“There is something horribly wrong with wind turbine technology,” says physician, driven out of her home (Australia)
Nov 18, 2012
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Editor’s note: The following statement was submitted (#141) on 11/1/12 to the Australian Federal Senate Committee which had requested testimony regarding the proposed Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Excessive Noise from Wind Farms) Bill 2012.
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I fully support the Bill because of (a) impact of noise on human well-being and (b) lack of regulations and lack of independent monitoring. I am most concerned regarding the ill effects due to wind turbines’ audible and sub-audible noise.
I was living in a conservation area which is only 1.5 km away from industrial turbines. I myself, my family and most neighbours are experiencing the same cluster of symptoms from the same time since the turbines started operating ( June 2011). As a result of this our family had to move.
My [name deleted] also developed tinnitus and dizziness and I wonder how many other children are suffering around wind farms.
As a rural General Practitioner I am wondering how long will our health be compromised until somebody takes some action and recognises there is a real problem?
Infrasound is being laughed at because people do not understand the science involved. For example, UV light is invisible, but now we know it causes skin cancer. Infrasound is below our hearing range and to find out the effects it must be measured by proper, special machines. A-weighted measurements of noise tells you nothing about infrasound noise.
I tried to explain the need to measure infrasound noise around wind turbines (as I believed it is a cause of the most of the symptoms) to the authorities at my Shire, but they refused because the New Zealand Standard (NZS6808: 1998) do not require this.
I have observed in my clinic that some residents who live around wind turbines are suffering the same symptoms, which include headache, tinnitus, earache, palpitations, blurred vision, anxiety, sleep deprivation, nausea etc.
It is obvious that there is something horribly wrong with the wind turbine technology and someone has to be accountable for all the suffering they have caused to so many people.
From my point of view, rural Australians should not be neglected. The government should use all the Health Laws to protect us and solve this serious problem urgently.
Your sincerely,
Comment by Bill Carson on 11/19/2012 at 10:14 am
Gearbox noise is a large factor in the noise issues with these turbines.
The commercial wind turbine business has a dirty little secret: “gearbox failures.” These failures in multi-million dollar turbines only three years old are causing catastrophic failures costing the owners up to one million every three years to keep the turbines online.
One gearbox company has had over 600 gearbox failures. The megawatt turbines in Portsmouth (Rhode Island), Princeton (Massachusetts), and Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod all have three-year-old catastrophic failures. Many feel the gearbox failures have led to the catastrophic fires in the motors.
Now the wind industry, after keeping the secret, [say] that the new turbines have direct drive units and don’t break down! Can you believe the ongoing bunco scheme? These turbines only last three years!
Editor’s note: Wind Turbine Syndrome, however, is not caused by gearbox “noise”; it is caused chiefly (if not exclusively) by the passage of the blades by the tower. There is a high likelihood it is also caused by the blades chopping the air, depending on wind and other meteorological conditions, and depending on the “pitch” of the blade. In short, it’s the blades, not the gearbox, which is triggering vestibular and cochlear malfunction along with Visceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance (VVVD), heart disease, and ultimately Vibro-Acoustic Disease (VAD).
Then there is Simon Chapman Soliloquy Syndrome, named after the great public health professor from Down Under (Australia) who, in one breath, talks about everything from—well, you name it—say, bed wetting to erectile dysfunction?—being caused by industrial wind turbines. Then, in the next breath, he ridicules what he just said.
Best we can tell, Simon Chapman Soliloquy Syndrome is not caused by turbine blades or noisy gearboxes or anything else known to physics or mechanical engineering, but by the wobbly thinking and sparkling imagination of Professor Chapman, himself.
To date, Chapman seems to be SCSS’s sole victim. (SCSS also goes by the name Chapman Reflexive Nocebo Effect. Either nomenclature seems acceptable.) In any case, SCSS bears watching; its potential for going viral among Australia’s federal senators is not insignificant.
Comment by Jackie Nesbitt on 11/19/2012 at 11:54 am
We have also questioned what our politicians have allowed. We have related this process to the acceptance of “asbestos.”
John Terry of Windtoons has graciously supplied a cartoon, and it is on this site! (Click here.) Please feel free to use it! If it gets the point across to one medical minister, official, or doubter then we have created one more baby step up a very tall tower of misconceptions.
Industrial Wind Turbines are the ASBESTOS of the 21st Century!
Comment by Shellie Correia on 12/08/2012 at 9:35 pm
Thalidomide, cigarettes, DDT, asbestos, etc. The government has not, historically, been able to protect us. Unfortunately, that job we have to do ourselves.
When the government actually benefits by covering up the negative aspects of a product that it is forcing on its citizens, it is outrageous! Twenty-six pages of damning evidence (out of a 330-page report, the rest have mysteriously disappeared). The 26-pages we received under the Freedom of Information Act, proved that Dr. Arlene King, the Medical Officer of Health in Ontario, knew about the health issues people were suffering before she wrote her “literature review,” claiming that there were no serious negative health effects from living near wind turbines.
NA-PAW is calling for her resignation and a public inquiry into the matter.
The plot continues to thicken. How long before this international pyramid scheme comes crumbling down like a castle built on sand? Yesterday would not be soon enough!
My deepest respect for both Dr. Nina Pierpont and Dr. Calvin Luther Martin! I use your strategies from “How to fight Big Wind” (much to the chagrin of our local wind opposition group). They consider my strategies to be a little bit rude and crude. I have no respect for Robert’s Rules of Order. That kind of crap is designed to slow us down and make us think of something other than fighting the turbines. Distraction, that’s all that the formalities are.
Thank you for the excellent advice; I always get noticed!
Shellie Correia