DARRYL Read is a fourth year psychology honors student at the University of New England in Australia. His research project involves surveying citizens near proposed or established wind developments, worldwide. His interest in this area of research began after speaking with rural residents living in Crookwell, New South Wales (NSW), which has the oldest wind project in Australia.
According to Mr Read the conversations enabled him to gain an understanding of the range of issues surrounding wind developments. Following those talks he says he began to read wind articles in the media and most of these stories failed to identify the issues and genuine concerns of the residents:
“IN the beginning my study was designed to gain an understanding of the structure and strength of both positive and negative attitudes toward wind energy developments. The initial plan was for the survey to be distributed throughout the renewable energy precincts in NSW. Following the launch of the questionnaire earlier this month, the study has caught the attention of various pro-wind organizations and individuals who have attempted to discredit the study.
Supporters of the wind industry have also been pushing to prevent the study continuing. To make a long story short, when I presented the questionnaire, the renewable energy coordinators and representatives from the Clean Energy Council (CEC) informed me that they would not support the project because they felt that the study was focusing on the negative aspects of wind energy. (This was probably subconsciously due to my meeting real citizens and listening to their concerns.)
When I began the project I had no idea that the issues were so politically motivated. In my view it appears that wind proponents (government, business, and academia) are not prepared to accept any criticism of wind energy. The issues these people had with the questionnaire relate to the questions regarding the possible impacts of wind developments, like property values, noise, environmental impacts, psychological impacts, etc. Despite significant resistance I have decided to continue with the study, and very much appreciate your passing it on to your network of good people.
Anyway, due to these developments, my research is now a completely independent project, not funded by the government agencies who support wind energy. This has the advantage that I now have more freedom, as the research is not restricted to achieve a particular outcome. In brief, the aim of my study is now to investigate the range of issues surrounding wind developments, and to provide an unvarnished account of citizens’ attitudes toward wind developments. A number of people I had contacted had expressed their personal stories of how these industrial projects have negatively impacted their lives. I believe I have a duty to tell the citizen’s side of the story and expose the practices of governments, which appear to be driven by political vs scientific agendas.
The first aim of the current study is to investigate the attitudes, perceived levels of stress and potential impact on mental health experienced by residents who live in close proximity to wind developments. As a consequence of the differing stages of wind turbine development, it is anticipated that mental health outcomes may be more negatively impacted with progressively more development.
The second aim of the study is to identify the factors which contribute toward oppositional behavior. The various negative impacts of wind projects such as perceived influence on property values, effects on surrounding environment, wildlife, effects of noise etc., will be analyzed. Further testing of variables such as place attachment, time perspective, environmental concerns will be conducted to investigate their influence on oppositional behavior.
In some media there have been suggestions that those who oppose developments are motivated by factors other than the shortcomings of wind energy. For example, It has been reported that those who oppose wind energy are not concerned by environmental problems, the lifestyles of future generations, or so-called global warming. I believe that such findings are used to discredit the genuine concerns residents have toward developments. It is anticipated that the mediation analyses (see below) will dismiss the myths, and put the focus back on the some of the legitimate reasons residents oppose developments, like noise, psychological impacts, etc. Above all, I want to highlight the fact that those who oppose developments are not psychologically unstable or driven by political interests. Their concerns are real and hopefully my study will highlight this.”
Residents who live near existing or proposed wind projects across the world are invited to participate in the study.
CLICK HERE:
http://unebcss.us2.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3F4GKFxYmNIZSN6
When completing the survey please click the arrow at the bottom of each page to move to the next.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“Anyway, due to these developments, my research is now a completely independent project, not funded by the government agencies who support wind energy. This has the advantage that I now have more freedom, as the research is not restricted to achieve a particular outcome.”
Doesn’t this prove the commonly known fact that Government funding on Climate matters is contingent on coming up with conclusions which are supportive of Government policy?
A significant part of this study should include the proponents of wind energy projects who oppose the study. They clearly believe that reporting the opinions and experiences of certain subgroups will negatively affect the political decisions of the larger groups. The reasons for this are important.
If the proponents think that any and all projects are opposed by the locals – the NIMBY effect – then such a thing is important in any analyses of market impacts. It could well be that the proponents are registering a philosophy of the “greater good”, which is understandable. The discussion required for that philosophy is at what proportion of a population you allow the negative impacts of the individual to be dismissed for the positive impacts of the community.
Pity the poor people who do have to live close to them. For the rest of us, the scale is sometimes difficult to imagine, and all you have is diagrams like above or even images, but until you see them close up, you don’t get a real idea of just how huge they really are.
In the image pictured above, you see the Molonglo Ridge turbine standing at 125 metres from the base to the tip of the blade at the top of its rotation.
That’s the height of the top of the Sydney Harbour bridge above the water mark.
Consider now the Plant going in at Musselroe Bay in NE Tasmania.
The tower stands 105 metres to the hub, and 145 metres to the tip of the blade at the top of rotation, and that’s 492 feet.
The tower itself weighs in at 285 Tonnes, and the Nacelle on top of the tower weighs 70 tonnes.
There will be 56 of these towers.
Tony.
I am learning to be very wary of that ‘greater good’ argument.
While it does have merit in the manner Doug has outlined it, it gets trotted out far too often and used far too often for questionable policy and legislation.
What is the specific ‘greater good’ that these wind farms are delivering?
What are the specific positive impacts for the general community?
I personally like the ‘concept’ of wind power….windmills have been a feature of our landscape for generations….but they were used in a specific manner for the specific purpose of running a simple but effective water pump….simple and clever.
However….
Is this technology actually delivering on its promises to the wider community?
Is it sophisticated enough to deliver what is being claimed as ‘the greater good’?
It is the greenies who are the most hypocritical NIMBYs of all. Their concept of sustainable is to thrust the problem on to all but themselves. At a Beyond Zero Emissions meeting recently I brought up the problem of having a wind farm on our mountain and the problems it would cause. Collectively I was howled down but individually they invariably think it is a bad idea if it is near them. IOW their superficial view of sustainable plays into the hands of green govts and leads to these dreadful energy policies with no serious scrutiny.
I wish Daryl Read every success in his project.
Jennifer,
Your use of the phrase “According to Mr Read” would indicate that you can’t vouch for Darryl Read or the purposes of this survey. This survey seems to be being promoted through a number of rurally based organisations.
I can only suggest that anyone intending to answer the survey read through the whole thing before they tick any box. There are a range of questions relating to attitudes on the environment, renewable energy and climate change coupled with questions designed to type personality and determine current mood.
Despite what Darryl Read says, I can’t see what anyone opposed to or wary of wind farms might gain by completing the survey, particularly when considering the second purpose of the study “is to identify the factors which contribute toward oppositional behavior” (sic). A two edged sword.
John,
This survey seems to be being promoted through a number of rurally based organisations.
I don’t necessarily disagree about you ‘two edged sword’ conclusion…. but I’m questioning this comment.
Do you think anyone would even dare to even possibly consider building these facilities in an urban based location?…like Canberra or Sydney or Melbourne perhaps??????
May I suggest you read SD’s comment and think about that particular comment again.
Look at the uproar over trying to build an extra airport in Sydney…..and they actually do need one there….or something needs to be done.
It’s not possible to shove that particular community inconvenience into a rural based area.
Hi John Bromhead,
I read recently that the Nazis and that nice Mr Stalin used fluoride to reduce “oppositional behavior”,in political prisoners and such.
Perhaps the study might take into account the fact that people out in the hills don’t have that stuff in their water.
Just a thought ,lol.
I take “According to Mr Read” to be another way of saying “Mr Read says”, and since he’s the sole spokesman for his project I see nothing sinister or dismissive in the words.
“Despite what Darryl Read says..” – does that mean that you’re suspicious of what he says John? Just a thought.
The survey looks to me to be well-balanced, with no “loaded” questions, though whether it achieves its modest objective remains to be seen. The biggest problem with online surveys is that there’s no way to ensure balance in the opinions of those who complete it. For instance, if a greater proportion of anti-wind people are more inclined to read widely on the ‘net, and are more inclined to complete such a survey, the results will be skewed, and vice-versa. By “balance” I don’t mean equal proportions of course, just that ideally the respondents would reflect the balance between pro and con in the general population.
City dwellers might well have strong opinions, but are unlikely to be affected. Should they be excluded to get a fair and “balanced” result?
I like the idea of wind power in general – a sure-fire solution for people living in remote areas, or in undeveloped countries with no overall grid coverage. They’d be happy to get any electricity, and I’m sure they could cope with the intermittency of the source (same goes for solar). If I lived far from mains electricity, I’d gladly put up with a small turbine. They make little noise and don’t spoil the view.
Large-scale generation is another matter entirely. Proponents say wind energy is “free”. Coal, oil and gas are just as free – all that’s needed is to get them out of the ground, process them and get the final products to consumers. Wind is free if you don’t consider the cost of building and installing the turbines, leasing the land, building access roads, providing power lines, integrating the power into the grid, building conventional backup power stations, the ever-present risk of “brown-out”, and the almost incalculable cost of damage to the countryside and damage to tourism in many areas. Proponents chant the mantra of power storage to overcome the problem of intermittency – very expensive, and untried on any significant scale.
Not to mention of course what this post is about – disruption and noise during building, noise during operation, reduction in property values, and loss of the aesthetic character of town, village and countryside.
Birds and bats don’t have any intrinsic value of course, energy companies and environmentalists don’t like it if the subject of bird-kill is brought up. In the States, the American Bird Conservancy recognises the simple fact that large whirling blades kill many birds and bats, and takes a dim view of badly-sited wind farms. In the UK, our equivalent (in function if not in purpose) Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, embraces wind turbines, are installing them on its larger reserves, and has just published a report which boiled down says “turbines don’t kill birds” – period.
Of course, they didn’t actually study bird kill, just monitored populations both near and far from turbines and wind farms, and found no trend. You can prove just about anything if you go about it in the right way. Did they study raptors and bats, known (except by them) to be most at risk? No, they didn’t. Would it surprise you to learn that they’ve taken the “30 pieces of silver” from pro-wind organisations and several power companies? Follow the money.
Tony,
That’s an interesting way of testing the hypothesis.
Seeing as both the survey and John’s comment do in fact highlight the ‘secular’ argument or the NIMBY principle (from Doug and SD)…We could look at it this way from some of the points you highlight.
For people who live in remote areas….this type of power generation, as an individual choice, probably has more merit than I would have given it as a first glance….the same could be said of solar power I would imagine.
However….that’s not the stated reason why these wind farms are being built.
They are supposedly going to reduce carbon emmissions and provide base load power for the urban or more closely settled coastal fringe (I think?).
There is just as much wind available in those areas so I can’t see ‘wind availablity’ being a problem.
There are possibly less birds and bats etc in danger of being swiped out by the blades in the urban areas because they don’t tend to hang out there in as many numbers…they’re understandably a bit leery of all the other stuff that happens there.
It would be far more cost effective to build them right near where the bulk of the power would be required because the delivery infrastructure costs would be reduced by a huge %…because that’s the cost factor….not the wind itself…it’s apparently free (?) The power could be provided to the designated end user for a much lower price.
So it would make far more sense to build any in NSW east of the Great Dividing Range and the closer to the major cities in NSW….Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong….the better.
That way….the rural people are only being bothered or stressed by structures that are there for their own needs.
But I can see another problem looming here….that would mean that people in rural areas and their ‘rural based organisations’ would get to make a personal choice about how many of these structures they would need to produce their power needs….and maybe…. it could even be more cost effective for them to build all the delivery infrastructure themselves and maybe even manage it themselves…..
We couldn’t have that happening could we?
John
Of course part of the survey is to “is to identify the factors which contribute toward oppositional behavior” Darryl is a psychology student
If you had ever lived in an area targetted by wind-farm developers (and I have) you might take a less cynical approach.
James Dellingpole wrote an excellent article for the Australian on the pros and cons of wind power.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/wind-farm-scam-a-huge-cover-up/story-e6frgd0x-1226345185075
I’ve been the user of privately owned, off-grid, battery supported, 32volt wind generators that are used in remote stations as well as on cruising yachts [likewise solar plants] and you soon learn the true cost and limits of these “renewables”. They provide a limited resource but it sure isn’t free.
The trouble is, the great majority of people are never introduced to this true cost and govts can sell snake oil on the never-never.
I wonder how much per k/wh the people of Windorah pay for their power from their state of the art solar-thermal PP that cost the taxpayer $100,000 per house to provide yet still requires almost the same running time from their diesel generator.
Living near a wind project is just another true cost that only the unlucky have to pay for.
I’ve found this site an interesting analysis of wind…
http://windpowerfacts.info/
here’s what Australian wind power offered yesterday with the 2072MW of installed generation.
http://windfarmperformance.info/?date=2012-05-17
Yet studies that fabricate and contrive evidence against frakking are having no trouble getting major media and grant money at all. Amazing. It is almost like the big green industry has a strong influence on how and what is communicated.
Debbie – “There is just as much wind available in those areas so I can’t see ‘wind availablity’ being a problem.”
There IS a problem, and it’s called buildings. Unless I’m much mistaken, there are lots more of ’em in urban areas. It’s a known problem , except by those who stick their heads as far into the sand as the turbines tower above it
“As first reported by the Reno Gazette-Journal, one turbine that cost the city $21,000 to install saved the city $4 on its energy bill. Overall, $416,000 worth of turbines have netted the city $2,800 in energy savings.”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/mar/30/nv-energy-windmill-program-generates-rebates-littl/
“In its newest filing before the PUC, the company is advocating a 10-mph average wind speed standard to be eligible for the rebate.
Not so fast, Geddes warned. He noted that models used to calculate average wind speed aren’t reliable. For example, the city’s two most productive wind turbines wouldn’t have been eligible for the rebate because wind studies said the average wind speed was below 10 mph.
The only accurate way to test average wind speed is to install an anemometer and take readings for a year, Geddes said.”
Many other examples – note the “models don’t work”. Buildings create turbulence, which as any student of both engineering and the necessary maths knows is another word for localised chaos. Add in hills, even low hills, and the situation becomes more unpredictable; add in wind direction, and it’s a modellers’ nightmare. If it can’t be modelled, it can’t be predicted, and that applies to wind anywhere. Witness the failure of the UK Met Office wind model to predict the track of ash from the Eyjafjallajökull (I can pronounce it too, what a smart-arse I am) volcano in Iceland just over 2 years ago. No buildings nor hills involved at 10,000 metres plus.
John Sayers – thanks for your link, you saved me the trouble of finding such, and with superb (pdf) graphics too! Thanks also to Graeme – a useful and well argued statement for the opposition on that page.
SD leavens the mix with a bit of personal experience and his usual hard-headed approach. Yes, it’s anecdotal, Luke, but still valuable, and always worth reading, and lots of combined and sifted anecdotes is called evidence. That’s what public surveys do, combine and analyse experiences, or in Darryl Read’s case, opinions.
It might be worth considering the inconvenience and suffering of the few as offsetting the benifits to the many if there were any benefits. However there are no benefits. Wind power is very expensive and requires base load power generation to fill in when the wind is not blowing. The back-up power produces as much CO2 as the windmills save. Secondly the realization that CO2 probably has minimal or nil effect on temperature shows that we do not need to introduce these monstrosities into peaceful rural areas and build expensive transmission lines. Here is a clear case where doing nothing is a real and beneficial alternative. At present world temperatures are going down not up, so why panic.
Thanks Nicholas, I couldn’t have said it better.
Darryl Read has been in correspondence with anti wind power environmentalist Jon Droz who opines
“From the questions, the survey looks a little warped towards support for Wind Power but perhaps we can add some Just Grounds for opposition…” He does link to the survey.
http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/wind-turbine-power-new-survey
Read also has the support of Landscape Guardians groups in Australia and the UK in what would appear to be a survey across countries.
http://saveourseashore.org/?p=2153
Noreen, I don’t know how you got the idea that I was not sympathetic to the plight of communities living with wind farms or faced with that prospect. I can accept that there are any number of reasons for people to oppose wind farms generally or in a specific location.
Debbie, it is obvious that the way to reach those people who might be living near wind farms is through media they might access. My statement about these organisations was to suggest that nobody in these organisations might know who Darryl Read is. Regardless of the endorsement of others sprucing the study, for all I know Read might be a member of WWF or ZCA and/or be a rabid Green activist.
For those who choose to mock caution of psychological studies that link personality traits to oppositional behaviour and sceptical beliefs about CAGW or the efficacy of wind power, here is an article by Brendan O’Neill about how some people go as far as to link climate scepticism to mental illness.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6320/
My major concern is the psychological test chosen as part of the survey? It appears to be a short form of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, a test that scores subjects in five factors: Past Negative, Present Hedonistic, Future, Past Positive and Present Fatalistic. The scores in these factors, Zimbardo says, help subjects be placed into various categories and along with interviews and case studies help “investigators form a sense of the kind of person that is prototypical of each category”.
http://www.thetimeparadox.com/2008/08/an-overview-of-time-perspective-types/
A study similar to Read’s could be being used to correlate these “time perspectives” against other measures such as those being made in this particular study which include attitudes to the environment, attachment to place, belief in CAGW or the benefits of renewables or resilience in the face of real or perceived adverse effects of wind farms.
If I was a candidate for this study I wouldn’t participate until I had read the submission Read made to his supervisors and the UNE ethics committee including the hypotheses of his sub-thesis and the role of the psychological measure, ZTPI(short).
There may be a paper form of the survey that enables Read to know that the subjects who complete them are located within the desired range of turbine despoiled or threatened environments and which would enable him to seek additional information from these subjects.
When was the last time you heard a conservationist talk about visual pollution?
As some of you may recall, I am off the grid with a 1.5kw solar system and petrol genny back-up. When I can afford it, I will be purchasing a 1kw wind turbine, which will mean that generator use should fall off dramatically. There are a few 1-2kw wind turbines in my area and they spin much more frequently than the big wind farms we read about.
As an aside, why do only some and not all big turbines spin when you see them as you are driving passed on a mild day?
Small domestic turbines spin faster so don’t produce the subsonic hum that is implicated in health concerns and I believe they require lower start-up speeds. They don’t require any where near the same relative infrastructure to install, are cheaper and far easier to manufacture and because of the size-related inertia of the(usually lightweight plastic) blades, can more easily accommodate rapid changes in wind speed and turbulence.
Giant turbines have by default a long term shelf life and low change-over frequency which tends to stifle competitiveness and R&D.
I’ve never seen a dead bird lying near a domestic wind turbine.
In short, there are arguably many advantages of domestic wind turbines over industrial, centralized power turbines and with high market demand, they could potentially provide a viable, cheap alternative energy supply to a market threatened with increasing energy supply disruptions.
Derek – the problem with domestic wind generators and solar panels is that the grid was not designed for them. The grid is designed to have high voltage/amperage at the source of the power – the power station – and it reduces as it branches out to the far reaches. But with solar panels and wind generators the grid is being used arse about face. It’s starting to cause real problems, especially in Queensland where there has be a large take up of solar.
Derek,
as to your ‘aside’, and with respect to some Wind Plants where some of the turbines are rotating and some may not be, it depends on wind speed variation. These large ‘units’ are designed to operate in a certain wind speed range. While the wind may vary in some areas the blades may start to operate, and once moving, they will attempt to stay moving, while one in a nearby area may not have even started when the wind reached that low speed setting on the one that is moving, so while one is running the other may be stationary, if you can see that point.
As to smaller units, like the one you are getting, those large Commercial units have those three large blades. The Mass of just the one blade can vary (depending on the size of the turbine) from between 18 and 28 Tonnes, just the blade itself, even while it is made from high strength composite materials.
As to turbine noise itself, the larger the unit, the longer the blades, and that noise is the tip speed noise. While the turbine itself may only be rotating at a visible rotation as you see it, that tip speed is considerably higher with increased length of the blade itself.
Smaller units are invariably direct drive, and being much smaller, those blades are way way lighter, so the slightest zephyr of a breeze will start them up, and they also would spin faster as well.
Large units operate at a slower hub speed, and while blade speed ‘may’ vary throughout the range, these units are ‘driven’ via a CSD (Constant Speed Drive) basically a gearbox, that drives the generator at a constant speed throughout that wind speed range when blades may vary in speed. Each turbine has a directional ‘finder’ that will automatically turn the turbine into the ‘face of the wind’ and a feathering device that ‘feathers’ what is basically a propellor so that in high wind the blades cannot rotate.
John also makes a very valid point, and one that is indeed causing problems. Grids are specifically designed to handle a certain number of generators, and each generator has to have the frequency (50Hz Australian Supply frequency) synchronised before it comes on line supplying power to the grid.
Now, instead of that certain number of generators, you have hundreds and hundreds of rooftop solar panels running through Inverters to change the Generated DC into Australian supply 50Hz power. While that output frequency is also synchronised to that of the grid before it starts to supply feed in power in excess of the household consumption back to the grid, there are now literally those hundreds of ‘generators’ supplying power to the grid, and in fact, this is causing problems to the grid itself.
Tony.
Thanks John and Tony, that makes a lot of sense as to the practicality of widespread microsystems. Pity, I’m all for reducing our dependence on centralised energy, water etc. Even if it’s too difficult to feed back into the grid on a large scale, surely lowering people’s dependence on and usage of the grid would be a step in the right direction.
Luke, where are you, you must have an educated opinion on this issue and I would be interested to hear your perspective.
Derek, it’s a long time since I used the old “Dunlite”, Australian made home wind generator but the [3] blades on them were each mounted on a steel shaft which had a coil spring so that as the wind increased the blade automatically feathered, maintaining a fairly constant top speed.
Windmills on bores, wells etc have an auto feathering tail which has a similar effect.
In later years I spent some time at Portland Roads on the coast in FNQ where the house was powered by a small multi-bladed yacht type wind generator which also worked well in those constant, strong trade winds up there. Naturally, heavy consumption requires back-up and refrigeration is usually gas powered.
These machines, like any farm windmill, have never killed birds to my knowledge.
G’day Spangles, I’ve got an AirX 400w 12V turbine that I installed myself 10 years ago and connected to a second hand battery bank purchased when ONE-TEL went bust. It has an electronic brake for high wind speeds. I would be using it now but my solar system is 24V and I haven’t really looked for a way to convert 12V to 24V. As I am off the grid and have plenty of wind at my place, a 1kW turbine would be an obvious choice for my situation.
BTW we only have a 1.5kW solar system but it services 2 houses without the need for back-up for about half of the year. We used to go right through summer with the batteries charged by 11am until we installed a ducted evaporative AC which uses a lot more than a 100w globe as advertised.
Yes that’s the secret Derek. Plenty of wind. It sounds like you would have a good backup with a 24v, 1kw wind charger. However, you could hook your 400w 12v turbine into your 24v system according to this info:
http://www.4qd.co.uk/faq/bmnc1.html
That’s great being self-sufficient.
Darryl Read says he is not the author of the words attributed to him in the article above.
He did write these words, when this page was pointed out to him:
“I can honestly say that what has been reported in no way reflects my personal views or the aims of the study. The study has been hijacked by anti wind organisations who believe that the study is designed to strengthen their cause. In my efforts to gain participants I have spoken with anti wind representatives who have attempted to change the aims of the study. In doing so I have been misquoted on a number of occasions. The web link you have highlighted is just one example of how the anti wind movement have manipulated the study and what I have said in an attempt to further their cause. I am sure that Jennifer obtained the false information from a leading anti wind activist. I have contacted the person who I believe is responsible for the article insisting that they remove the write up, however, nothing has been done. I can fully understand your concerns and I am very sorry this has happened. I am seriously considering abandoning the project all together.”
This is almost exactly the opposite of the words attributed to him above.
I note the above comment from Jonathan Maddox.
I did not receive the above text from Darryl Read. But I did confirmed this posting with Darryl Read by email at the time of posting, using his university email account address.
If there is any misrepresentation I am more than happy to post a correction and remove the above blog post, but the advice will need to come by phone as well as email from Mr Read himself. My mobile phone number is 041 887 32 22.
PS I also had an expert on questionnaires and polling give me his advice on the actual questionnaire (before posting the link) and his response was positive… he thought it was a bit long, but properly constructed.