|
On his Net page Senator Back significantly did not mention the ethics of
burning fossil fuels nor the
proven health problems from the
air pollutants released from coal-fired power plants; and of course, he did
not write about the need to reduce Australia's per-capita rate of
greenhouse gas production,
which is the highest in the OECD.
How is it possible to talk about the relative merits of fossil fuel
fired generation compared to sustainable generation without mentioning things
like greenhouse gasses,
ocean acidification and the
ill-health cause by
the pollutants that coal-fired power stations put into the atmosphere
– unless one has no ethical standards?
Interestingly the graph that Senator Back (eventually) used did show CO2
emissions.
I have been generous to the Senator and referred to errors although in
some cases it probably would have been more accurate to call them lies.
|
|
Evidence
Evidence for most of my statements on this page can be found by following
the links provided.
Most of the links on this page connect to other pages of mine.
Should you want to go direct to original and independent sources go to my
page Wind Links, or use this link for matters
concerning
health and wind turbines, or this
for matters concerning
wind turbines and noise.
|
|
In his speech to the Australian Senate on 2012/10/30 Senator Back spoke of
a review of the scientific evidence conducted by the National Health and
Medical Research Council (NHMRC) published in July 2010.
In this document, the key statement under the heading 'Do wind turbines
impact on health?' is "... there is no published scientific evidence to
support adverse effects of wind turbines on health."
Senator Back chose to ignore this and quote precautionary statements given
in the document instead.
To read Senator Back's speech you would get the impression that the
main conclusion was quite different to what it in fact was.
To search through a document, ignore the main finding and take
out-of-context quotes to try to support your own case is called 'cherry
picking'.
Perhaps the only point that Senator Back has made with which I at least
partly agree is his concern about some of the
confidentiality clauses in
the contracts agreed with wind turbine hosts.
Any enforced confidentiality is an imposition upon the freedom of speech
and should be avoided as far as possible.
While the confidentiality clauses are far more limited than many wind power
opponents claim, any enforced confidentiality gives the whole
wind power industry an unnecessary bad name.
Error 1
The third sentence on Senator Back's Net page is:
"The oldest continually operating wind farm in Australia, Crookwell, has
been in operation for 14 years."
In itself this error is unimportant, but it shows that the Senator did very
little research and has very little knowledge of his subject.
The longest continually operating wind farm in Australia is
Ten Mile Lagoon, at Esperance
(in Western Australia, the Senator's own state), which
was started in 1993 and is still going strong in 2012.
Error 2
Senator Back goes on to say:
"The following graph shows that coal provides the cheapest form of
electricity generation in Australia. This is followed by gas, wind, hot
rocks..."
|
|
Pollution from coal-fired power stations kills people
A paper published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet,
stated that air pollution from coal fired power stations result in 24 deaths
and 225 serious illnesses per Terrawatt-hour (TWh) of electricity generated.
Anil Markandya and Paul Wilkinson (Sep 15-Sep 21, 2007; 370, 9591; Research
Library pg. 979)
(More on another page.)
|
|
There was originally no graph in the document, but this had been corrected
by 2012/07/17; again an indication of careless work.
The Senator did not give the source of the graph or of the data that
were used to make the graph.
Hot rocks has not yet been developed on a fully commercial scale anywhere in
the world so it's hard to see how it could be meaningfully costed.
Yes, coal-fired electricity is cheap while a nation still has existing
coal-fired power stations, but wind power is comparable in cost with new
coal-fired power stations (see
International
Energy Association paper on electricity costs).
If you consider the damage burning coal does to the atmosphere and the
very serious health impacts from the combustion products coal power is
a very false economy.
Coal with
geosequestration of the CO2 produced is so prohibitively expensive
that it is, so far as I know, not being done on a commercial scale anywhere
in the world.
Error 3
Under Health Impacts the Senator states "This has been the subject of
bitter argument and disagreement, denial and deception for many years in all
countries."
In fact the concern is almost entirely confined to
English speaking
countries where there has been a campaign to spread fear and an unfounded
belief that has become an
epidemic hysteria.
Concerns regarding wind turbines and health are practically unknown in
Western Australia too, because people like
Dr Sarah Laurie have not spread their message
there.
Error 4
Also under Health Impacts Senator Back states "There is a growing body of
evidence that adverse health impact are real and that they are occurring
at greater distances from turbines than previously recorded."
In fact there is no credible evidence that wind turbines cause illness
beyond annoyance and loss of sleep in a few people.
Professor Simon Chapman (Sydney University School of Health) and Teresa
Simonetti have listed
17 reviews of the scientific
literature, all of which come to this conclusion.
A number of people blame illnesses on wind turbines;
Professor Chapman and Ms Simonetti have also listed
over 220 diseases and symptoms that have
been claimed to have been caused by wind turbines.
Some people have been made ill by anxiety and fear, due at least in part by
what they have been told about wind turbines by people like
Dr Sarah Laurie and rumour-mongers
like Senator Back.
Should any reader want to follow this further, I have written a page on
why you should not believe that wind turbines
make people ill elsewhere on this site.
One can believe unsubstantiated claims from people like Senator Back and
Dr Laurie, or one can accept the science.
Wind turbines are machines similar to other machines.
Sound levels from wind turbines are low, and, apart from sustainable
electricity, nothing else comes from wind turbines.
The sound levels in your car are much higher than they are at any distance
from a wind turbine.
|
