Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Turbines

Bird Groups and Wind Turbines Getting Along

Written by Philip Proefrock on 26/09/13 

It has been widely assumed for years that two groups that don't get along are wind power advocates and bird protection groups. But, in a move that shows how far things have come, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is looking at installing a wind turbine at its headquarters. The Society has applied to install a 100 meter (328 foot) tower for a wind turbine near its headquarters in Bedfordshire.

This is not a complete reversal on the part of the RSPB, and there have been cases where the RSPB has objected to wind farms. But it shows how wrong the old stereotype is. The Society's perspective is that "renewable energy is an essential tool in the fight against climate change, which poses the largest threat to the long-term survival of birds and wildlife." Furthermore, they believe that, "so long as proper due diligence is conducted and potential wildlife impacts mitigated, ... developing wind power is a smart move."

More advanced understanding of bird migration patterns and habits has helped with the placement of wind farms in places where bird fatalaties can be reduced. Other technologies that monitor bats and birds, and intermittent disabling of wind farms during migration periods also help to further reduce the numbers of animals killed by wind turbines. And, in terms of numbers killed, buildings still remain a far greater threat to birds than wind turbines.

From RSPB's website:

Why does the RSPB support renewable energy?

We support the use of renewable energy as an essential part of the fight to tackle climate change, which is considered the biggest threat to global biodiversity. Science suggests that one third of land based species could, by 2050, be committed to eventual extinction without extensive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We fully support the Government’s target to source 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 and the Scottish Government’s target to obtain 100 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020.

As one of the UK's leading environmental organisations, it is important that we play a pro-active role in leading action towards meeting national carbon reduction targets – particularly given our concern about the threat of climate change to birds and wildlife.

We favour a broad mix of renewables, including solar, wind, and marine power, as long as they are sensitively sited to avoid impacts on wildlife and the wider environment.

Turbine hosts speak out

18 September 2013, 6.45am AEST

Wind turbine syndrome: farm hosts tell very different story   

Author

Simon Chapman          

Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney

Disclosure Statement

Simon Chapman AO receives no financial or other material support from any company or person in the wind energy industry or agents acting on their behalf.

   

If “wind turbine syndrome” exists, it seems it can be prevented by the wonder drug called money. Image from shutterstock.com

People who host wind turbines on their properties and derive rental income from wind energy companies have important stories to tell about living alongside turbines, but they’ve largely been absent from the debate on wind farms and health. Australian filmmaker and researcher Neil Barrett is finally giving this critical group a voice in his new short film, The way the wind blows, released today.

In Barrett’s short film, 15 hosts and some of their neighbours from the central Victorian district near the town of Waubra tell what it’s like to live surrounded by large turbines.

Turbine hosts at Waubra earn A$8,000 a year for each turbine on their land. In the bush, the expression that wind farms can “drought-proof a farm” is common: a land owner with ten turbines can wake up each morning comfortable in the thought that a tough year with poor rain or bad frosts can be ridden out, thanks to income from wind generation.

All of Barrett’s interviewees say they can hear the turbines but none say they are bothered by them or suffer from any health problems they attribute to the turbines. If there is such a phenomenon as “wind turbine syndrome” it would seem it is a condition that, remarkably, can be prevented by the wonder drug called money.

Significantly, too, none of those interviewed say their contracts prevent them from speaking publicly about their experiences with hosting turbines, repudiating the mantra of wind farm opponents that suffering hosts are gagged from speaking out by evil wind companies.

In 2010, a small group comprising mostly wealthy landowners established the Waubra Foundation, which opposes wind farms being established near their country estates. None of the directors of the foundation nor its chief executive, an unregistered former GP Sarah Laurie, live within 125km of Waubra, yet took on the name of the town to highlight what they believe are serious health problems associated with living near wind turbines.

Barrett’s film reveals the deep resentment that Waubra residents feel about these out-of-towners hijacking their town’s good name. None say that Laurie has ever contacted them, with one commenting, “I wouldn’t give them the time of day if they turned up here.”

Laurie and the Waubra Foundation have done all they can to spread concern about the harms they allege are caused by living near wind farms. One former Waubra resident has been particularly prominent, speaking emotionally at anti-wind farm meetings about how wind farms have ruined his health and caused his family to move to Ballarat, at great personal expense.

In a statement that would be of immense interest to Apple, Samsung and Nokia, he recently told a meeting in Barringhup that electricity generated by wind turbines started charging his cell phone without it being plugged in:

I’ve had my … mobile phone go into charge mode in the middle of the paddock, away from everywhere.

Turbine hosts at Waubra earn A$8,000 a year for each turbine on their land. Image from shutterstock.com

In 2012, he wrote a public submission to a parliamentary inquiry where he revealed he had suffered a serious head injury some eight years before the wind farm opened in 2010:

I have been in brain training care and rehabilitation for about ten years because of an unfortunate, unrelated accident.

Indeed, the most common health complaints voiced by complainants are problems such as disturbed sleep, anxiety, hypertension and normal problems of ageing that are very prevalent in all communities, regardless of whether they have wind farms.

In a 2012 Ontario legal case, complainants were asked to provide their medical records going back a decade before the local wind farm commenced operation. This would have provided relevant information about any pre-existing health problems. When they failed to so, their case failed.

In a peer-reviewed paper of mine to be published shortly, I conducted an historical audit of all known health and noise complaints made about Australia’s 51 wind farms from 1993 to 2012. Using four sources (wind company records, submissions made to three parliamentary enquiries, local media monitoring records and court affidavits) I calculated the number of complainants around Australia.

More than two-thirds of Australian wind farms including more than half of those with large turbines have never received a single complaint. Two whole states – Western Australia and Tasmania – have seen no complaints.

Of the 129 individuals across Australia who have ever complained, 94 (73%) are residents near just six wind farms which have been targeted by anti wind farm groups.
Almost all (98%) of complainants made their first complaint after 2009 when anti wind farm groups began to add health concerns to their wider opposition. In the preceding years, health or noise complaints were rare despite large and small-turbine wind farms having operated for many years.

In late 2012, anti-wind farm campaigners launched an anonymous website, Stop These Things. The apparently well-funded site specialises in emotive videos of wind farm victims, but in nine months has only run profiles of 18 mostly aged complainants. Barrett’s film profiles nearly that number of people telling a very different story.

Image from shutterstock.com

Anti-wind farm activists have promoted a bizarre and ever-growing number of health problems associated with turbine exposure. My favourite is the alarming problem of disoriented echidnas.

Among Laurie’s more interesting claims is that wind turbines cause lips to vibrate at up 10 kilometres, and that within 1km to 2km of wind turbines, air pressure changes occur “sufficient to knock them off their feet or bring some men to their knees when out working in their paddock” and “have been reported by farmers to perceptibly rock stationary cars”.

Laurie has repeatedly claimed that “a large number” or “over twenty families” and most recently “more than forty” families are “wind farm refugees” who have had to abandon their homes. But Laurie has declined requests to make her list public.

Another prominent activist George Papadopolous, claims to be able to sense a wind turbine at 100km away: from Sydney’s CBD to Lithgow, as the crow flies.

Barrett’s film brings a fresh and important perspective to a debate that has so far been dominated by a small number of complainants and those oxygenating their fears.

Fifteen years ago, Australian news media ran countless stories on community fears about mobile phone towers. Those still worrying about health risks from the towers are rare today. Wind turbine syndrome is likely to go the same way.

What is an "Unwilling Host"

 Municipalities not willing hosts to criticism
 

Huron Expositor - Sep 25, 2013, GERARD CRECES
 

Wind turbines and municipal governments are like oil and water.

All around this great county, municipalities are proudly proclaiming they are not willing hosts to the structures, though what they say and what is taking place are two very different realities.

Bluewater, Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh, Central Huron -each of these councils have members that have options, leases or turbines on their property yet they are all unwilling hosts on paper.

Think about that.

Municipalities declaring themselves anti-turbine obviously have some influential willing hosts. Why? Conflict of interest rules are preventing the answer to that question from ever being discussed.

The simple fact that reeves, mayors and other members of municipal councils are welcoming to turbines shows a big division between ideology and reality. Whether they see a future in green energy or a steady stream of income for giving up a piece of their property, the mere existence of these things in Huron County shows that everyday people in our communities are okay with them.

The Green Energy Act is heavy-handed and certainly favours corporate interests, but so does most, if not all, federal environmental legislation or the gutting thereof.

Municipalities are relatively helpless in the fight against turbines, and open hostility has rendered those who favour them silent for fear of repercussion.

Listen to the gallery boo people who speak in support of turbines at council meetings in various municipalities in Huron. It's embarrassing to watch and as undemocratic as the force-feeding GEA.

So, who decides what a willing host is?

The province handed down an edict saying turbines are the next big energy producer and we may as well get used to having them.

The municipalities are now saying we don't want to have them so get used to it.

But as we continue to see, individual landowners are the only people who can say yes or no to these things, and we have to get used to that.

A municipality saying it is not a willing host is unfortunately as ineffective as a child who doesn't want to eat his or her vegetables. They fume and fuss and pick at their plate, but sooner or later, they will have to clear it or sit at the table indefinitely.

The only real way to decide if a municipality is not a willing host is a referendum.

Anything less is as misleading as a wildlife study conducted in the middle of the coldest February or a groundwater study conducted upstream.

There are many flaws with the way our electricity is delivered. Turbines, however, are only a very small piece. Look at the provincial Sunshine List, and count how many OPG and Hydro One employees are making over 100,000 each year.
 
The list is so large it is broken up into subsections for each letter of the alphabet. Every 10 people on that list represent at the very least $1 million of taxpayer money.

There were 11,315 Hydro One and OPG employees on that list in 2012.

At the minimum -the bare minimum -that means $1,131,500,000 each year is going to salaries alone. That doesn't begin to tackle pension debts on the public dime or anyone making close to but not quite $100,000.

The OPG and Hydro One's CEOs made close to $3 million combined last year -that s two employees earning 30 base sunshine salaries.

It's not turbines that are killing taxpayers -at least not in any significant way -it's corporate greed. In this case, however, it's a Crown corporation that will happily let the villagers pick on the new kid on the block instead of addressing the horrendous waste they do nothing to curb.

Until municipalities have that conversation, everything else is a waste of time, money and energy -literally and figuratively.

Massachusetts Utilities Go For Wind Power

Mass. utilities go for wind power

Contracts would bring savings

By Erin Ailworth Globe Staff     September 23, 2013

    

 
The state’s biggest utilities, in a milestone for New England’s wind power industry, have signed long-term contracts to buy wind-generated electricity at prices below the costs of most conventional sources, such as coal and nuclear plants.

The contracts, filed jointly Friday with the Department of Public Utilities, represent the largest renewable energy purchase to be considered by state regulators at one time. If approved, the contracts would eventually save customers between 75 cents and $1 a month, utilities estimated.

“This proves that competitively priced renewable power exists and we can get it, and Massachusetts can benefit from it,” said Robert Rio, a spokesman for Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a trade group that represents some of the state’s biggest electricity users.

The utilities — National Grid, Northeast Utilities, and Unitil Corp. — would buy 565 megawatts of electricity from six wind farms in Maine and New Hampshire, enough to power an estimated 170,000 homes.

The projects, in various stages of permitting or development, are expected to begin operations between 2014 and 2016.
 
John Howat, senior energy analyst at the Boston-based National Consumer Law Center, said he needed to review the details before he could provide a thorough assessment of the contracts. But his initial reaction to the price — on average, less than 8 cents per kilowatt hour? “Wow.”

“It seems like there’s something for environmental and consumer advocates here to be happy about,” he said.

The agreements forecast further growth for the wind industry as the willingness of utilities to make long-term commitments makes it easier for developers to obtain financing for more wind farms. That, in turn, would probably lead to new conflicts in rural areas, where large-scale industrial wind farms are typically sited.

Such projects have sparked fierce opposition from residents who complain about noise, health problems, and damage to pristine landscapes.

“People are really concerned about it, and that’s not going to go away,” said Lisa Linowes, executive director of the Wind Action Group, a New Hampshire-based advocacy organization that opposes industrial wind projects.

Wind has become a larger part of the energy mix as a result of government policies requiring utilities to acquire power from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Massachusetts, for example, requires utilities to get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.

Such policies have created markets for wind, leading to more competition, better technology, larger projects, and ultimately lower prices.

Over the life of the 15- to 20-year contracts, utilities would pay an average price of less than 8 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with projected prices of about 10 cents for coal, 11 cents for nuclear, and 14 cents for solar.

National Grid, Unitil, and Northeast Utilities sought the wind-generated electricity because of new provisions in the state’s Green Communities Act, which mandate that utilities acquire a set amount of renewable energy through long-term, competitively bid contracts. Wind, the utilities said, was the best deal, especially after combining their purchasing power to obtain a large amount of energy at cheaper prices than they each might have negotiated separately.

Another big wind generating project, Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound, will have an estimated generating capacity of 468 megawatts, about 100 megawatts less than the new purchase — but because the wind offshore is more powerful, the Nantucket Sound facility will probably end up serving more homes.

Cape Wind has signed contracts to sell roughly three- quarters of its power to NStar and National Grid for 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour — compared with the 8 cent average in the new purchase.

A forecast by the US Department of Energy indicates that the average cost of wind power would be lower than most other sources in the next few years. Only electricity generated by natural gas would have a lower wholesale price, just under 7 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the forecast.

Even hydropower, at about 9 cents per kilowatt hour, would cost more.
“Not only are we getting clean energy,” said Ronald Gerwatowski, National Grid’s senior vice president for regulation and pricing, “it’s below market.”

Northeast Utilities, National Grid, and Unitil are seeking an expedited review by state regulators so the wind farms can qualify for federal production tax credits before the incentives expire at the end of year. The tax credit is a factor in the prices.

If approved, Northeast Utilities’ Massachusetts subsidiaries, NStar and Western Massachusetts Electric Co. would buy 53.1 percent of the power, National Grid, 45.9 percent, and Unitil, which has just a fraction of the customers of the other utilities, 1 percent.

The Massachusetts utilities filed their contracts the same day that Connecticut’s governor, Dannel P. Malloy, said two of his state’s utilities, Connecticut Light and Power, another Northeast Utilities subsidiary, and United Illuminating Co., had signed long-term contracts to buy 250 megawatts of electricity from a Maine wind farm and 20 megawatts of solar power, also at an average of less than 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Combined, the wind contracts in Massachusetts and Connecticut are contributing to “a huge explosion” of growth for the sector in the Northeast, said Emily Williams, senior policy analyst for the American Wind Energy Association, an industry group.

State Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Richard K. Sullivan Jr., said the contracts will boost Massachusetts’ efforts to use renewable energy.

“It’s improving our energy security, it’s great for our environmental policy,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to be able to bring down the price of power using competitively bid renewable energy.”.

Wind and Solar Cheaper Than Coal

Solar power and wind energy now cheaper than coal power in US

NRDC, via Clean Technica on 20 September 2013

 

Washington — It’s less costly to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels than coal-fired power plants when climate change costs and other health impacts are factored in, according to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

In fact—using the official U.S. government estimates of health and environmental costs from burning fossil fuels—the study shows it’s cheaper to replace a typical existing coal-fired power plant with a wind turbine than to keep the old plant running.

And new electricity generation from wind could be more economically efficient than natural gas.

The findings show the nation can cut carbon pollution from power plants in a cost-effective way, by replacing coal-fired generation with cleaner options like wind, solar, and natural gas.

“Burning coal is a very costly way to make electricity. There are more efficient and sustainable ways to get power,” said Dr. Laurie Johnson, chief economist in the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We can reduce health and climate change costs while reducing the dangerous carbon pollution driving global warming.”

Johnson co-authored the study, “The Social Cost of Carbon: Implications for Modernizing our Electricity System,” with Chris Hope of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; and Starla Yeh in NRDC’s Center for Market Innovation. Power plants are the nation’s single largest source of such pollution, accounting for 40 percent of our national carbon footprint.

“And yet, there are no federal limits on the amount of carbon pollution our power plants may release,” said Johnson. “That’s wrong. It doesn’t make sense. It’s putting our future at risk. We limit the amount of mercury, arsenic, soot, and other harmful pollution from these plants. It’s time to cut this carbon pollution.”

President Obama has vowed to do that, using his authority under the Clean Air Act to set the first federal limits on the amount of carbon pollution power plants may release. Critics claim that could raise costs. But, in fact, it can reduce the total cost of electricity generation, the new study finds.

Carbon pollution imposes economic costs by damaging public health and driving destructive climate change. Working together, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury Department, the Department of Energy and eight other federal agencies put a dollar value on those damages, in an official figure called the “social cost of carbon” (SCC).

The SCC is used to calculate the benefits (i.e., avoided climate damages) of carbon pollution reduction. The administration puts the best estimate at $33 per ton of carbon pollution emitted in 2010.

The study also included government damage estimates from sulfur dioxide, a pollutant released simultaneously with carbon. Every year, sulfur dioxide causes thousands of premature deaths, respiratory ailments, heart disease and a host of ecosystem damages.

Already, climate change is contributing to record heat waves, floods, drought, wildfires and severe storms. Such extreme weather caused more than $140 billion in damages in 2012. American taxpayers picked up nearly $100 billion of those costs, according to an NRDC report released in May, 2013.

“These damages are only likely to increase if nothing is done to reduce carbon pollution,” Johnson said.

Source: Clean Technica. Reproduced with permission

Turbine neighbours talk about life with wind energy

                    

Waubra - The Way the Wind Blows

Waubra’s residents tell their stories

Condensed version – 12 mins

Since the Waubra wind farm started generating power in 2009, the town has acquired a dubious reputation: the so-called `Waubra Disease’ is now known internationally. But how much sense does it make?  Whilst there’s a small number of complainants among the population of 500, there are also 30 families hosting turbines on their land as well as many turbine neighbours – including community leaders - who live happily with the turbines. 

 

Neil Barrett of Takone Projects has been researching the Waubra situation over the past year. Whilst his attempts to understand the issues raised by complainants are on-going, it has become clear to him that the apparent good health and well-being of the great majority of the community deserves to be more widely known.

 

In these videos you will meet some of these down-to-earth farming people who live and work happily with wind turbines: people who are not `gagged’ from speaking out, people whose views should be taken seriously by all those who are concerned about climate change and the urgent need to develop renewable energy.

 

Duration: 11 segments averaging 4 mins each,  total 40 mins;

Introduction

In this introduction, the producer briefly notes that his attempts to understand the complainants’ problems were unsuccessful, introduces  the turbine hosts and their neighbours and their location in relation to turbines,  describes his study of wind farm opposition in Germany and Denmark  and gives some essential information about Waubra and the impact of the wind farm.

The Interviews

Rod Brennan - neighbour


Ken Ewing - host


Lawrence and Kerryn Gallagher - hosts


Tony and Margaret McDonald - neighbours


David Clark - neighbour


Steve and Karen Molloy - hosts


Elizabeth Daynes - neighbour


Ted and June Harrison - hosts


Marie Loader - neighbour


Doug Hobson - host

Credits

Researched, written, recorded and edited by Neil Barrett
Graphics: Mark Carter, Markmaking
Camera assist/backup: Daryl Evans, DazMedia
Special thanks to Wahid Hashimi, Taryn Lane, Jarra Hicks, Deane Belfield, Andrew Bray, Lee Fox, Kim Windsor and Heather Barrett
DVD sales: Takone Projects, PO Box 311, Castlemaine Australia 3450. Email: admin@eavonline.biz
Copyright: Takone Projects Pty Ltd 2013.  PO Box 311, Castlemaine, Australia 3450.  Creative Commons Licence. Attribution-NonCommercial-Non Derivs. 3.0 Unported
Any profits made from the sale of the DVD of this series will go to the Victorian Wind Alliance.
Disclaimer: The wind industry had no role, financial or otherwise, in the making of this DVD.
Use by companies and government bodies: Companies and government bodies (except for educational institutions) wishing to use this DVD for education, training or exhibition should contact Takone Projects at admin@eavonline.biz
Neil Barrett is a former energy economist with the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, CEO of Video Education Australasia (VEA) and founding chair of the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group (2005-’08)




 

 

 

  commented 1 min ago · Flag

So good to hear from the people who live with these projects day in and day out. It amazes me how someone like Sara Laurie can continue to propagate her personal hate campaign against wind energy in Australia.
From a Canadian who follows this issue closely, thank you so much for showing the truth about wind energy.

 

   14 hours ago · Flag

Thanks Neil Barrett, you have done a real public service with these videos. They are very fair and constructive.

 

   1 day ago · Flag

Nice to see these videos made, I work in the renewable energy industry, I do not have allot to do with wind, but i do work with farmers and allot of farmers in and around wind turbines here in South Australia and near Portland VIC. When I see the news stories on all this “negative” about wind I really do scratch my head, it is not what I am seeing and hearing. Finally some stories getting out there showing a more truthful view of wind turbines. I am hearing same things said as the people saying in these videos from the SA people near wind farms. We just had a major farm stopped near where I live because of negative press and it would have dominated my view from my house, it is a real same the project was stopped by a few crackpots. Time for truth to come out

 

Don Ross commented 1 day ago · Flag

Refreshing to see and hear from the silent majority rather than just the noisy minority who garner far too much of the media’s attention. Well done and congrats to all in Waubra who are doing the right thing for our environment and future generations.

                

---

 

 

                      

 

        

A Conservative led Ontario?

Coal Conerns – Tim Hudak

Have you ever asked yourself why Tim Hudak wants to kill green energy? Why Tim Hudak wants to put the thousands of people who work in green industries out of work? Why Hudak wants to kill green energy jobs? For a guy who talks a big game about his desire for jobs – calling for them to be killed seems like a giant contradiction. What could make Hudak contradict himself like this?

Tim Hudak's Pro-Coal Website

Asking ourselves this question we searched the internet to find out why. And what we found was, well, jaw dropping.
We’ve all read Ontario Conservative MPP Bob Baily is demanding coal plants stay open. But, the following is from Ontario Conservative MPP Toby Barrett’s website.
You can’t make this sh*t up.


“Are carbon capture and storage in our future?”

• Barrett is selling a mythical techonlogy that doesn’t work? Carbon Capture is like     putting a filter on a cigarette – it still kills you.

“Climate change is upon us we are told – although it is something we’ve been hearing since 1953.”

•  Is Barrett denying climate change? We know that Hudak’s candidate in Kitchener-    Waterloo was on the record denying climate change during the election.

“Carbon capture announcement underlines opportunity at Nanticoke”
“Federal carbon plan may finally awaken province to potential of sequestration”

•  More carbon capture BS.

“Keep the coal-fires burning”
“Rushing to close coal plants is not the answer”
“Nanticoke coal plant is too essential to shut down”
“Coal plants must be kept running beyond next year”
“Clean coal”

• Barrett openly calls for coal plants to stay open.

Tim Hudak and Toby Barrett are the type of politicians that keep coal lobby busy with their big steak, old boys, cigar filled meetings. It’s no wonder these anti-green energy old boys are pushing coal.

Tim Hudak Wants Ontario's Energy To Come From Dirty Coal