Have you heard the news that wind farms may cause people ? to get sick ? Its called vibro-acoustic disease, and its caused by sounds below the frequency band of 500Hz that the wind turbines emit. Do you think that this could potentially be a problem with the future development of wind energy ?

Maybe before committing resources and money to building these farms, we should research this more.


http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/04/1...

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1 week ago

I am aware that some applications for noise cancellation have been employed into products but only on a small scale. Dana if you have some other sources other than the link you provided it would be appreciated.
Thanks all for your answers…
http://www.physorg.com/news137678081.htm...
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login....

Not very cost effective are they?

I don%26#039;t know, but every wind farm I%26#039;ve come across is way out in the country with nobody around for miles. Guess we can address that possible problem later on down the line...

Could just be an invented story by NIMBY%26#039;s but could be some truth to it. The only thing that will stop wind farms from being built are their high cost and poor performance

Infrasonics might have that effect, at the very least the noise and vibration is very annoying to those close by and the strobe light effect would also be annoying.

Then there is the bird killing issue (not much of one, but wind isn%26#039;t much of a power source) and the worker killing issue (wind actually turns out to be pretty dangerous for the amount of power generated) along with the problem of blade shedding (no deaths or injuries yet but some property damage and a good reason not to have a wind turbine right next door).

At the very least those who live near wind turbines probably do have grounds for compensation due to reduced property value (negative externalities have to be internalised and that applies just as much to wind as to the power sources wind proponents hate).

If wind power were a reliable source that could provide the power needed then those issues wouldn%26#039;t be show stoppers (nuclear power has required exclusive zones in the US and still managed to become the dominant source of carbon neutral electricity in that country) but for the pitiful amount of power generated along with the fact that they need fossil fuel backup anyway those problems just are not worth it.

The fact that wind power can%26#039;t replace fossil fuels is itself enough reason to stop throwing money away into the wind without needing valid reasons for NIMBYism. Of course one of the main reasons wind power is promoted is because it can%26#039;t send fossil fuel companies bankrupt or coal miners out of work the way that better technologies can (the natural gas industry in particular loves wind).

Of course that isn%26#039;t to say that we shouldn%26#039;t study what seem to be health problems from being too close to wind turbines, we might find that there aren%26#039;t any (when the blades don%26#039;t shed and hit you) just like we found for power lines although even if we did the almost complete uselessness of wind power means that we should stop committing resources and money to them even if infrasonics don%26#039;t cause problems.