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Rose-Marie Fiske's avatar

This might sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure I sited your article in the WSJ for a paper I wrote in college advocating against Cape Wind. The Wind Tower Project we fought when I lived on Cape Cod Massachusetts. I titled it "Tilting at Windmills"

I detailed the noise issue experienced by residents near a wind tower in Falmouth MA and I exposed the funding and tax rebates offered by the Obama Administration as being the prime motivation behind Cape Wind, not environmental altruism.

I even turned my lefty English Professor from supporting to being against the project having throughly detailed the cost to benefit analysis being negative and the outrageous per killowat hour charge that we as customers would be charged to "benefit" from this so called energy saver.

Thank you for your work.

You have contributed to my overall knowledge and assisted in the fight.

We did stop that project. But I see it came back as Nantucket Wind after I moved away. It's too bad it took a disaster to get that project to be placed on hold.

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Joe's avatar

Thanks for the update Robert. I wonder if they can reuse or recycle the blades? Is there any toxic material in them?

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Robert Bryce's avatar

My understanding is that only a small percentage of turbine blades are recycled. Most are being stacked and abandoned on derelict plots of land or ending up in landfills.

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Barnes Moore's avatar

One other health issue I have read about is the strobing effect caused by the shadow of the blades as they pass over homes close to a turbine. It may not be as serious as the noise pollution, but does have negative health effects.

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Robert Bryce's avatar

Agree. The strobe effect is serious.

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Roger Graves's avatar

Most proponents of wind energy seem to be urban dwellers while wind turbine sufferers are almost always rural dwellers. Are there any valid reasons why a few turbines could not be sited in urban areas? It would be interesting to see the responses if they were.

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Urs Broderick Furrer's avatar

Thank you for your continued research and keeping us up to speed on all of the fallacies of “renewables” and the “green” agenda!

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Robert Bryce's avatar

That's a kind note. Thanks.

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Barry Moline's avatar

The noise pollution is real. But the conclusion, or recommendation, is lost. Build wind away from people. Simple. There might be other economic arguments against wind, but on this issue, keep wind far from people.

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JF's avatar

Great news - the local wind facility trying to make here (Orsted) has abandoned the project citing community opposition - see it can be done! Of course they were in trouble anyway so the is much more to that story as there always is.

Glad, Ireland has gotten a reprieve of a few turbines at least. Glad to see the old Irish fighting spirit coming out - wish they had a lot more... but money always seems to talk in any language.

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Ken Braun's avatar

I cannot address the veracity of noise pollution but I can confirm they cause nausea when I see them blocking (ahem... nonrenewable) views of sunsets and mountains.

https://open.substack.com/pub/webickerforfood/p/renewable-energy-cant-renew-the-environment?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=29azk

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Nina Pierpont's avatar

Don't forget Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment. K-Selected Books, 2009. People with motion sensitivity, migraine, vertigo, or inner ear damage from industrial noise exposure or chemotherapy are especially vulnerable. This suggests that the low frequency air pressure pulsations from the turbine blades perturb the vestibular or balance system.

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Robert Bryce's avatar

Yes. Thanks. Dr. Pierpont was investigating this many years ago and her findings hold up today. Other researchers have also pointed to the noise effect on the vestibular system. But Big Wind and its allies have obscured the facts.

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Gene Nelson, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you for your reporting on this important health issue. The wind industry response that you document is eerily similar to the tactics of tobacco companies. For decades, tobacco companies denied the adverse health impacts of smoking. Many tenacious reporters, collaborating with scientists, spent considerable time and effort to establish the harms of smoking - and force legal change.

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dave walker's avatar

You always dig up great stories that are intentionally hidden by legacy media and/or the “clean power” narrative. Thanks

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Barnes Moore's avatar

There is an organization called Covering Climate Now (CCN) with over 500 members consisting of news organizations around the world including all the usual suspects - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, LA Times, WaPo, etc. - whose agenda is to prepare scary headlines about climate change in an effort to motivate politicians to "do something". This is why stories like this will not be seen in the MSM with the possible exception of the WSJ and Fox.

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