Windfarm Sickness Spreads By Word of Mouth 482
eldavojohn writes "Just like the many stories surrounding alleged 'Wi-Fi sickness,' research is now showing that windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth instead of applying universally to windfarms. Areas that had never had any noise or health complaints were suddenly experiencing them after 2009 when anti-wind groups targeted populations surrounding windfarms. From the article, 'Eighteen reviews of the research literature on wind turbines and health published since 2003 had all reached the broad conclusion that there was very little evidence they were directly harmful to health.' While there's unfortunately no way to prove that someone is lying about how they feel, it's likely a mixture of confirmation bias, psychosomatic response, hypochondria, greed and hatred of seeing windmills on the horizon that drives this phenomenon."
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC coal plants release more radiation into the environment than nuclear plants do, so you're quite probably correct.
Your mind (Score:4, Informative)
Can actually make you sick. Fear, paranoia, stress can all affect the mind to think there's something wrong with the body, until it manifests. That's why attitude is such an important part of recovering from sickness... if you think you're not going to get better, you may not, but it's guaranteed that it will take longer for you to get better as a consequence.
Then again I'd sooner listen a politician than an anti-windmill activist, you've gotta be f'in stupid to think windfarms are bad for your health.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention all the mercury that's currently poisoning the sea, etc.
I love it when the greenies insist on Sea Salt because it's more 'organic' than the other stuff (which they seem to believe is made in one of the dreaded 'refineries' or something...)
Me? I want my salt to be as refined and inorganic as possible. Na and Cl in equal proportions, nothing more.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
They release more radiation than nuclear plants that haven't had an accident. Unfortunately, nuclear accidents have released [slashdot.org] orders of magnitude more radiation than the entire history of operating coal plants.
Note: I'm actually very pro-nuclear, but I think this is a fact that needs to be discussed. The coal plant radiation myth is unfounded and makes pro-nuclear people look stupid when they use it. The danger from coal plants is the stuff that doesn't have a half-life, like mercury, arsenic, and soot. The uranium they release is mostly harmless.
Re:The giants (Score:2, Informative)
Oblig. xkcd: http://xkcd.com/556/ [xkcd.com]
Cell phone guys already know this (Score:5, Informative)
The cell phone guys already know this - people report symptoms even when the tower isn't powered on. [dailytech.com]
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC coal plants release more radiation into the environment than nuclear plants do
This is something that is often said, but it is questionable if it is really true. When I have tried to find the sources, they all point to a single study [sciencemag.org] done in 1978 by a scientist at Oak Ridge National Labratory [wikipedia.org]. There are several problems with this claim:
1. It only looked at radiation released during "normal" operation. It didn't consider accidents at nuclear plants, which in reality account for nearly all the radiation they have released.
2. Coal plants today release far less fly ash than they did in 1978.
3. This study was done by ORNL, which has a vested interest in pushing nukes.
Disclaimer: I am pro-nuke, pro-windmill, and anti-coal, but I am also pro-truth, and this "factoid" about radioactive coal needs to die. There are plenty of real reasons to oppose burning coal.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
Small point, but the main reason for preferring sea salt is that it tastes different than "normal" table salt.
Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to the individual
Re:But when it's RADIATION it's REAL (Score:5, Informative)
I can't find a reference to it at the moment, but a community was opposed to cell towers due to radiation. This caused much problems for anyone trying to build infrastructure in the area. One provider put up some towers and the residents complained that the towers radiation made them ill and the improvement on reception was only marginal.
In a review with the community leaders, they invited them to tour the facilities while they measured the field strength. The tour revealied that there was no equipment installed. The towers were installed early to measure the baseline illness so when the equipment was installed, that illness that was attribuitable to the radiation can be measured.
I wonder how much the baseline changed when the equipment arrived.
A story about a cellphone tower (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
People are still just as gullible as they've always been...
FTFY
Back in the late 1970's (showing my fossilage here) Sixty Minutes (I sat about 20 feet from Ed Bradley) and other news orgs came to Midland, Michigan, after a Jack Anderson Confidential claimed Midland was awash with Carcinogenic Dioxins, spewed into the air and dumped into the Tittabawasee River by Dow Chemical.
People suddenly queued up to claim they were suffering many ills as brought on by these dioxins. The nation's media swarmed to the small midwestern city prepared for the worst (and to tell it all in gory detail.) Midland was alleged to have people with open sores and massive turmors lurching down the streets like some Dawn of the Dead scene. The reality was the concentrations of these compounds were in like 5 ppb (parts per billion), when checked on by DNR and others. Put into perspective it was like a football field, a mile high and one marble sitting in the end zone. Pretty mild and not the Love Canal the media were looking for. Within days it was all gone, nothing mentioned on Sixty Minutes or any other national news.
Power of suggestion can be a powerful thing.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, the new molten salt reactors are safer than any anything we have thought of. When everyone panics and runs away, leaving the machines alone, they automatically and safely shut down. No fear of radiation leaks, just safely.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
Why can't nuclear power stand alone, out of curiosity?
Nuclear power can't stand alone, at least with current reactor designs, because their output can't be ramped up or down very quickly. Many areas of North America (California is an example I know best) exhibit extreme daytime load peaks, followed by deep night-time lulls, due to the air conditioning load.
Years ago, during the California power crisis, BC Hydro made a killing due to this effect. During the daytime, they would run their hydro-electric plants flat out, at completely unsustainable levels, and sell the power to California utilities at almost usurious rates. At night, they would shut the hydro plants down, allow the water to pool up again behind the dam, and buy dirt cheap nuclear power from California.
The real point is that while Nuclear can work for the baseline load on the grid, current designs simply aren't nimble enough to meet the peaks and valleys they would face in normal day to day operation. They need to be complimented with some other power source that is more nimble.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:4, Informative)
Really? Because the first hit on "green sea salt better" is a Snopes-like article on something called "Mother Nature Network":
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/blogs/is-sea-salt-better-for-you-than-table-salt [mnn.com]
Looks like those "greenies" are better at calling out bullshit than you are.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
Smarter? No, just more educated.
Not true. By every measure we have, including tests specifically designed to measure basic intelligence and not education, people are getting smarter. This is called the Flynn Effect [wikipedia.org]. The improvement has been significant and consistent across a broad range of metrics. Scores on IQ tests, SAT tests, standardized academic tests, military qualification tests, have all shown marked increases over the last century, and are continuing to improve. Standardized aptitude tests were given to American soldiers during WWI, and the average score would be considered borderline retarded by today's standard. The reasons for the increase in intelligence is debatable, but is probably a combination of better nutrition, better prenatal medical care, less lead exposure, and more stimulating environments.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
The reality was the concentrations of these compounds were in like 5 ppb (parts per billion), when checked on by DNR and others. Put into perspective it was like a football field, a mile high and one marble sitting in the end zone. Pretty mild
5PPB is "mild"?!
You're talking about compounds with an LD50 in the micrograms/kilogram.
Safe exposure is 4 picograms/kilogram/day
5 ppb in your drinking water would get you about 18 micrograms/day, or 60,000-ish times that.
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:5, Informative)
Years ago, during the California power crisis, BC Hydro made a killing
An important note: the power crisis was caused entirely by market manipulation with Enron at the front of the line. There was never a shortage of capacity. Traders would call up power plants and convince them to shut down unnecessarily thus driving up demand and price. Surprisingly a few people at the top actually went to jail for it. Good times. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis#Involvement_of_Enron [wikipedia.org]
Re:Someone should do this coal power (Score:4, Informative)
Morally? Yes.
Went to Peter Luger in New York a few years ago with my brother. He made the mistake of ordering his steak well done. The waiter delayed his order by almost an hour, and then sneered as he put it on the table, stating that the chef had to mentally prepare himself to spoil a perfectly good piece of meat.
Re:Supposition vs. science (Score:4, Informative)
Holy hell, you just told us that if someone makes something up, it's as good as real.
No, he just told us that it's possible for someone who's experiencing something to only later come to realize what's causing it. Like thinking you have a cat allergy, when it turns out you have a ragweed allergy. Or thinking you've got gut or sinus issues when it turns out living under the shadow of giant spinning 747 wings might actually be troublesome, and explain what some people experience. It's certainly easy enough to do a blind test. Just like proving that complaints about "WiFi" allergies are nonsense by doing a blind test where the supposed victim can't guess if the local transceiver is on or off, prevent the person living next to a giant wind farm from being able to see if the blades are being allowed to spin, and see if there's a difference one way or the other. Of course, since you can hear them wooshing around 24x7, that might be a harder test to do, blindly.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
Citation provided [dioxinfacts.org]. Page 7 has the varying standards for the USA, Canada, the EU, Japan, and the Nordic countries. 4pg is the different standards averaged.
Re: a lightning rod for anti-gov't sentiment (Score:4, Informative)
This.
In 2004 I visited the Ecotricity site in Swaffham, Norfolk, UK [ecotricity.co.uk] at that time this windmill had been in operation for five years.
Part of the morning ritual for this facility is to have staff inspect the ground surrounding the facility for any abnormality including bird strikes. In five years of operations they have never detected a single bird strike nor found any dead birds near the windmill. Even my house had had more bird strikes than that.
Fukushima (Score:4, Informative)
Fukushima's problem was caused by flooding in the basement where diesel generators were.
Not according to Kirk Sorensen, a nuclear technologist who operates the site energyfromthorium.com [energyfromthorium.com] who for Forbes wrote the article Explainer: What Caused The Incident At Fukushima-Daiichi [forbes.com]. At first he writes "The tsunami destroyed the diesel generators that provide power to drive the pumps that circulate the water coolant through the reactor that removes decay heat." But a bit later he writes generators ran "until their day tanks emptied" of diesel fuel. If emergency generators were running then they could have been refueled. The hard part would of been finding the people who were willing to put their lives at risk. However anyone who supports nuclear power should be so willing, if they aren't willing to put their own lives at risk why do they support putting other people's lives at risk?
All of the mentioned things could potentially cause enough problems in nuclear plants, but they would need to huge (like >7.75 magnitude earthquake *directly* under the reactor)
The title of the article Earthquake threat to nuclear reactors far higher than realized [nbcnews.com] sums it up pretty well. Risk from earthquake is up to 24 tymes higher than previously thought.
people should be smart enough to shutdown the reactor & do other preparations in time as hurricanes can be detected way earlier than tsunamis/earthquakes.
And what of tornadoes? They aren't as predicable as hurricanes. And at specific points they strike they are more powerful than hurricanes.
The biggest reason I oppose nuclear power though is because nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies [cato.org]
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
If all energy subsidies were dropped, including for fossil fuels and nuclear power then geothermal, solar, wind, and other clean(er) energy sources would be more cost competitive. Coal get tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. Without government loan guaranties Wall Street would not finance nuclear power. And if fossil fuels had to pay all of it's costs, instead of passing on external cost to others, their cost would be higher.
Falcon