The electromagnetic spectrum includes EMF, radio waves, microwaves, visible light, and x-rays. Each of these types of energy travels as waves, and their energy strength is proportional to their wavelength “>30]. EMF coupled with electricity, for example, is known as extremely low frequency (ELF) since it occurs below 300 Hz. This form of energy, in other words, travels at a rate of less than 300 waves per second. The EMF connected with electricity in Canada is known as power frequency EMF and travels at 60 Hz. ELF EMF has a very low energy level. Microwaves, on the other hand, may travel at billions of waves per second and have enough energy to heat tissues.
Frequency of power Electrical equipment, power cords, electricity-carrying wires, and outdoor power lines are all surrounded by EMFs, which are invisible lines of force that you can’t feel. Electric and magnetic fields are a consequence of voltage and current and can exist together or separately “>30]. An electric field exists when an appliance is hooked into the wall (there is voltage but no current); an electric and magnetic field exists when the equipment is turned on (there is both voltage and current). Electric and magnetic fields both decrease with distance, but electric fields are also dissipated by items such as building materials, but magnetic fields may flow through most materials without being harmed. People all across the world are exposed to ELF EMF on a daily basis as a result of utilizing electricity “>30].
This is the first study in Canada to offer quantitative measurements of EMF around wind turbines, to our knowledge. The transformers linked with the Kingsbridge 1 Wind Farm were positioned in the hub of the turbines, roughly 80 meters above ground, which could be a potential constraint of this study. A lot of wind turbines feature pad mounted transformers that are positioned at ground level, which could potentially generate greater localized EMF values. However, early data acquired at a nearby project location at a 110 Vestas V82 wind turbine with a pad mounted transformer suggests that while magnetic field levels are higher at the base of the turbine transformer (67 mG), they decline to background (0.2-0.3 mG) within 8 to 10 m. This illustrates that, regardless of the type of wind turbine (hub vs. pad mounted transformer), EMF levels in the area of wind turbines are far lower than the ICNIRP guideline for the general public (2,000 mG).
Measurements taken near the 27.5 kV and 500 kV power lines were commensurate with, if not lower than, those published by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for typical 27.5 kV and 500 kV power lines (NIEHS). According to them, an average EMF level beneath a 500 kV line is 86.7 mG, decreasing to 1.4 mG at 91 m from the line’s center “>30]. Furthermore, the measurements taken at nearby homes (0.4 mG) are lower than the level used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to classify EMF as a Class 2B possible human carcinogen (34 mG), which was based on limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and insufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Furthermore, human exposure to EMF from wind turbines is insignificant in comparison to ordinary household exposures, considering the low levels of EMF recorded surrounding the wind farm. For example, at six inches from the source, typical magnetic field levels associated with common household appliances reported by the NIEHS are 40 mG for a refrigerator, 50 mG for a ceiling fan, 100 mG for a dishwasher, 300 mG for a microwave, 600 mG for an electric shaver, and 700 mG for a hairdryer (Figure 4) “>30].
The proportion of rural patients reporting harmful effects from exposure to industrial wind turbines is expected to rise in Canada, according to family physicians (IWTs). Reduced quality of life, irritation, tension, sleep disturbance, headache, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dysfunction have all been reported by those who live or work in close proximity to IWTs. Anger, grief, and a sense of unfairness have all been experienced by some. Wind turbine noise, infrasound, unclean electricity, ground current, and shadow flicker have all been suggested as possible causes of symptoms. 1 Patients experiencing adverse effects from IWTs may have severe and pervasive symptoms, and may feel further victimized by a lack of caregiver comprehension. Family physicians should be aware of this.
Do wind turbines pose any health risks?
While some people who live near wind turbines report symptoms like dizziness, headaches, and sleep disturbances, the assessment concludes that the scientific evidence to date does not show a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and detrimental health impacts.
What is the minimum distance between a house and a wind turbine?
Your expert installer should be able to assist you in determining the ideal position for your wind system. The following are some of the general considerations they will address with you:
- Considerations for Wind Resources If you reside in a hilly area, be cautious when choosing an installation location. On the same land, if you put your wind turbine on top of or on the windy side of a hill, you’ll have better access to prevailing winds than if you put it in a gully or on the leeward (sheltered) side of a hill. Within the same property, you can have a variety of wind resources. You need to know the prevalent wind directions at your site in addition to measuring or finding information about annual wind speeds. You must also consider existing impediments such as trees, buildings, and sheds, in addition to geological formations. You must also account for future obstacles, such as new structures or trees that have not yet grown to their maximum height. Your turbine must be 30 feet above anything within 300 feet, and it must be located upwind of any buildings or trees.
- Considerations for the System Only small wind turbines that have been tested and certified to national performance and safety standards should be considered. When deciding where to put the tower, make sure there’s enough area to lift and lower it for maintenance. If your tower is guyed, make sure there’s enough space for the guy wires. You must also consider the length of the wire run between the turbine and the load (home, batteries, water pumps, etc.) whether the system is stand-alone or grid-connected. The wire resistance can cause a significant quantity of electricity to be lost; the longer the wire ran, the more electricity is lost. The cost of installation will rise if you use more or larger wire. When you use direct current (DC) instead of alternating current (AC), your wire run losses are higher (AC). Inverting DC to AC is recommended if you have a long wire route.
Is it true that windmills are radioactive?
Wind energy is promoted as being more environmentally friendly than traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas. The wind energy industry, for example, says that it cuts carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming.
Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials required for wind turbine construction. Rare earth minerals, particularly from China, are used in modern wind turbines. Unfortunately, due to federal rules restricting rare earth mineral growth in the United States and China’s poor environmental stewardship record, the process of obtaining these minerals has disastrous environmental and public health consequences for local people. Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear this story.
Wind turbine manufacturing is a time-consuming and resource-intensive operation. A typical wind turbine is made up of around 8,000 individual parts, many of which are composed of steel, cast iron, or concrete. Magnets made of neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals almost exclusively produced in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals, are one such component.
The Daily Mail’s Simon Parry visited Baotou, China, to examine the rare-earth mines, factories, and dumping areas involved with the Chinese rare-earths business. What he discovered was extremely harrowing:
The banks got higher, the lake grew larger, and the stink and fumes became more oppressive as more factories sprouted up.
Mr Su says, “It developed into a mountain that towered above us.” ‘Everything we planted wilted, and our animals became sick and died.’
People began to suffer as well. Dalahai residents claim that their teeth began to fall out, their hair began to turn white at unusually young ages, and they developed serious skin and respiratory illnesses. Cancer rates skyrocketed as a result of children being born with fragile bones.
Official investigations conducted five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed that the village had extremely high rates of cancer, as well as osteoporosis, skin, and respiratory disorders. The radiation levels in the lake are five times greater than in the surrounding countryside, according to the studies.
These miseries will almost certainly worsen as the wind industry expands. According to a recent MIT research, the wind industry’s growth might increase demand for neodymium by 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could rise by 2,600 percent. The more wind turbines that are built in America, the more Chinese people would suffer as a result of China’s policy. Alternatively, every turbine we construct contributes to “a gigantic man-made lake of poison in northern China,” as the Daily Mail put it.
Rare earth minerals, especially neodymium and dysprosium, which are crucial components of the magnets used in modern wind turbines, are in high demand in the wind industry. Developed by GE in 1982, neodymium magnets are available in a variety of shapes and sizes for a variety of applications. Wind turbine generators are one of their most prevalent applications.
The precise amount of rare earth elements in wind turbines is unknown, but the figures are startling. A 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine comprises around 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences. According to the MIT study, a 2 MW wind turbine comprises around 752 pounds of rare earth materials.
According to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, mining one tonne of rare earth minerals produces around one tonne of radioactive waste. The United States added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity in 2012. That suggests that rare earths were utilized in wind turbines installed in 2012 in amounts ranging from 4.9 million pounds (according to MIT) to 6.1 million pounds (according to the Bulletin of Atomic Science). It also means that these wind turbines produced between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste.
Each year, the nuclear power industry in the United States produces between 4.4 million and 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel. That means the wind business in the United States may have produced more radioactive waste last year than the entire nuclear industry. In this respect, the nuclear sector appears to be doing more with less: nuclear energy accounted for roughly one-fifth of all electricity generated in the United States in 2012, whereas wind contributed for only 3.5 percent.
While nuclear storage is still a hot topic among environmentalists in the United States, few are paying attention to the wind industry’s less efficient and less transparent usage of radioactive material in China via rare earth mineral mining. The nuclear business in the United States employs a variety of safeguards to ensure that spent nuclear fuel is safely stored. The Obama administration cut funding for Yucca Mountain, the country’s sole permanent nuclear waste storage facility approved by federal law, in 2010. Nuclear energy firms have employed specifically built pools at particular reactor sites in the absence of a permanent solution. China, on the other hand, has reduced mining licences and enforced export limitations, but it is just now drafting laws to prevent unlawful mining and minimize pollution. Although America’s nuclear storage system isn’t flawless, it beats the alternative of dumping radioactive waste in hazardous lakes like those near Baotou, China.
“One ton of calcined rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters (339,021 to 423,776 cubic feet) of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid, and approximately 75 cubic meters (2,649 cubic feet) of acidic wastewater,” according to the Chinese Society for Rare Earths.
Wind energy isn’t quite as “clean” or “environmentally friendly” as wind advocates would have you believe. The wind industry is reliant on rare earth minerals imported from China, which cause massive environmental damage during their extraction. “There isn’t a single phase of the rare earth mining process that isn’t devastating for the ecosystem,” one environmentalist told the Daily Mail. The fact that most of the destruction is unseen and far-flung does not make it any less harmful.
Do windmills have a negative impact on property values?
Wind energy has proven to be beneficial to rural areas. Rural towns have reaped major benefits, whether in the form of new job possibilities, increased county revenue, or direct compensation to landowners.
Any new discovery, though, comes with its own set of risks. Local citizens are frequently concerned about the impact of a wind farm on property values. Several studies have looked into the impact of wind farms on property values.
In 2013, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory completed a research that used data from the sales of over 50,000 properties in 27 counties across nine states. With 1,198 sales within one mile and 331 sales within half a mile near wind projects, these properties were all within 10 miles. Data was also used from before a project was announced, during the post-announcement, pre-construction period, and during the project’s operation. The study discovered no indication of a pricing effect on properties near wind turbines.
While wind farms do not appear to have a significant impact on property values, site selection is still a critical component of wind energy development. Developers, in collaboration with county and community leaders, must figure out how to address concerns and mitigate the effects of new development while allowing landowners to host wind turbines if they so desire.
Identifying issues and concerns of local citizens, frequently through public forums to debate proposed projects and provide information, is a good beginning step. These discussions can provide an opportunity for county authorities to receive information that will help them make choices concerning local rules, as well as an opportunity for developers to answer questions and use comments to improve their projects.
Other local difficulties can be avoided or managed with careful siting and fair, well-informed requirements. Rural communities can collaborate with developers to improve wind energy projects and continue to profit from new renewable energy sources.
Can wind turbines be built close to homes?
Before investing in a wind turbine system, you should evaluate how windy your location is, the height to which you will be able to install your turbine, the size of rotor to use, and whether or not you will require planning approval.
Wind
Wind turbines are only as efficient as the quantity of wind they get, which includes both speed and force; the more wind the turbine receives, the more power it will generate.
Height
The more efficient a wind turbine is, the higher it is positioned. This is due to a variety of meteorological conditions as well as the likelihood of less barriers higher up.
Planning permission
In the United Kingdom, the region in which you live decides whether you require planning approval for a wind turbine and what rules and regulations you must follow. In England and Scotland, certain turbines can be built without obtaining planning permission if certain conditions are met.
Building-mounted turbines, on the other hand, will require planning authorization in Scotland.
England:
In order to be installed as permitted development in England, a wind turbine must meet the following requirements:
- The property must be detached and surrounded by other detached residences in the area.
- A single turbine is considered an authorized development, and the property cannot already contain an air source heat pump. Otherwise, you’ll need to submit a planning application.
- The turbine shall not extend more than 3 meters over the highest part of the chimney, including the blades, and the entire height of the building and wind turbine should not exceed 15 meters.
- The distance between the ground and the bottom of the wind turbine blade must be greater than 5 meters.
- A minimum of 5 meters must separate your turbine from your property’s limit.
- A wind turbine cannot be installed on the roof of a listed building or within its grounds.
- If you live in a conservation area or a world heritage site, you cannot mount the turbine on a wall that is visible from the highway.
- When the wind turbine is no longer needed for Microgeneration, it must be dismantled as soon as possible.
- To the extent practicable, be sited to minimize the influence on the local area’s amenity.
- A single turbine is considered an authorized development, and the property cannot already contain an Air Source Heat Pump. Otherwise, you’ll need to submit a planning application.
- The distance between the wind turbine and your property’s boundary is equal to the turbine’s height + 10%.
- If you live in a conservation area or a world heritage site, the closest part of the wind turbine should be further away from any highways than the nearest part of your house.
- For an installation on a listed building or a building in a conservation area/world heritage site, permitted development rights are not available.
- Wind turbines should be dismantled as quickly as feasible after they are no longer required for Microgeneration.
Scotland:
While building-mounted wind turbines in Scotland require planning permission, standalone turbines do not, as long as they meet the following requirements:
- It is not located near a global heritage site, scientific research land, a listed building, or land used for archaeological reasons.
What are the negative effects of wind turbines on the environment?
Wind energy, like all energy sources, has the potential to harm the environment by reducing, fragmenting, or degrading habitat for wildlife, fish, and plants. Additionally, rotating turbine blades might endanger flying fauna such as birds and bats. Because of the potential for wind power to have a negative impact on wildlife, and because these difficulties could delay or prevent wind development in high-quality wind resource areas, impact reduction, siting, and permitting issues are among the wind industry’s top goals.
WETO supports in projects that strive to describe and understand the impact of wind on wildlife on land and offshore to address these concerns and encourage environmentally sustainable growth of wind power in the United States. Furthermore, through centralized information hubs like Tethys, WETO engages in operations to collect and disseminate scientifically rigorous peer-reviewed studies on environmental consequences. The office also invests in scientific research that allows for the development of cost-effective technology to reduce wildlife impacts at both onshore and offshore wind farms.
WETO strives to foster interagency collaboration on wind energy impacts and siting research in order to ensure that taxpayer monies are used wisely to solve environmental challenges associated with wind deployment in the United States.
- For more than 24 years, the office has supported peer-reviewed research, in part through collaborative relationships with the wind industry and environmental groups including the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC) and the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative.
- The NWCC was established in 1994 by the DOE’s wind office in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to investigate a wide range of issues related to wind energy development, such as transmission, power markets, and wildlife impacts. The NWCC’s focus has evolved over the last decade to addressing and disseminating high-quality information about environmental impacts and remedies.
- In May 2009, the Department of Energy’s wind office announced approximately $2 million in environmental research awards aimed at decreasing the hazards of wind power development to vital species and habitats. Researchers from Kansas State University and the NWCC’s Grassland Community Collaborative published a paper in 2013 that revealed wind development in Kansas had no significant impact on the population and reproduction of larger prairie chickens.
- The Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative has been involved in numerous research projects funded by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory since its inception in 2003, including studies evaluating the impact of changing the cut-in-speed of wind turbines (the minimum wind speed at which wind turbines begin producing power) and the use of ultrasonic acoustic deterrents to reduce bat impacts at wind turbines.
- Through a competitive funding opportunity, WETO is also financing research and development projects that increase the technical preparedness of bat impact mitigation and minimization solutions. Bat Conservation International, Frontier Wind, General Electric, Texas Christian University, and the University of Massachusetts are among the companies, universities, and organizations receiving funding from the Energy Department to field test and evaluate near-commercial bat impact mitigation technologies, which will provide regulators and wind facility owners-operators with viable and cost-effective tools to reduce bat impacts.
- Through a competitive funding opportunity, WETO is also financing research and development projects that increase the technical preparedness of bat impact mitigation and minimization solutions. Bat Conservation International, Frontier Wind, General Electric, Texas Christian University, and the University of Massachusetts are among the companies, universities, and organizations receiving funding from the Energy Department to field test and evaluate near-commercial bat impact mitigation technologies, which will provide regulators and wind facility owners-operators with viable and cost-effective tools to reduce bat impacts. The Status and Findings of Developing Technologies for Bat Detection and Deterrence at Wind Facilities webinars hosted by the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative provide project updates and testing findings as of March 2018.
- WETO chose six teams in 2016 to work on improving solutions that will safeguard eagles that share airspace with wind turbines. For breakthrough, vital eagle-impact minimization technology research and development projects, more nearly $3 million was allocated across the six teams. The research financed by this grant will equip wind farm owners and operators with practical and cost-effective strategies for reducing potential eagle impacts. This important study expands on the Energy Department’s efforts to facilitate wind energy deployment while also ensuring animal coexistence by addressing siting and environmental concerns. If the study is successful, it will safeguard wildlife while also giving new tools for the wind industry to reduce regulatory and financial concerns.
- WETO is a supporter of research on biological interactions with offshore wind turbines. With this funding, researchers are gathering crucial data on marine life, offshore bird and bat behavior, and other factors that influence the deployment of offshore wind turbines in the United States. The Biodiversity Research Institute and a diverse group of collaborators, for example, completed the largest ecological study ever conducted in the Mid-Atlantic to produce a detailed picture of the environment in Mid-Atlantic Wind Energy Areas, which will aid permitting and environmental compliance for offshore wind projects.
WETO also collaborates with other federal agencies to create recommendations to help developers comply with statutory, regulatory, and administrative requirements for wildlife protection, national security, and public safety. The Wind Energy Technologies Office, for example, collaborated with the Department of the Interior on the Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines and Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance.