The Editor,
The Toronto Star January 25, 2011
Re: Wind turbine rules challenged
Dear sir/madam,
I attended several public meetings the Ontario government organised over the years to inform people about renewable energy and to collect information from them. Sadly, these meetings were disrupted by members of a group seeking to stop the deployment of wind turbines. The same ½ dozen folk were present at all the meetings, shouting and refusing to allow others to speak.
The Ontario Government mounted a study entitled “Wind Turbines and Health: A Review of Evidence”. This 2009 study reviewed and summarised available information. http://www.oahpp.ca/resources/documents/presentations/2009sept10/Wind%20Turbines%20-%20Sept%2010%202009.pdf
Why did the anti-turbine movement begin in Ontario where wind turbines are relatively rare and recent? Why did it not surface in Europe where these devices have been whirling overhead in considerable numbers for over 40 years? In Denmark and Germany, where wind turbines supply 22% and 13% of these countries’ electricity supply, many turbines are located quite near peoples’ homes.
One answer may be that many European turbines are owned and operated by citizen groups. The money they earn stays in the community, boosting the local economy. In North America, most wind turbines are owned by large corporations who remove the money from the community.
The lack of evidence that wind turbines do not affect health is hardly surprising. I was a research scientist and teacher at a British medical school for 16 years. I can assure your readers that it is extraordinarily difficult, perhaps impossible to publish negative results (“I carried out an experiment and found no effect”).
Noise is apparently the issue. However, I live 2km from Highway 400, and can see a stretch of it from my home. When the matter of wind turbine noise first surfaced, I borrowed a sound pressure meter. Noise from the 400 clocks in at a constant 65 decibel (db) muffled roar on a winter day. In summer, with leaves on the trees, it is 60db. I woke up at 2:00am on a summer night – a quiet time – and measured the sound from the highway at an intermittent 55db. By contrast, the sound pressure from a wind turbine is limited to 40db at 550m. The decibel scale is logarithmic, so 10db represents a 10-fold change in sound level. The sound pressure from a wind turbine at 550 metres is about 1/20th as loud as the 400 highway is at my house.
My neighbours lawn mowers and snow blowers are 80-100db (depending on whether it is across the street or on the adjoining property), so 20-40 times louder than the 400 highway. An idling city bus is 100db when you are standing beside it. Your typical vacuum cleaner howls at 70db. I once measured a rock concert taking place beside my rowing club. At 115db, it was painfully loud. When I asked them to crank it down a bit, they refused!
I would be more willing to take the concerns of the anti-wind turbine groups seriously if our society as a whole respected my own right to a quiet life.
Sincerely,
Peter Bursztyn (Ph.D),
Barrie, Ont, Canada.