H. Sterling Burnett
Latest posts by H. Sterling Burnett (see all)
- Climate Delusion Pushers Are the Real Halloween Monsters - November 1, 2019
- Surveys Show Many Support Climate Action, But Only If It’s Really Cheap - October 22, 2019
- Save the Planet: Reform the Endangered Species Act - October 22, 2019
Wind farms in particular and wind power in general create a number of problems.
We at The Heartland Institute have written extensively concerning the death toll wind farm operations inflict on birds and bats.
Anyone who travels across this country or lives near the vicinity of wind farms can describe the increasing industrial blight wind farms impose on previously unmarred vistas and formerly wild, undeveloped locales. Wind farms, sprawling across thousands of miles, have an unmatched footprint on the basis of the land required per unit of energy produced.
Wind power is expensive and unreliable.
All of these points are becoming evident, not just to we policy wonks who study the issue, but increasingly to the public at large.
Now, issues in Wisconsin highlight another possible problem caused by wind farms, perhaps the most damning of all: more and more people who reside near wind farms are claiming the turbines’ operations are making them sick. If, in fact, industrial wind turbines do cause human health problems, it could result in significant restrictions on their placement and operations — making them even less popular and unprofitable (absent large subsidies) than they already are. Lawsuits could also be in the offing.
Wisconsin’s Brown County Health Board has gone on record this week declaring the Shirley Wind Project, owned by Duke Energy, a “human health hazard.” The Board’s action puts Duke on the defensive to prove the farm is not a health risk.
It is the duty of health departments to collect information regarding human health within in their respective counties. If other county or state health departments take the Brown County Health Board’s declaration seriously, they may start investigating the issues in their areas. This could bring on onslaught of health complaints, which would become a problem for wind farm operators around the nation.
For more on the Brown County/Shirley Wind Farm situation see:
http://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/2014/10/duke-energys-shirley-wind-farm-declared-health-hazard/
One wonders where the mainstream media coverage is on this question of human health risk. Major media players cover every oil spill, pollution from farming operations and the slightest possible health risk from chemicals, yet when the issue is a possible health risk from the environmental left’s sacred cow, wind energy, there is a deafening silence from national media outlets on the issue.
