A Reasoned Explanation of Industrial Wind Farm’s Impacts on a Community
This video is put together by a resident in rural Australia. In it he explores some of the impacts wind turbines have on communities. He is very even handed and appears in favour of wind power in principle, but like many of us, he is concerned about the human impact.
He’ll take you through a story where a dream to buy land and build a home was touched by the proposed wind farm, and he and his wife opted to go ahead after attending the meetings and listening to experts. He’ll explore the real impacts of wind turbines on neighbouring property owners like himself and also discuss some of the remedies for these issues.
Everything is says appears more than reasonable and is extremely fair to wind turbine developers and the land owners they work with, even though he isn’t one of them. What I found quite interesting was his commentary on planning. Australia and Canada appear to be playing a similar game of ‘catch up’ and not using as strict of regulations surrounding wind turbine development as virtually all of Europe has been.
Tags: Impacts of Wind Turbines on Neighbours, Wind Power, Wind Turbines
January 30th, 2009 at 9:58 am
A good video, but frankly there seems nothing too horrible about these structures (except possibly the noise factor).
January 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Wind farms have changed the north shore of Lake Erie where I used to live into an industrial plant. City dwellers do not understand the impact of these huge structures on wildlife and residents, country dwellers do. As the video states, these projects have not been well planned, and the jury is still out.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Low ambient noise and shadow flicker have been linked to health problems. In his case they are more annoying than anything. He also pointed out the industry ‘experts’ use an improper measurement to determine how much sound these are producing.
In Europe where turbines are considerably more utilized – you would never find them this close to people.
The point at the end is extremely valid. If your neighbour and a developer make a deal that negatively impacts your health or the enjoyment of your property and they do it for profit, should you not be entitled to some compensation. I believe the legacy of builidng projects so close to individuals neighbours in Ontario should be looked at through this lens and at least explored, while in future realistic setbacks need to be in place.