Wind Power News: Japan
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted.
Dairy cattle getting wind turbine syndrome?
Click here for the full report (©Shizen to Ningen sha) in Japanese. The following is a brief summary, by the journalist Yuki Tsuruta
I visited two small islands in Nagasaki prefecture in November 2009. This is what I was told by several of the dairy farmers.
(1) Ukujima 24.9km2, population 3000. The island has one 1000 kW wind turbine, built in 2001.
(a) Farmer A (340m from cow barn to the turbine). This family has been dairy . . .
MOE to survey health impairment due to wind power generation
TOKYO, JAPAN –The Japanese Ministry of the Environment (MOE) intends to embark on its first survey ever of possible health impairment caused by wind power generation in fiscal 2010. The reason is that residents in the vicinity of wind turbines have complained of ill physical effects due to low-frequency sound emitted when the turbines turn. The MOE is going to consign execution of a fact-finding survey to a research institute. The survey results will provide the basis for studies to . . .
Sickness claims prompt study of wind turbines
Turbines used for wind power generation, pushed as a promising renewable energy source, will come under government scrutiny because of the possible impact on the health of residents.
The Environment Ministry will conduct its first field survey of possible health hazards of wind turbines, covering all of more than 1,500 units in operation across the country.
The four-year study, to start in April, was planned following complaints from neighborhood residents about noise and environmental problems as well as health issues.
No causal . . .
Government to study effects of wind farms on health
The Environment Ministry will launch its first major study into the influence of wind turbines on people’s health next year, it has been learned.
Much is expected of wind power as a source of clean energy, but people living near wind power facilities are increasingly complaining of health problems. The low-frequency sound produced by the wind turbines at such facilities–sound that is difficult to discern with the naked ear–is suspected of causing such conditions as insomnia, tinnitus and hand tremors.
Due to . . .
Going with the wind
An article in the Nikkei recently may well spell trouble for the fledgling alternative energy industry—and particularly for the wind power generation sector, where most energy investment has taken place in Japan. Apparently residents in the town of Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, have petitioned a wind turbine farm operator (Nikkei doesn’t mention who) to close down their plant in the evening hours—on the basis that low frequency noise emanating from the wind farm is causing residents in the area serious health . . .
Japan installs less wind power as tight rules bite
Japan’s wind power industry installed 183 megawatts (MW) of capacity in the year ended in March, 2009, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, a government linked research unit said in a report on Tuesday.
Tighter regulations on wind turbines have restricted construction in the past two years and the world’s fifth largest greenhouse gas emittor has focused more on solar panels to help to fight global warming.
Japan accounts for only 1.6 percent of the world’s wind power market, which is . . .
Wind power has its own environmental problems
Wind power generation is expected to be a clean and environmentally friendly natural energy source, but a new kind of environmental problem has surfaced as infrasonic waves caused by windmills are suspected of causing health problems for some people.
Shinjuro Kondo, 76, who moved into Higashi-Izucho, Shizuoka Prefecture, 17 years ago, said, “Stiff shoulders, headaches, insomnia, hand tremors…Since February last year, soon after the test operation of windmills started, I developed various kinds of symptoms.”
Kondo’s neighborhood is about 350 meters away . . .
Japan's alternative energy plans ignore wind power
For years, wind farm operators in Hokkaido have hoped that submarine cables spanning the Tsugaru Strait to Honshu would help them feed Tokyo’s insatiable appetite for electricity with renewable energy.
Yet the three cables of Hokkaido-Honshu High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Link, which bridge two utility companies’ grids, remain underused since their completion in 1979, according to the operator of the cables.
With a maximum capacity of 600 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to supply an average 200,000 households, the . . .
Mitsubishi sues Babcock over wind-turbine contracts
A unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Japan’s largest heavy-machinery maker, sued partner Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group U.S. LLC seeking payments under wind-turbine contracts worth $1.4 billion.
Mitsubishi, based in Tokyo, is asking a judge to prevent the unit of Sydney-based Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group from transferring assets to avoid the payments, according to papers filed April 9 in Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington.
Mitsubishi “has reason to believe that Babcock & Brown Infrastructure U.S. and its affiliates will continue . . .
Something in the wind as mystery illnesses rise
Residents living near wind turbines are increasingly complaining of headaches, dizziness, insomnia and other ailments, sparking fears that the new energy source could pose a risk to public health.
Although the cause of the problem remains unclear, the Environment Ministry is investigating the possibility that low frequency sounds produced by the turbines are to blame.
The ministry is concerned that reports of ill health could spread as more wind turbines are built near residential areas.
Tsuyoshi Okawa’s family fell ill in . . .
