There’s a lot of great stuff about wind power in various places on the internet. This is a brief collection of the most straightforward stuff about noise and health, the environment and the technology of wind power.
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Wind power tech
Wind power is really cheap these days. It averaged 2.1 cents per KWH in the US in 2013 and it’s only getting cheaper. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/wind-power-cheap/
Wind power just doesn’t need that much backup until it is a huge percentage of electrical generation. Even then, no one has to build backup. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/wind-farms-backup/
Wind farms are cost effective and predictable sources of power despite variable winds; that’s why there are over 300,00 world wide providing clean, safe, dependable electricity today. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/wind-power-reliable/
Wind farms use a tiny amount of energy from the grid compared to the amount that they generate. In fact, wind farms use much less electricity than standard generation plants. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/wind-farms-net-generation/
Noise and Human Health
Wind farms don’t make people sick directly, but some people complain about them. So what’s going on? Turns out it’s a bit of bad science, a bit of something called nocebo and a bunch of people spreading health fears. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/wind-farms-health/
Infrasound can’t be heard, felt or cause any human harm at the levels produced by wind turbines. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/wind-farms-infrasound/
Judges around the world reject allegations that wind farms make people sick. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/wind-health-legal-cases/
What do people living in and near wind farms say? Watch these great videos and find out. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/wind-farm-locals-videos/
Blade swoosh is barely audible to most people in their homes, but some people still find it annoying. Blade thump from wind farms impacts a vanishingly small number of people a tiny percentage of the time. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/wind-farm-swoosh-thump/
A vanity-press published book claims that wind farms create a wind turbine syndrome in those nearby, but the study is deeply flawed, not accepted as evidence by the medical community and contradicted by the real evidence. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/wind-turbine-syndrome/
Wildlife, birds and the land
Wind farms are about the safest form of generation for wildlife including birds and bats that has been discovered. They only kill about one in 86,000 birds in the USA annually, about 17 times less per MWH than fossil fuels. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/wind-farms-birds/
Wind farms replace fossil fuel generation on the grid first. Every MWH of wind power eliminates 99.9% of the CO2 and almost as much chemical and particulate pollution that would have come from a MWH of fossil fuel power instead. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/wind-farms-co2/
A bunch of studies in three countries of over a million property transactions near and far from wind farms confirm the not-so-obvious: wind farms have nothing to do with property values. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/wind-farms-property-values/
Wind farms co-exist with other land uses. They give farmers and other landowners another revenue stream from the same capital asset. That they are spread out more than other forms of generation is irrelevant to their effectiveness. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/wind-farm-land-use/
Wind farms displace forms of generation that do harm water supplies while creating virtually no impact themselves. They are a strong net benefit for drinkable water. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/wind-farms-water/
There are very minor fire risks associated with wind turbines and substantial benefits related to fighting fires. Believe the people who actually fight fires, not the people opposed to wind turbines. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/wind-farms-fires/
Wind farms pay back total environmental debt in every category very quickly, much faster than virtually every other form of large scale electricity generation. https://windrocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/wind-farm-environmental-debt/
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