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Thursday, June 6, 2019

Wind Power is a loser -- Intermittent, expensive electricity, and even worse -- THE INFRASOUND NOISE

As an audiophile since 1965,
who has built many do-it-yourself
subwoofers since the 1980's, 
I have always been interested 
in bass and infrasound.

So interested, that in my first year
of engineering school, at the Rochester
Institutute of Technology, the only thing
I remember today is our infamous
"speaker experiment".

One budding engineer had a pair of huge
homemade speakers with 15" bass drivers,
whose bass was extended with tuned ports,
considered state of the art at the time.

Listening to music in a small dorm room,
we found that certain frequencies of 
bass caused our chest cavities to resonate.

So we borrowed a tone generator, and did 
experiments, fueled by beer, with coeds 
as our subjects. 

We found out that chest cavities resonated 
between 75 and 150 Hz. (cycles per second)
depending on the size of the subject 
-- an uncomfortable feeling, 
and a few coed subjects objected 
to the "science" of having 
their chests "resonated" .

Loud bass tones between 40 and 80 Hz.
would not resonate the chest cavity, 
but would cause stomach discomfort.

What we would could not experiment with 
at the time, was infrasound -- under 20 Hz.

However, two subwoofers I built, 
six cubic foot monsters located 
in my living room, can play clean 
signal tones in the 15 to 25 Hz. range, 
where bass frequencies are felt, 
much more than heard.

Fortunately, there's not much music 
below 25 Hz., because loud test tones 
at those frequencies create discomfort 
in just 10 to 20 seconds.




Noise is a big problem 
with wind turbines.

More than just the audible sound -- also
the infrasound -- which travels a long way.

Wind projects in rural areas 
may be near homes.

So there's no escape from discomfort, 
and annoyance, beyond moving.

Typical symptoms are Insomnia, dizziness,
heart problems, and perception disorders.

Regulations of audible noise 
almost always use sound
pressure meters 
operating on the 
A-Weighting scale (dBA).

That dBA scale assumes 
hearing damage is mainly
from frequencies above 1,000 Hz., 
so it rolls off the measurements 
a lot as frequencies decline
below 1,000 Hz, meaning it
"discriminates against"
bass frequencies.

When I am setting 
my parametric equalizer
for my subwoofers, 
I have to use the 
"flat" C-weighted scale (dBC) 
for my sound pressure meter.

The C-Weighting 
captures all the bass.
while the A-Weighting does not.

So a 40 dBA (averaged) daytime 
sound pressure limit 
( aka "volume" ),
as a local regulation, or a 
nighttime limit of 35 dBA, 
means VERY LITTLE
for bass frequencies, 
especially for infrasound 
frequencies.



The description 
of the sound impacts
of wind mills as  “torture,”
by people living nearby, 
has been repeated 
across the world. 



The industry covers it's back 
with a $2.1 million dollar study 
from Canada ( the Health Canada 
Wind Turbine Study ), and the 
Massachusetts Impact Study. 

But a more recent Finnish study
found that infrasound (IS) 
showed no significant reduction 
in damage until over 15 kilometers
from wind farms !

That's really surprising 
-- I would have guessed 
1.5 kilometers, not 15.

The study was carried out by the 
Finnish Association for Environmental 
Health (SYTe), in spring 2016.

" ... after the construction of wind 
power plants, usually within a few months, 
people in the surrounding area have begun 
to get a wide range of symptoms." 
says Markku Mehtätalo, Chairman of the
 Finnish Association for Environmental Health. 




Low-frequency sounds (including sounds
in the infrasound frequency spectrum) 
can cause high levels of annoyance 
and distress.

IS promoted more severe medical symptoms,
ranging from sleep disturbances, headache 
and dizziness, to panic attacks and depression.

Infrasound Victim Insa Block:
"After five or 10 minutes, 
I feel kind of dizzy."

"My heart starts to race and 
I get this massive ringing 
in my ears. "

"To some extent, I also feel 
claustrophobic and stressed."

"When I was lying in bed, 
I actually noticed the 
vibrations on the mattress." 

"I had this strange feeling 
that something was wrong." 

"Then in the half-light, 
I clearly saw the mattress 
move several centimeters.".

" When the buzzing starts, 
it’s like you are in a beehive.

"You just need to put your hand 
on the wall of the house, 
and feel the vibrations ... "

Insa Bock 
lives in East Frisia, 
near the town of Esens,
located about 700 meters
from her home is a "wind farm" 
with a few dozen wind turbines. 

Since they function
even at low wind speeds, 
that wind farm is in 
operation virtually 24-7.




Professor Alec Salt 
from the Washington 
School of Medicine, 
in St Louis, is an 
internationally recognized 
expert on the physiology
of the inner ear.

"We discovered that 
if you went down to 
very, very low frequencies ... 
we discovered even 5 hertz 
was getting lovely results."

"When a human is exposed 
to infrasound, that sound 
is going to go into their ear. "

" ... They don’t hear the sound at all, 
but there’s still electrical responses 
in the ear, to the sound."




Professor Simone Kühn 
and her colleagues 
had exposed test persons 
to brief infrasound signals 
below the auditory threshold:

"What was interesting to note 
was that conditions with infrasound 
exposure, close to the auditory 
threshold are somehow special." 

"Intense activity took place 
in the anterior cingulum, 
a region of the brain which 
deals primarily 
with conflict situations, 
and also in the right amygdala, 
the region which is linked 
to stress management ... "




Professor Christian-Freidrich Vahl 
is Director of Cardiac, Thoracic 
and Vascular Surgery at 
Mainz University Medical Centre. 

Over the last two years, 
he and his team have devoted 
their research to the subject 
of infrasound.

The researchers are studying 
human heart muscle fibers. 

Two fibers from the same patient 
are isolated -- the specimens 
are still alive.

One will serve as a control, 
the other will be exposed 
to infrasound in the form 
of a 16 Hz. frequency 
for one hour.

Christian-Friedrich Vahl: 
"We can definitely say 
that under these 
acute conditions, 
infrasound really 
does have 
a distinct effect on 
heart muscle tissue." 

"Both series of tests 
have revealed a clear 
reduction in heart muscle 
strength."

"Whether we hear it or not, 
every form of energy has 
physical effects, and infrasound 
is particularly dangerous, 
because we don’t hear it."




The global wind industry has 
systematically sought to silence 
wind turbine hosts and neighbors 
with property buy-outs and 
non-disclosure agreements. 

Something is 
wrong here,
and not getting 
proper attention.


Source of quotes: