From The Tribune of Canada:

Heading towards a tax-funded disaster of monumental proportions

Posted By ANDREW WATTS

The American and Canadian Wind Energy Association was created by the wind energy industry.

The association recently sponsored a report, to be conducted by independent experts, into the adverse health effects from industrial wind turbines.

That report,An Expert Panel Review, 2009,acknowledged that people are experiencing adverse physiological and psychological symptoms from exposure to industrial turbines. The expert panel acknowledged that wind turbine noise, including low frequency noise, may cause annoyance, stress and sleep disturbance.

The World Health Organization lists annoyance and sleep disturbance as adverse health effects. Health Canada recognizes annoyance, stress and sleep disturbance lead to other adverse health effects.

One of the experts on the expert panel, Geoff Leventhall, PhD (U. K.) has stated, “The claim that their ‘lives have been ruined’ by the noise is not an exaggeration.”

Since receiving this report the American and Canadian Wind Industry Association have said they will “not advocate for funding further studies.” Why?

Along with a growing number of other Ontario communities, Chatham, Mapleton, County of Grey and the City of Kawartha Lakes have asked the provincial government to impose a moratorium on any further wind turbine construction until independent research into these already well documented adverse health effects are initiated by provincial government and the results analyzed fully and made public.

To date the Ontario government has refused to either impose a moratorium or initiate any serious investigation into the adverse health effects on their own citizens.

Instead they have introduced a Green Energy Act that will effectively allow the wind industry and its contractors to bypass already inadequate safeguards and legislation in order to develop more and more wind farms and as soon as possible regardless of any negative side effects.

The wind industry will be financed entirely by your tax dollars.

The facts?

Wind turbines produce low frequency noise that is proven to adversely affect the health of many living in the vicinity. Not only humans but also animals including farm livestock.

Wind farms have been shown to exponentially increase energy costs rather than be cost effective.

Wind farms can do absolutely nothing towards reducing carbon emissions.

The fantasy?

Provincial government and the wind industry claims that reports of adverse health effects aren’t true and don’t pose any problems.

And from the same people, that wind farms are a genuine alternative and renewable energy source without producing any credible evidence to support their claims.

The Australian government chose to withdraw all support from any future wind turbine projects. Its studies suggest that not just wind power, but also solar power, do not have the capability to be cost effective, can contribute little if anything to reducing carbon emissions and cannot justify the expenditure of billions of dollars of their taxpayers’ money. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2006 concluded wind power supplied just 0.4% of U.S. energy requirements.

That same body, forecasting the period 2004 to 2030, concludes that by 2030 wind power will supply no more than 1.2% of U.S. energy and only if the “current incentives and subsidies remain in place.” That will mean billions more of yet to be collected taxes. It will be no different in Canada.

When there is no wind, wind turbines produce zero energy. They are 100% unproductive.

Studies carried out with regard to likely wind effects vary from geographical area to geographical area. Even generous results conclude wind turbines at their most efficient and effective will only produce less than 10% of their rated output.

Industrial wind technology is old technology. Windmills probably reached the peak of any industrial efficiency many decades ago when they ground the grains from harvested crops to increase the supply of flour. To pretend they can produce any viable alternate source of energy in the 21st century is something the wind energy lobby has never even attempted to substantiate.

What is not in doubt is, regardless of the billions governments are planning to spend on wind power and the thousands, if not millions of wind turbines it will mean, wind energy can only exist totally dependent on all the current energy sources — fossil fuels, bio fuels, nuclear fuels — being there to produce the overwhelming percentage, probably in excess of 90%, of the energy the world still demands.

There is a Fox Island Wind Project in Maine on the East Coast of the U.S. This community showed almost 100% support for the wind turbines that now produce their power.

The following are two quotes from one resident who supported the project: “As neighbours of the wind turbines we find ourselves in the midst of an unexpected, unwanted life crisis. When G.E. flipped the switch and the turbines began to turn, island life as we knew it evaporated.”

“As I watched the first rotation of the giant blades from our deck, my sense of wonder was replaced by disbelief and utter shock as the turbine noise revved up and up, past the sound of our babbling brook, to levels unimaginable.”

This was a community project. Schools were closed on the day “they flipped the switch” so the whole community could celebrate together. This community believed their state and local governments. They believed energy companies and wind industry salesmen, welcomed contractors and construction crews into their community. They will pay for those mistakes.

Once the scam is exposed and governments withdraw support the wind farm legacy will be hordes of these tall monstrosities, inert and useless, ugly towers of rotting junk, striding across the landscape from horizon to horizon, spanning what had been productive agricultural lands and natural and wilderness environments. There will be no one to take responsibility or bear the cost for their removal, except the taxpayer.

Andrew Watts is a member of The Tribune’s community editorial board.