BBC
Five sperm whales have washed up on beaches in Lincolnshire and Norfolk. They are thought to belong to the same all-male pod as 12 others that were found dead around the Netherlands and Germany last week. Read more
“Impacts of Noise from Wind Farm Construction and Installation on Large Whales A Brief Summary“, by Karen Stamieszkin, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies
“Wind turbine operation also creates noise that may affect right whales and other cetaceans. Noise from operating turbines can reach a marine mammal through an initially waterborne, airborne, or substrate- borne path. Aerodynamic vibrations caused by the rotating blades travels through the air before reaching the water and then the animal. Vibrations from the structure itself will enter the water directly. Vibrations from the nacelle (the housing for the energy generating components of the turbine) will depend upon mechanical refinement and construction, and will transmit down the structure, becoming waterborne noise, as well as through the air. Vibration from this source may increase over time as the mechanical components wear. Vibrations transmitting from the base of the turbine must propagate through sediment before becoming waterborne; therefore these noise levels also depend upon substrate composition. Generally, sounds produced from operating turbines are harmonics of the rotational frequency of the blades (Nedwell & Howell 2004).”
List of Offshore Wind Developments in the North Sea
From Wind Turbine Syndrome:
- Fish and wind turbines don’t mix
- Marine wind turbine construction harms porpoises’ hearing & survival (Germany)
- Seascapes being turned into “vast, rusting electricity factories” (Scotland)
- This is your brain … around wind turbines
- “I would find them dead, floating in the pond” (Ontario)
- Do marine wind turbines drive whales to beach themselves? Nobody knows for certain. (UK)
- “Infrasound: The hidden annoyance of Industrial Wind Turbines” (France)
- Wind factories and “The Sea Around Us” (Rachel Carson)
- Porpoises washing up, dead, near windplant (Germany)