December 15, 2010
Letters, Ontario

Trouble revolves around wind turbines

The Barrie Examiner, www.thebarrieexaminer.com 15 December 2010

I am a retired engineer from Ontario Power Generation nuclear division. I teach engineering at local colleges and universities.

My wife and I live in a house powered by the sun and the wind, as we chose to experience this.

I have training in the area of renewable energy equipment. I am also very familiar with low frequency sound waves of the type emanating from industrial wind turbines, as I myself did a university project building low frequency loud speakers that could emit sound waves at low enough frequency, that as a side effect would inflict structural damage to buildings.

This was not intentional, just something I learned.

It is also worth noting that sound is used as a weapon of war in some jurisdictions.

I am very concerned about several things to do with industrial wind turbines.

First is health effects.

The blade passing frequency past the tower is a known concern in the engineering of wind turbines, that could cause fatigue damage to the wind turbine, and, of course, also bone vibration of humans and animals in the vicinity, as I have learned from my own loudspeaker project.

People who work in power plants know about the long-term health effects of noise.

Second, the costs passed on to the consumer under the cost plus profit commercial model for electricity production.

I am talking about cost at the gate before distribution adders.

Third, the unsightly landscape that would result in these huge industrial wind turbines everywhere – due to potential replacement of all coal generation 6200 MW is approximately equivalent to 10,000 of the 2.5 MW industrial wind turbines proposed for near Stayner operating at approximately 25% annual capacity factor (IESO data).

That equates to a land area of approximately 150 by 50 kilometres, excluding any buildings needing 550 metre setbacks.

Fourth, the source of all this is the provincial and federal government screw-up of the nuclear bid last summer, to have AECL (which was on the auction block to be sold to potentially one of the competitors) bid on a ‘First of a Kind (FOAK)’ so-called advanced nuclear, when all we needed was a copy of what had already been built as a Candu. There is huge motive to bury the wind concerns under the carpet. We need accountability on this topic also.

These concerns are an issue in Clearview Township within the County of Simcoe.

Eric Jelinski
Stayner


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/12/15/trouble-revolves-around-wind-turbines/