Wind Turbine Public Safety Risk, Direct and Indirect Health Impacts

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A must read article. Open Access Pub

William K.G. Palmer
Independent Researcher

Abstract

Wind turbines are often perceived as benign. This can be attributed to the population majority dwelling in urban locations distant from most wind turbines. Society may understate the risk to individuals living near turbines due to an overstatement of the perceived benefits of turbines, and an understatement of the risk of injury from falling turbine parts, or shed ice. Flaws in risk calculation may be attributed to a less than fully developed safety culture. Indications of this are the lack of a comprehensive industry failure database, and safety limits enabling the industry growth, but not protective of the public. A comprehensive study of wind turbine failures and risks in the Canadian province of Ontario gives data to enable validation of existing failure models. Failure probabilities are calculated, to show risk on personal property, or in public spaces. Repeated failures, and inadequate safety separation show public safety is not currently assured. A method of calculating setbacks from wind turbines to mitigate public risk is shown. Wind turbines with inadequate setbacks can adversely impact public health both directly from physical risk and indirectly by irritation from loss of safe use of property. Physical public safety setbacks are separate from larger setbacks required to prevent irritation from noise and other stressors, particularly when applied to areas of learning, rest and recuperation. The insights provided by this paper can assist the industry to enhance its image and improve its operation, as well as helping regulators set safety guidelines assuring protection of the public. Read full article here

57 thoughts on “Wind Turbine Public Safety Risk, Direct and Indirect Health Impacts”

  1. EMBASSY PEOPLE IN CUBA WE STRUCK WITH A STRANGE SICKNESS.
    SCIENTISTS COULD NOT FIND OUR WHAT IT WAS. IT WAS NOT CHEMICAL OR DISEASES.
    TRY INFRASOUND. IT IS ON THE SCALE OF SOUND BELOW WHAT WE HEAR. IT TRAVELS THROUGH BUILDINGS AND OUR BODIES.AND IT UPSETS OUR HORMONE ORDER AND DAMAGES OUR ORGANS.

    THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE EMBASSY PEOPLE ILL, USED AN INTENSE LOW RANGE FOR OF ULTRASOUND.

    GET A SCIENTIST SPECIALIZING IN SOUND TO GET A POWERFUL FORM OF ULTRASOUND MAKER. GET VOLUNTEERS TO SIT WITH IT AND SEE THE EFFECT.

    CHECK OUT REPORTS OF PEOPLE LIVING WITHIN ABOUT 200 FEET FROM HIGHWAYS LIKE THE 401. THEY HAVE DISEASES BEYOND THE NORMAL. AVERAGE.

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  2. “GET A SCIENTIST SPECIALIZING IN SOUND TO GET A POWERFUL FORM OF ULTRASOUND MAKER. GET VOLUNTEERS TO SIT WITH IT AND SEE THE EFFECT.”

    https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~mannr/Wind_Turbines.html

    Read this section:
    ‘Publication,arXiv.org Title

    While you’re there, read about the enormous effort that Professor Richard Mann has made to bring the issue of harm from infrasound to the attention of those who are responsible for the continuation of the harm to people in their homes, that is being reported.

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  3. during my undergrad at Waterloo, a classmate and myself did a course project to design and then also build and test two concert sized loudspeakers with the objective of achieving the widest possible frequency response at the same decibels. In those days as the new transistorized power amplifiers were coming out, the frequency response was good from ~1000Hz and up, but lacking in the bass. We had research and settled on incorporating a Helmholtz resonator port into the speaker just below where the woofer was installed. We got permission to test these speakers we had built in the anechoic room in E5 it was. Using I believe it was a pure tone generator input to my 100 Watt RMS audio amp at the time, and the sound picked up by a microphone and we used a recorder with paper output at the time to record the input tone wave and the tone wave captured by the mic for comparison. Anyway as we stepped down octave by octave from the high frequency down as low as the equipment would go, this is very memorable because at around 15 Hz somebody was pounding on our door to get our attention. Stopped the test, and the person explained that we were shaking the building and making other people uncomfortable. I thought this is very astounding that with a mere fraction of the 100 Watt output we could shake structural steel from inside the foam egg crate walls of the anechoic room.

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  4. “The paper by Starr indirectly foretold the rapid deployment of wind generators worldwide, and the potential for adverse consequences. In the paper Starr pointed out that “Engineering developments involving new technology are likely to appear in many places simultaneously and to become deeply ingrained into the systems of our society before their impact is evident or measureable.” He carries on, “Thus, we now face a general situation in which widespread use of a new technological development may occur before its societal impact can be properly assessed.”

    We need to know who were the engineers in Ontario who approved of the deployment of these turbines in rural communities. To my knowledge engineers take an oath. That oath and their integrity ensures the public that the technology they approve will not harm anyone. Who were the engineers who worked with the McGuinty and Wynne governments, when these turbine deals were made? We have plenty of evidence of ‘societal impact’, especially in cases where these turbines and their infrastructure were sited too close and in some cases, surrounding peoples’ homes in arrays/clusters.

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  5. Can’t read the full article because the Open Access Pub comes up with unsupported protocol. Have others encountered this problem?

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