolism are removed from the interstitial space among brain cells where they accumulate. Sleep, therefore, might be required for potentially toxic metabolites — the very results of a working brain — to be cleared from the tissue.

human rights

“Lewd, lascivious, salacious — outrageous!”

Remember Jackie Chiles, Kramer’s Johnny Cochran–like attorney in Seinfeld who in affected dudgeon characterized every situation with a set of at least three hyperbolic adjectives? I've been noticing that this is not uncommon among defenders of corporate wind ...

“Give this article [about the nocebo effect] to an anti-windpower campaigner and watch denial, evasion and anger set in.”

“I lay blame on those who ideologically spread fear, doubt and pseudoscience.”

“Anti-wind lobbyists spread fear, disharmony and anger.”

“You've stepped into a bit of a cesspool. Expect abuse and frothing. Despite this, they keep making the same unreferenced and unsupported comments in threads like this, without nuance or evidence of learning. Haters gotta hate.”
[not exactly in the pattern, but squarely in the spirit: cesspool, abuse, frothing, unreferenced, unsupported, without nuance, without evidence of learning]

“So you [give victims of wind turbine noise more sympathetic treatment] through plagiarism, misrepresentation and deception? There's no merit in being conniving and manipulative. ... stealing, doctoring and misappropriating someone else's work”

wind power, wind energy, human rights, animal rights,

Questions and Answers: What's wrong with wind energy?

1. The National Wind Watch home page says, “because of the wind’s low density, intermittency, and high variability, [large-scale wind turbines] do next to nothing for reducing carbon and other emissions or dependence on other fuels”. Could you go into a bit more detail about this and present any links you have for evidence?

The power of the wind is 1/2 of area (turbine rotor diameter) × air density × wind speed cubed. There is a theoretical physical limit (Betz’ law) that no more than 16/27, or 59.3%, of the wind’s energy (power × time) can be captured. Modern wind turbines may reach 50% efficiency, but only within a certain range of wind speeds, which appear to be the average speeds for which the turbines are designed, but at which speeds they generate at only a fraction (around 1/3) of their maximum rate. As the wind speed increases, the rotors are increasingly feathered and efficiency plummets.

The brochure for Enercon turbines includes graphs showing the efficiency vs. wind speed.

In addition to being limited by Betz’ law, wind turbines must not interfere with each other, so they must be spaced quite far apart. The minimum distance is generally considered to be 3 rotor diameters perpendicular to the wind (possible only where wind is unidirectional) and 10 rotor diameters parallel to the wind. See, eg, www.wind-watch.org/documents/?p=984. Thus in an array of, say, 90-meter-diameter turbines (the blades of each machine sweeping a vertical airspace of 1.57 acres), each machine would require 810,000 square meters around it, or 200 acres. From that 200 acres, assuming a 2-MW turbine and an average rate of generation 25% of capacity (see https://wind-watch.org/doc/?p=3427 for U.S. averages; they are generally quite a bit less in Europe), the average power density is only 2.5 kW/acre.

Furthermore, that wind energy is intermittent, meaning other sources of electricity must be available, and variable, meaning other sources must be kept running to be ramped up and down as needed to keep the electricity supply exactly matched to demand. This means that wind is only adding to the grid and then causing other generators to run less efficiently, including burning fuel while not generating electricity. See http://kirbymtn.blogspot.com/2013/10/us-co-emissions-for-electricity-from.html and http://kirbymtn.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-much-does-wind-energy-reduce-carbon.html

2. Pertaining to health — I’ve heard very mixed messages about whether the health effects are of legitimate concern and I would like to hear your take on it. ... Any scientific information would be great!

21 published (peer-reviewed) studies: http://wndfo.net/wts
10 non-industry, non-government reviews: http://wndfo.net/revs

One hitch has been the term “annoyance” as used in these studies. In epidemiology it means to a degree that can cause health problems. The wind industry has instead used its colloquial meaning to characterize the problem as something people just need to get used to.

Even that flies in the face of the evidence that infrasound (frequencies below the threshold of conscious hearing) and low-frequency noise (ILFN) is probably responsible for much of the problem, because research suggests that people who are sensitive to ILFN become more sensitized with continued exposure.

The research showing that people complain more about wind turbine noise than other artificial sources at similar decibel levels is probably explained by the facts that it is unpredictable (depending on wind speed and direction), that it often occurs at night, and that it is a pulsating noise.

Basically, the wind industry is trying to stop research as it has just begun. Because, as the reviews conclude, the preliminary research clearly justifies concern and is already leading to revisions of noise regulations to consider lower frequencies and pulsating patterns. And if such regulations are justified for humans, they would also have to be considered for wildlife ...

3. For my own sanity, I’m wondering why on earth there is so much controversy! How can there be such polar opposite opinions and what is the truth ... in your opinion?

There is a lot of desperation and urgency to remedy the consequences of our high level of energy consumption, and big wind has exploited that, ever since Enron first realized that it could sell wind to environmentalists as an alternative to coal. Since concern about climate change came to dominate mainstream environmentalism after Al Gore’s movie, wind energy has been sold as our salvation. It became a “with us or against us” marker of one’s concern for the environment or sociopolitical team loyalty. Its own adverse impacts (mining, birds and bats, wild habitat) are then dismissed simply as being much less than those of fossil fuels (the other team), ignoring the fact the the reduction of fossil fuel burning because of wind energy is effectively nil, making wind’s impacts — many of them unique, such as the threats to raptors and bats, and the need to build over hundreds of acres at a time in rural and wild places — an addition, not an alternative. Even the American Wind Energy Association once admitted that the most ambitious wind program would only slow the increase of carbon emissions. And for greenhouse gases, there are still the problems of transport and heating. And animal agriculture. And hydrofluorocarbons.

The truth is that there is no free lunch. By approaching the problem with building more instead of using less, wind energy is only perpetuating it. And while people look to wind energy to save the planet, they are more likely to avoid doing things that would make a real difference. They are able to buy Enron-invented “green tags” (carbon credits) to “offset” their impact rather than actually reduce it.

So the polarity is indeed justified and inevitable. Once somebody realizes that wind is a nonsolution, and harmful itself without meaningfully mitigating other harms, it is clear that there is hardly a “middle ground”. And once someone who believes in wind starts to admit that it has drawbacks or that claims for its benefits are overblown, a cornerstone of mainstream environmentalism starts to crumble — and retrenchment becomes all the more fierce to avoid complicating “the message”.

4. One more question: What are viable solutions instead of wind energy, and if wind energy is here to stay what kind of regulations or changes are needed for it to be successful?

Frankly, there probably isn’t a viable solution right now to 8 billion humans consuming ever more resources, particular in a world economic model of “growth”, which even with the modifier “sustainable” is still growth — growth of consumption, growth of waste, and less for the rest of life on the planet. Thursday's Democracy Now had a couple of climate scientists on calling for radical change from that model: www.democracynow.org/2013/11/21/we_have_to_consume_less_scientists.

As for the potential success of wind energy, it would require not only massive building of wind turbines (and all the resources they require) but also an even more massive battery backup system (and all the more resources) and a massive expansion of continent-wide high-capacity transmission lines. In other words, it’s ridiculous. Virtually everything would have to be turned over to wind energy. We would have instead of a war economy a wind economy, where wind energy powers primarily the maintenance of wind power. And we’d still need backup generators!

H.G. Wells wrote, in 1897, “A Story of the Days to Come”:

And all over the countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. ... The great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens ...

In that story, it is indeed the power company that is in power.

That said, it is a fact that wind turbines are being and will continue to be built, so like National Wind Watch I strongly support effective setbacks (at least 2 km, perhaps 5 km) from homes and noise regulations (that limit nighttime indoor noise to 30 dBA, as the WHO recommends, and limit ILFN and pulsating noise as well). And we oppose opening up otherwise protected land to the construction of the giant machines. Of course, such regulation would not contribute to, but instead would threaten, the “success” of wind energy. It would remain rare and unprofitable, as such an absurd source of energy for the modern world should be, used only in the most desperate of circumstances when nothing else is possible and the cost and harm and low benefit might be justifiable.

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

How much does wind energy reduce carbon emissions?

Claims of wind energy reducing carbon emissions and water use are like my taking a walk and then claiming I prevented the emissions of driving instead. Except neither I nor anybody else might have made that drive, and I didn't check if anybody’s driving was actually prevented or displaced by my taking that walk.

Claims of wind energy reducing carbon emissions and water use are made only on the basis of how much electricity is generated by wind turbines and multiplying that by the average (if they are that rigorous) carbon intensity of the rest of the grid.

But that ignores several factors that likely reduce that equivalence:

• Because wind is variable, it is more likely to displace no-carbon hydro and lower-carbon natural gas, not coal, because those generators can ramp up and down much more quickly than coal plants are able to.

• In balancing the variability of wind, fossil fuel plants are forced to run less efficiently, i.e., burn more fuel per unit of energy generated.

• Wind also takes advantage of the redundancy already built into the grid that keeps a substantial amount of capacity on spinning standby to be able to instantly switch to generation in case of a major failure of supply elsewhere — or a dip in wind generation. Therefore, at modest penetration levels (perhaps up to around 6%), wind probably has no effect on emissions at all, instead only switching already running backup plants between generation and standby more often. At greater penetration levels, connections to other grids (such as Denmark’s to Germany and the rest of Scandinavia) are used for that purpose.

That’s why wind’s benefits are always reported in terms of equivalences. Its advocates tireless avoid presenting actual data of less burning of fossil fuels, because, for the reasons given above, such data do not show much, if any, benefit at all.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Wind displaces …

Here are a couple of pictures of the generation mix on the electric grids from two very different locations. These times were not chosen for any particular reason except that your editor was just now looking at them and though he/she might write about them. First, 24 hours from Spain:

What is notable is that only 3 sources vary substantially: wind, solar, and hydro. And gas use goes up a bit for the midday and evening peaks. As wind rises early in the morning and does not decrease after the midday peak, it is clear that hydro is the source being adjusted to accommodate it. It is also clear that there is substantial hydro capacity that is drawn on for the evening peak (when there is no solar). One might therefore conclude that the large amount of wind power installed in Spain has served more to reduce the use of hydropower rather than fossil fuels.

Second, a week from the Pacific Northwest in the USA:

What is notable here is the effect on other sources of the steady rise of wind-powered generation over the past 3 days. It's harder to read than the Spanish graph, but the effect seems to be almost none.

Update, Dec. 4, 2013:

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

6 Problems with Wind Turbine Syndrome by Skeptoid Brian Dunning

(Skeptoid episode #4388 — Most of the following is by courtesy of commenter El Rucio.)

Problem #1: There is no consensus on what it does or who it affects.

1. It is the consistency of symptoms reported by significant numbers of people after large wind turbines began operating nearby that led to the conclusion that those symptoms were probably caused by the turbines.

Problem #2: The symptoms attributed to Wind Turbine Syndrome do not require any cause.

2. It was Nina Pierpont's insight that the combination of symptoms and the pattern of susceptibility were signs of inner ear disturbance, suggesting infrasonic and/or low-frequency noise as the cause. Other physicians have noted that many of the symptoms can be caused by sleep disturbance due to the pulsating peaks of audible "blade swish". In any case, the symptoms vary with wind strength and direction and quite clearly diminish when affected individuals leave the area of the turbines or the turbines stop operating.

Problem #3: The timing of complaints is too unlikely.

3. PubMed lists 21 studies of the health effects of wind turbine noise published from 2003 to 2012, 9 of them dating from before Pierpont's book. In 2006, the French Academy of Medicine recognized the impact of wind turbine noise on human health and recommended a 1.5-km minimum distance from homes. Also in 2006, the British Noise Association wrote about the infrasound from wind turbines and recommended a setback of 1-1.5 miles.

Problem #4: The geographic dispersion of complaints is too unlikely.

4. Again, 21 studies published in English show a correlation, and only 7 of them come from English-speaking countries. Furthermore, most of the research showing the physiological effects of infrasound and low-frequency noise over the past few decades has been in non-English-speaking countries (see item 5). A review was recently recently published in Lakartidningen, the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association: "Infrasound From Wind Turbines – An Overlooked Health Hazard". In the comments of that article, the author, a specialist in otoneurology, addresses many of the arguments attempted here to dismiss the evidence.

Problem #5: Only implausible causes have been suggested.

5. PubMed lists well over 100 studies of the physiological effects of infrasound. And infrasound levels of concern from wind turbines have indeed been measured in homes. When Denmark proposed adding infrasound to its noise regulations in 2011, the wind industry forced the government to water it down.

Problem #6: Almost nobody seems to agree that it exists.

6. There is a list of 35 – at latest count – reviews of the health effects of wind turbines, and those by physicians overwhelmingly express concern and the need for further research and revised regulation.

[Problem #7:] Wind Turbine Syndrome ... bears all the signs of a psychogenic condition.

7. If there is any psychogenic condition around this issue, it is clearly the determination of so many otherwise intelligent people to vehemently deny the mounting evidence.

But at Skeptoid, all science is settled, all knowledge is absolute, and Brian Dunning, entrepreneur/convicted felon (read: huckster), is the final arbiter of both.

This whole subculture of smartypants skepticism is a sad aspect of our fascist era. Their pose of intellectual rigor appears more often to be simple contempt for people who think differently from them, and often as a desperate attempt to avoid facing facts that don't fit their vision of a technocratic utopia (or sales plan). Why do they feel so threatened? Why is the truth as they see it so unconvincing to others? Perhaps their own cultishness (like, never wondering what makes Brian Dunning such a know-it-all) betrays their claim of reason. Any reasonable person would be a lot more skeptical than these servants of power.

For their keen eye seems to be quite selectively applied to industries, since the "skeptics" themselves are invariably promoting or directly profiting by several of them, for example, industrial wind energy development. As in this episode, a lazy attempt to refute evidence of adverse health effects due to noise from wind turbines transparently serves only to promote wind energy companies by defaming their victims and those who listen to them. It is a contemptible performance, and it has nothing to do with science.

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

Reviews of wind turbines’ effects on human health

Elsewhere on this blog, there is an inclusive list of reviews of the literature concerning human health and the noise from industrial wind turbines. It was compiled to provide a more complete list than the highly selective one presented by Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney that is often cited by wind power promoters. It also showed that while Chapman presented the reviews as reason to dismiss health concerns, most of them actually note the limited number and power of studies but that the evidence justifies further investigation and caution.

Most of the reviews, however, are government reports: nine of Chapman’s original 17, all of the three he later added, and five of the additional reviews listed earlier on this blog. Furthermore, of Chapman’s list, four are irrelevant (three not about wind turbines and one a press release about one of the other reviews), two are industry reports, and two are just rehashes of an earlier review. Only three of the reviews he originally listed merit attention:

• Dani Fiumicelli: Wind farm noise dose response: A literature review. Acoustics Bulletin, November/December 2011 (pages 26-35). [link]

• Loren Knopper & Christopher Ollson: Health effects and wind turbines: A review of the literature. Environmental Health, 2011 10:78. [link]

• Committee on Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council of the National Academies [NRC]: Environmental impacts of wind-energy projects. 2007. [link]

Ignoring additional government, industry, and unpublished reviews, we also have the following (in reverse order by date):

• Patrice Tran Ba Huy, l’Académie nationale de médecine [France]: Nuisances Sanitaires des Éoliennes Terrestres. [Health Impacts of Onshore Wind Trubines.] May 9 2017. [link]

• J. H. Schmidt, M. Klokker: Health effects related to wind turbine noise exposure: a systematic review. PLoS One 9(12): e114183 (2014). [link]

• R. J. McCunney, K. A. Mundt, W. D. Colby, R. Dobie, K. Kaliski, & M. Blais: Wind turbines and health: a critical review of the scientific literature. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2014 Nov;56(11):e108-30. “The Canadian Wind Energy Association funded this project.” These authors produced a similar review for the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations in 2009. [link]

• Loren Knopper, Christopher Ollson, et al.: Wind turbines and human health. Frontiers in Public Health 2014;2:63. [link]

• Ian Arra, Hazel Lynn, Kimberley Barker, Chiebere Ogbuneke, & Sophie Regalado: Systematic Review 2013: Association between Wind Turbines and Human Distress. Cureus 6(5):e183. [link]

• Michael Nissenbaum: Industrial Wind Turbines, Human Variability, and Adverse Health Effects. New England College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Reporter, Volume 2 Issue 38 Fall 2013. [link]

• Håkan Enbom & Inga Malcus Enbom: Infraljud från vindkraftverk – en förbisedd hälsorisk. [Infrasound from wind turbines – an overlooked health hazard.] Lakartidningen [Journal of the Swedish Medical Association], 2013 Aug 7-20;110(32-33):1388-9. [link]

• Donata Kurpas, Bozena Mroczek, Beata Karakiewicz, Krzysztof Kassolik, & Waldemar Andrzejewski: Health impact of wind farms. Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine 2013, Vol 20, No 3, 595–605. [link]

• Jennifer Roberts & Mark Roberts: Wind turbines: is there a human health risk? Journal of Environmental Health, April 2013, Volume 75, No. 8. [link]

• Con Doolan: A Review of Wind Turbine Noise Perception, Annoyance and Low Frequency Emission. Wind Engineering, Volume 37, No. 1, 2013, pp 97-104. [link]

• Amir Farboud, R. Crunkhorn, & A. Trinidade: ‘Wind turbine syndrome’: fact or fiction? Journal of Laryngology & Otology, Volume 127, Issue 03, March 2013, pp 222-226. [link]

• Christopher Hanning & Alun Evans: Wind turbine noise [editorial]. BMJ [British Medical Journal] 2012;344:e1527. [link]

• Richard R. James: Wind turbine infra and low-frequency sound: warning signs that were not heard. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 32(2) 108-127 (2012). [link]

• Erwin Quambusch & Martin Lauffer: Infraschall von Windkraftanlagen als Gesundheitsgefahr. [Infrasound from wind turbines as a health hazard.] ZFSH/SGB–Zeitschrift für die sozialrechtliche Praxis 08/2008. [link]

• Claude-Henri Chouard, l’Académie nationale de médecine [France]: Le retentissement du fonctionnement des éoliennes sur la santé de l’homme. [Repercussions of wind turbine operations on human health.] March 2006. [link]

• Marjolaine Villey-Migraine: Eoliennes, sons et infrasons: Effets de l’éolien industriel sur la sante des hommes [thesis]. [Wind turbines, noise, and infrasound: effects of industrial wind turbines on human health.] Université Paris II–Panthéon-Assas, December 2004. [link]

Vetting these eleven, we find that: Dani Fiumicelli is Technical Director (Head of Noise and Vibration) of Temple Group, a development consultancy in the U.K., and is an author of a 2013 report for the Scottish government to deny concerns of health effects; Loren Knopper is Senior Scientist and Christopher Ollson is Vice President for Strategic Development of Intrinsik, an environment and health consultancy in Ontario, and in their paper they disclose that they “have worked with wind power companies”, that Ollson “has acted as an expert witness for wind power companies during a number of legal hearings”, and that all of the authors of their 2014 review are also disclosed to be employees of Intrinsik: “the authors work for a consulting firm and have worked with wind power companies”; in 2015 the Canadian Wind Energy Association honored Knopper and Ollson with their R. J. Templin Award for “results that have served to significantly advance the wind energy industry in Canada”; Mark Roberts is Principal Scientist of Exponent, an engineering and scientific consulting firm involved in wind energy development; and Kurpas et al. mention in passing towards the end of their paper that they “are involved in community public consultations with the advocates of new projects”. These potential conflicts are noted in the following quotes (ordered by date).

Villey-Migraine: “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.” [translated]

Chouard: “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.” [translated]

NRC: “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.”

Quambusch & Lauffer: “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.” [translated]

Knopper &: Ollson [industry consultants, non-medical]: “wind turbines can be a source of annoyance for some people”

Fiumicelli [industry consultant, non-medical]: “uncertainty about human response to wind turbine noise”

James [acoustician, non-medical]: “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.”

Hanning & Evans: “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.”)

Farboud et al.: “There is some evidence of symptoms in patients exposed to wind turbine noise. The effects of infrasound require further investigation.”

Doolan: “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.”

Roberts & Roberts [industry consultants]: “The answer to the question of whether or not exposure to wind turbine sound is a human health risk is still under review and warrants further research. Although limited, research has demonstrated that LFS [low-frequency sound] can elicit adverse physical health effects, such as vibration or fatigue, as well as an annoyance or unpleasantness response. The current research on exposure to wind turbine sound and the mere presence of wind turbines have also demonstrated a significant annoyance response among study participants. But the association and particular pathway between LFS specifically generated from wind turbines, annoyance, and adverse physical health effects have yet to be fully characterized.” [These authors also ignore the Nissenbaum et al. study in Noise & Health.]

Kurpas et al. [industry consultants]: “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.]

Enbom & Malcus Enbom: “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.” [translated]

Nissenbaum: “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.”

Arra et al.: “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.”

Knopper, Ollson, et al. [industry consultants, non-medical]: “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.’”

Schmidt and Klokker: “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.”

Tran Ba Huy: “[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)].]

To 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.” —Robert Harrison: On the biological plausibility of Wind Turbine Syndrome. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 2015, Vol. 25, No. 5, 463–468.

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

Two-thirds of dementia cases have unknown causes

“Much of late life cognitive decline is not due to common neurodegenerative pathologies”. Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, Robert S. Wilson, PhD, Lei Yu, PhD, Alasdair M. Barr, PhD, William G. Honer, MD, Julie A. Schneider, MD, and David A. Bennett MD. Annals of Neurology. Volume 74, Issue 3, pages 478–489, September 2013. DOI: 10.1002/ana.23964

Objective. The pathologic indices of Alzheimer disease, cerebrovascular disease, and Lewy body disease accumulate in the brains of older persons with and without dementia, but the extent to which they account for late life cognitive decline remains unknown. We tested the hypothesis that these pathologic indices account for the majority of late life cognitive decline.

Methods. A total of 856 deceased participants from 2 longitudinal clinical–pathologic studies, Rush Memory and Aging Project and Religious Orders Study, completed a mean of 7.5 annual evaluations, including 17 cognitive tests. Neuropathologic examinations provided quantitative measures of global Alzheimer pathology, amyloid load, tangle density, macroscopic infarcts, microinfarcts, and neocortical Lewy bodies. Random coefficient models were used to examine the linear relation of pathologic indices with global cognitive decline. In subsequent analyses, random change point models were used to examine the relation of the pathologic indices with the onset of terminal decline and rates of preterminal and terminal decline (ie, nonlinear decline).

Results. Cognition declined a mean of about 0.11U per year (estimate = −0.109, standard error [SE] = 0.004, p < 0.001), with significant individual differences in rates of decline; the variance estimate for the individual slopes was 0.013 (SE = 0.112, p < 0.001). In separate analyses, global Alzheimer pathology, amyloid, tangles, macroscopic infarcts, and neocortical Lewy bodies were associated with faster rates of decline and explained 22%, 6%, 34%, 2%, and 8% of the variation in decline, respectively. When analyzed simultaneously, the pathologic indices accounted for a total of 41% of the variation in decline, and the majority remained unexplained. Furthermore, in random change point models examining the influence of the pathologic indices on the onset of terminal decline and the preterminal and terminal components of the cognitive trajectory, the common pathologic indices accounted for less than a third of the variation in the onset of terminal decline and rates of preterminal and terminal decline.

Interpretation. The pathologic indices of the common causes of dementia are important determinants of cognitive decline in old age and account for a large proportion of the variation in late life cognitive decline. Surprisingly, however, much of the variation in cognitive decline remains unexplained, suggesting that other important determinants of cognitive decline remain to be identified. Identification of the mechanisms that contribute to the large unexplained proportion of cognitive decline is urgently needed to prevent late life cognitive decline.

U.S. CO₂ emissions for electricity from coal have risen over past 10 years

A report from Spain and a news release from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have recently touted a decline in CO₂ emissions from electricity generation. Both, however, actually cite only a reduction of electricity generated by fossil fuels. A much more meaningful measure, considering the complexity of the grid, would be the amount of fossil fuels burned per unit of electricity generated. But that seems to be precisely what is studiously never reported (outside of this space, e.g., here, here, and here).

It requires a bit of digging into many different sources of data at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administrations. To be as up to date as possible, the following has used the latest Electric Power Monthly, release Oct. 24, 2013, to include data from 2012. First, instead of looking at power plant heat rates of fossil fuels, we need to look at their simple heat contents, i.e., not how much electricity they generate but how much energy they contain. This is because not all burning of fossil fuels at power plants goes to generating electricity. The heat content is expressed as Btu/unit of fuel: The present analysis used the values of 9,530,000 Btu/ton of coal, 1,021,000 Btu/1,000 cubic feet of natural gas, and 5,871,390 Btu/barrel of petroleum liquids.

Second, instead of electricity generated by fossil fuels, we need to look at the amount of fossil fuels burned at power plants.

Finally, assigning amounts of CO₂ per unit of fuel, we can calculate the actual CO₂ emitted by each fossil fuel. Here we assume 210 lb. CO₂/million Btu coal, 117 lb. CO₂/million Btu natural gas, and 170 lb. CO₂/million Btu petroleum liquids.

Then we can total them up and express those emissions as a ratio to total electricity generated. If, e.g., wind power is causing a reduction of, say, coal-generated electricity and thus a reduction of CO₂ emissions, then that ratio of CO₂ per unit of electricity will be lower.

Overall, the CO₂ emitted per GWh in total has indeed gone down, from 1,288,801 pounds in 2003 to 1,120,663 in 2013 — a 13% decrease. This is due mostly to the increasing share of natural gas over coal, because natural gas releases almost half the amount of CO₂ as coal. Furthermore, the amount of CO₂ emitted per unit of electricity generated by natural gas has also decreased, from 1,032,279 CO₂/GWh in 2003 to 918,727 in 2013 — an 11% decrease.

The picture is further complicated by the fact that over the past 10 years, the amount of CO₂ emitted per unit of electricity from coal has actually steadily risen, from 2,107,148 pounds CO₂/GWh in 2003 to 2,234,734 in 2012 — an increase of 6%. At the same time, wind energy rose from 11,187 GWh in 2003 to 140,089 GWh in 2012. This suggests that wind does indeed cut into the efficiency of using coal for electricity, because coal plants need to “stay warm” even when not generating electricity so that they are able to kick in when the wind conditions change.

Assuming that wind is the primary reason for coal’s decreasing efficiency, what if the 140,089 GWh generated from wind power in 2013 were generated by coal operating at its heat rate from 2003? Then the overall CO₂/GWh would have been 11.5% instead of 13% lower than in 2003, suggesting that wind power has been responsible for only a 1.5% decrease in CO₂/GWh and a 1.6% decrease in total CO₂ emissions. Considering that wind’s share of U.S. electricity generation increased from 0.3% in 2003 to 3.5% in 2013, it is clear that its effect on CO₂ emissions is very far from — less than half of — what its proponents claim.

In the scale of the graph below, the decrease in CO₂ emissions with wind (blue, mostly hidden - not the teal line for coal generation) or without wind (green) are nearly identical, whereas other changes, including the addition of wind energy, are quite obvious. Also note the exactly parallel lines of coal CO₂/GWh (orange) and wind generation (red).

And that clearly suggests that the costs and impacts of wind energy — the necessary consequence of trying to harness such a diffuse and variable source — well outweigh its benefits. Compared with the very modest conservation that would achieve the same emissions results, wind appears to be a very wasteful and destructive alternative indeed.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

It Was Meant to Be

James McWilliams writes:

Grass-fed beef advocates are always going on and on about how cows "were not meant" to eat corn. They were meant to eat grass. This might be true, barring any investigation into how genetics might have structured cows to eat corn, or how grasses and genetics match up. This is might be true, I suppose, if we want it to be true, and the media says so.

But let's just say its true. So, if cows were meant to eat grass and that is why advocates of grass beef support this form of production rather than corn based, feedlot production, we can logically conclude that those who eat only grass-fed beef – again, because it's more natural, and because this was how it was "meant to be" – don't drink milk or eat dairy products.

Huh? How did milk get into this discussion about beef? Well, if we're going to make a fetish out of what's natural, we have an obligation to ask: is forcibly impregnating cows, kidnapping their offspring, and drinking their milk natural? Isn't it natural for a mother to feed her offspring her own milk? Actually, is anything more natural?

Ask this question next time you hear someone justify some form of animal exploitation or another on the grounds of what nature intended. Make them answer. Force them to answer. Because there is no right answer.

human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism