“Industrial wind power, a government created and enabled industry, is not only about the uneconomic. It is about controversy and division between neighbors whose country living in the wind-swept plains has never been about gargantuan machinery generating noise, flicker, and unsightliness.”

In rural communities, proposals to erect office-building-high wind turbines pit neighbor against neighbor. Some receive checks for hosting turbines on their land; the rest dread the intrusion to their senses. And all because of a slew of tax breaks and mandates to remove a free-market situation.

“Nebraska wind farm projects cause controversy and heartache,” one article in The Fence Post was titled. “With the enticement of expected high-dollar dividends and federal production tax credits,” the article explained, “some residents in Cherry County and nearby communities are struggling with daily life challenges, which they attribute to numerous turbines emerging across the landscape.”…

Declaring war against natural gas is not enough. New York State has now extended the conflict to grassroots opposition to government-enabled wind and solar projects that cause demonstrable tort.

“We start with the most aggressive climate change program in the country because my friends, the clock is ticking, and it’s ticking faster and faster…. New York has to be the State that stands up and says once and for all, we have to do more and we have to do it faster….” (New York Gov. Cuomo, February 21, 2020)

Frustrated with the slow development of wind and solar projects in the state (grassroots opposition prevailed at Sommerset/Yates, for example), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed draconian measures to green-light controversial renewable-energy projects.

New York’s plan for net carbon free, 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, is impractical on infrastructure and economic grounds.…

“The description of wind turbine noise needs a terminological shift. The language should be pulsations at an infrasound rate with modulation of the entire signal at an infrasound rate (as in sensation detected by the ear).” [Cooper, below]

Q:  You referred earlier [yesterday] to your second paper at the ICA  that is linked to the synthesis paper. Maybe my question on ILFN ties in with the paper on Amplitude Modulation that raises questions as to terminology?

Cooper: Yes. The second paper on amplitude modulation is very important. Because what people are calling AM (by reference to the dBA signal) is incorrect. An electrical engineer will tell you that AM is the modulation (variation in the amplitude) of a carrier frequency (being a high frequency) that is modulated at a lower rate.…

“But wind turbine noise issues are not just an acoustic issue. I have been trying to solve the acoustic problem to allow the medical side to then undertake the required research.” (Cooper, below)

Last year, I interviewed acoustician Steven Cooper, AU on wind turbine health issues related to pulsation and low-frequency noise. “In general, wind farm applications claim that turbines do not generate any low-frequency, tonal, or impulsive characteristics,” he noted, “which is a matter disputed by residential receivers.”

What has developed in the last 20 months? In this two-part series (today and tomorrow), Mr. Cooper shares his most recent research and findings, which complement our current knowledge regarding the nature of “noise” impacts to real-time victims of wind power.

Mr. Cooper recently presented his new findings in Germany at the International Congress on Acoustics Conference.…