Canadian Government To Study Health Effects From Wind Turbines

David Quilty | 12 July, 2012 | Clean Tech, Wind

Canadian Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced Tuesday that Health Canada, along with Statistics Canada, will conduct research into whether or not wind turbine noise has a detrimental effect on human health.

At a cost of $1.8 million and with an expected release date in 2014, the study will take a look at 2,000 homes distanced between 500 meters and five kilometers from installations with eight to twelve turbines. There are nearly 140 such places spread throughout Canada, supplying 2.3 percent of the country’s electricity needs. Interviews will be recorded, blood pressure will be monitored, and sleep studies will be conducted by 25 experts in acoustics, health assessment and medicine.

Jane Wilson, who heads the group Wind Concerns Ontario, thinks the study is a great first step towards proving that wind turbines damage human health. “The symptoms that are being reported by people in Ontario are the same as those being reported around the world,” she said. “So there really is something there.” CEO of North American Platform Against Wind Power Sherri Lange supports the study as well. “The house vibrates, it becomes like a guitar. The noise and the vibration enters the home and it actually increases the effect,” she told CBC News.

As to be expected, wind industry folks don’t expect to see any connection between turbines and human health. Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association said that “we believe that the balance of scientific evidence clearly shows that wind turbines don’t have an impact on human health,” adding that numerous reviews in the past backed up his claims. He does, however, welcome any new studies on wind energy. “Health Canada’s new study will contribute to the scientific literature and our knowledge base, and we appreciate the opportunity for stakeholders to review the draft methodology and study design and we look forward to undertaking such a review and providing our feedback,” he said.

In addition to industry members, even some government policy makers don’t expect anything from the report. The director of Queen’s University’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy Warren Mabee is among those who don’t see the correlation. “I don’t expect any big surprises in this report, because it’s been very, very difficult in the past to link conclusively cause and effect, to show that the turbines themselves are solely responsible for any kind of health impacts people are experiencing,” he said.

My unprofessional guess and opinion? They aren’t going to find too much, unless a resident happens to live directly underneath one and they are suffering from a lack of sleep because of the noise. That I can understand being annoying and detrimental to one’s health. Other than that, I think we need to take into consideration the effect on our health if we don’t move away from burning fossil fuels to provide electricity; I think that’s much more dangerous path to continue on than the noise generated by a wind turbine.

[via O.Canada]

Image Credit: Neville10/Flickr

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Barnard/604449062 Mike Barnard

17 major reviews world-wide of thousands of peer-reviewed and credible studies have found that wind farms don’t harm people’s health. They all agree that a small percentage of people living very close to wind farms find the noise annoying. Interestingly, many of these people refuse to close their windows or get cheap white noise generators according to their own testimony. Soon to be published research shows a very strong correlation between people who find the noise annoying and people with negative affect aka people who will find the dark lining to any silver cloud. Long-established research from Europe shows that noise annoyance correlates very strongly to being able to see wind turbines and not receiving financial compensation for their presence. in other words grumpy people who don’t like looking at wind turbines and aren’t getting money for them find the noise from them annoying.

Other health effects are psychogenic, hysterical symptoms coming from promoted fear of health impacts. The anti-wind lobbyists are the ones making people sick, not wind farms.
http://www.quora.com/Wind-Power/What-might-cause-people-who-live-near-wind-turbines-to-get-sick/answer/Mike-Barnard

Jane Wilson

Mr Barnard –and once again, you failed to declare yourself as a person benefitting from the wind power gold rush in Ontario–your comments are truly insulting to those people in Ontario who are genuinely ill from the effects of environmental noise and infrasound. I have heard their stories–you refuse to. And the “studies” done up to now are REVIEWS, not clinical research. To say health effects are “psychogenic” [sic] and “hysterical” is unprofessional, uncharitable, and indicative of a truly closed mind.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Barnard/604449062 Mike Barnard

Ms. Wilson apparently knows something I don’t. I work for IBM and have a diversified stock portfolio that happens to include GE, a manufacturer of every type of energy generation technology going including wind turbines. By that token, I can’t have an unbiased opinion on anything, as between them IBM and GE are engaged in every sector of commerce and government in every country in the world.

As Ms. Wilson and her fellow anti-wind lobbyist Laura Griffin are incapable of actually rebutting my material, they’ve taken to following me around and lying about me having a vested interest in wind energy. This despite being clearly told that they are lying. Interesting behaviour.

I voluntarily counter anti-wind lobbyist groups and individuals and the disinformation that they provide, just as the majority of them volunteer their time and energy to fighting one of the cleanest, safest forms of energy in existence, presumably with the intention that we will burn more coal to heat our homes and light our lights.