 |
magazine / jun09
 |
June 2009 issue |
|
|
|
FEATURE
On with the wind (Page
5 of 6)
Economic uncertainties, logistical challenges and environmental debates are buffeting this fast-growing energy sector
By John Lorinc with photography by Benoit Aquin
 |
| The landmark Catholic church at Saint-Maurice-de-l’Échouerie,
Que., is a short drive along the St. Lawrence River from the wind farm at L’Anse-à-Valleau.
|
|
|
|
It seems unlikely that Duncanson’s Chicken Little scenarios
will come to pass. But Eha Naylor, an Etobicoke, Ont.,
landscape architect who has advised municipalities on the
visual impact of wind farms, says such reactions are not
entirely unwarranted, especially when turbines are located
in highly visible locations prized for their scenic heritage. The
impact can be mitigated, she says, with vegetative screening,
generous setbacks and even the use of muted colours on the
turbines themselves, rather than the signature off-white of
the towers and blades.
"The turbines are like elephants," says Naylor. "They loft
slowly, and they have lights on the top. A lot of the fighting
could be reduced if the upfront work could consider some
of these issues. But municipalities are scrambling to react."
Noise tends to be a more serious and politically corrosive
irritant. Some homeowners living near a pair of large
Canadian Hydro Developers wind farms near Shelburne, Ont., a 90-minute drive northwest of Toronto, have complained
of health problems due to the hum from substations
and the whooshing sound of a turbine on or near their
land. Several have moved away or persuaded the company
to buy their properties, with the homeowners signing nondisclosure
agreements.
| Wind power for Everyman |
|
When Guelph, Ont., resident John Jackson bought an isolated 1.2-
hectare lot on the dramatic eastern shore of the Bruce Peninsula,
near Lion’s Head, he knew he would have to get electricity to his land.
When Ontario Parks bought up the surrounding property, provincial
officials told him he might have trouble getting approval for an underground
transmission line that would have to cross public land and
suggested he look into renewables. Jackson was 1.5 kilometres from
the nearest power line, and it would have cost him about $85,000 to
put in a line, so that figure became his renewable budget. After some
research, he realized he would need a range of renewables.
“To do it properly,” says Jackson, “you need wind turbines in
combination with solar cells and batteries, as well as a generator.”
The reason: when the sun shines, the wind tends not to blow,
and vise versa. And when there’s neither, Jackson would need some
kind of backup.
Next, he did a personal “load” assessment to determine how
much generating capacity he would need to install. Then, having
spoken to others who had gone off the grid, Jackson learned that
the weak link in most such systems is often the generator. Portable
ones used on construction sites are built to run for no more than
several hours at a stretch and tend to burn out if used as a prime
source of power for extended periods in a residential setting.
The turbine, however, proved to be the most complex piece of
the puzzle. Jackson had to find a tower that could withstand ice loads,
for one thing. And because his property is on the protected lands
of the Niagara Escarpment, he had to seek approval from the
Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC), whose policy on wind
turbines is extremely cautious. In recent years, the NEC has received
a growing number of applications from residents wanting to put up
small-scale turbines, and its approach has been to look at the
proposals on a case-by-case basis.
While there were no clear guidelines, Jackson had to make
sure the turbine wasn’t too obtrusive and wasn’t on the edge of
a cliff. The 25-metre-high tower he wanted to install is “like a very
big flagpole, but it’s still a foreign object in a stunning setting,”
says landscape architect Eha Naylor, who Jackson hired to
help him secure the NEC’s approval. As part of their case, Naylor
produced a graphic showing how the turbine would appear
from 1.4 kilometres out in Georgian Bay. It was a dot, barely
perceptible. Nevertheless, Jackson’s application was only narrowly
approved.
“This is an Everyman’s turbine,” says Naylor. “It was a perfectly
sensible proposition.”
J.L.
|
They’re not alone. New York physician Nina Pierpont has
identified a condition she calls Wind Turbine Syndrome,
a collection of symptoms she says are triggered by lowfrequency
noise. They include headaches, dizziness, nausea
and sleep disruption that turned up among 38 individuals
living within 1.5 kilometres of a wind farm in New York
State. Other critics claim the cause is an inaudible infrasonic,
or low-frequency, hum.
Wind-industry officials point out that Pierpont’s work
has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. And, in
a 2006 paper published in Canadian Acoustics, Geoff
Leventhall, a British noise and vibration consultant, noted
that there is a lot of misinformation about the nature of
turbine noise. Still, he acknowledged that for some people,
the fluctuating swishing sound of the blades may, indeed,
cause discomfort and stress and should be addressed by
policy-makers and turbine manufacturers.
The relationship between birds and turbines poses an
equally complex dilemma, partly because it appears to pit one
environmental good against another. With the earliest wind
farms, naturalists worried about collisions between birds or
bats and turbine blades. As the turbines have increased in
size, the blades now turn more slowly, thus reducing the risk
of direct impact. At L’Anse-à-Valleau, for example, only a
handful of bird carcasses have been found since the farm
went into operation in late 2007, according to Luc Leblanc,
Cartier’s director of public affairs.
World Wildlife Fund Canada has no major objections to
wind energy, a stance not shared by some other groups. For
example, Bird Studies Canada, a national network of ornithologists,
states that the rapid growth of wind farms has raised
“legitimate concerns.” The group wants government agencies
to monitor the impact on birds before and after construction,
restrict wind farms from wetlands and migration corridors and
minimize lighting. And because the federal government contributes
modest grants to wind-energy projects, developers are
obliged to go through a federal environmental assessment and
thus pass muster with the Canadian Wildlife Service.
According to Acadia University biologist Phil Taylor,
studies have shown that the proliferation of wind farms,
especially in agricultural areas such as Wolfe Island, will further
erode bird habitats, especially grasslands, as some species
won’t breed or stage near large vertical objects. What is less
clear is whether such dislocation will have a negative impact.
Since the construction of the 99-megawatt Erie Shores Wind
Farm, near the Long Point World Biosphere Reserve in
southwestern Ontario, there is anecdotal evidence that the
tundra swans which stage there have shifted their feeding area,
says Taylor. But he admits it is not possible to say for certain
whether that is because of the turbines or other causes.
When Sarah McDermott tried to raise the bird issues on
Wolfe Island, however, she was labelled a NIMBY, much to
her frustration. But she was also treated as a pariah by some
of her neighbours. “We’ve felt many a scornful eye,” she says.
The reason McDermott and Smith have gotten the cold
shoulder reveals one of the wellsprings of controversy associated
with some wind farms. While many wind farms in
Quebec are built on public land, most Ontario wind farms
rely heavily on access to privately owned property — mainly
farmland. The wind developers, having determined the economic
windiness of a region, dispatch agents to sign leases
with local landowners, who can expect an annual windfall
of as much as $7,000 per turbine.
Such arrangements mean that some landowners benefit,
while their immediate neighbours don’t — a recipe for resentment,
says OSEA’s Stevens. Germany’s wind co-ops, by
contrast, use “collective land leases” that allow residents or
municipalities to buy shares in the development and share in
the profits. “There’s a recognition that the community brings
some stability and legitimacy to these projects,” he says.
In North America, however, the industrial model prevails,
although OSEA and a few other groups are trying to
promote the co-op approach. And there is clearly a cost to
the industrial model.
“It’s fair to say there was a lot of vocal
support for the wind project and a lot of
vocal opposition,” says Smith. “But there’s
a lot of silence too, and [the dispute]
created divisions that haven’t healed.
Whatever the source of the objections,
Ontario’s energy and infrastructure minister
George Smitherman sent an explicit
signal that in the province’s future, green energy trumps local
sentiment. His new green-energy act, tabled in January, summarily
stripped municipalities of the right to approve wind and
solar farms, thus taking the NIMBYs out of the equation.
| Comments on this article | View all comments (17) | Leave a comment | Having worked with alternative energy and fossil fuels the conclusion is we are better off with both. There are increased costs for backup generation, however these are offset because there is a requirement for reserve capacity to maintain reliability of the system. While backup generation is often fueled by fossel fuels, these plants do not run when the wind is blowing thus reducing overall emissions. There are health concerns with wind power but they are less damaging than those associated with fossil fuels. Wind turbines do ruin the landscape and I would not put them in an area where it would ruin the landscape and tourism would suffer. Often overlooked is the comparison of fuel savings from energy efficiency that each homeowner can do to offset their energy footprint. We can all look to the problems caused by power generation but we often forget that these are a result of our consumer demand for more power. We can all be part of the solution.
After researching extensively on coal, nuclear, hydro, solar and wind energy, the only two that stand out of the five is solar and wind. Both are so simple, capturing sunlight and having blades spinning in the wind. I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes the better things in life are the simplest. With a life expectancy of 30-45 years for both solar and wind, this is far better than mining coal and uranium. It makes no sense: digging holes in the earth to get oil, coal and uranium for energy, or having a wind turbine spinning with the wind and solar panels following the sun for energy. I’ve see many large wind turbines during my investigation, and love the soft noise they make, however standing only 20 feet from them.you can’t hear a thing. Also: most large turbines take up 4 ft of space in a field, which in turn powers 600 homes and can easy plant crop right up to the base. I know which route I’m going — the easy and reliable way.
I am developing a sound insulated home wind turbine power conversion system. Of course it will only work on about 10% of the homes in a community at one time. However during the time those 10% are working they will produce power for 4-8 additional homes. The end result is that if that 10% are tied into the grid they can provide electricity for up to 90% of the homes in that community. Plus there is no need for billions to build new distribution lines, access roads, etc. This is no pipe dream this is the beginning of the end to global warming.
Sam Rotor
i live on Ontario's Oak ridge the wind usually blows strong up here though throughout June of this year June 1-21 2009 we have only had two days of sustained windspeed of plus 15km per hour for at least 18 hours straight. the other 19 days the minimum 15km wind speed hasn't been maintained for a single hour. Where do people get off saying there is no need for backup generation? You have a lot of expensive generators sitting idle as a stark testament to environmental "ignorance"
Re M.Anderson. Wind power does not require 100% fossil fuel backup. All power generators require "backup", it is called contigency and spinning or regulating reserves. Reserves are usually sourced through hydro which ramps up and down rapidly. This is one of the lies perpetrated by wind opponents. The amount of reserves required is dictated by your largest baseload generator. I guess nuclear power needs "backup" as well
Wind power is the great smoke and mirror hoax of the new century. Billions are being wasted on this fairy-tale symbol. Wind needs to be backed up by fossil fuel 100% of the time. So in the end you need to pay for both. Sadly, until thousands and thousands of hectares of land are filled with these rusting industrial machines will people wake up from their green "dream" and realize what a waste it was.
Wind energy can help to decrease the carbon dioxide level in the earth's atmosphere to below 350 parts per million. We must support wind energy the alternative is unacceptable.
You state that Ontario will need to build 2000 kilometers of transmission corridors in order to bring privately owned Green Power to the market. While Wind Turbine land owners are willing sellers and are compensated for hosting wind turbines, the same cannot be said about home and landowners along these 2000 Kilometers whose land is expropriated by Hydro One Networks so that privately operated green power companies can get their product to the Golden Horseshoe market.
We are not NIMBY’s. Our family and our neighbours have hosted 2 major power corridors since 1965 and we are about to get our third line. Hydro One will now control over 20% of our property and Hydro One believes that there is very little financial damage to our property. We do not agree with their assessment.
Since March of 2007 we have had to put our lives on hold as we cannot sell land that in the words of professional appraisers is “condemned”. As home and landowners we have been forced to invest thousands of dollars in time and costs to meet with lawyers, land agents, and Hydro One bureaucrats all of whom are paid by the Ontario taxpayer.
Cabinet Ministers refuse to talk or meet with us and it appears to the 400 landowners from Bruce to Milton that we are orphans in the system. While we support Green and renewable power we are being forced to subsidize it’s the Ontario electrical consumer.
Dennis Threndyle
RR# 1 Elmwood, Ontario
NOG 1S0
416.662.4395
dentrhren@rogers.com
I just drove past a wind farm in upstate New York and reflected on the condemnation of such installations. The purported negative impact on the rural aesthetics that drive tourism in different areas clearly exemplifies the fever pitch at which the anti-wind camps operate. If the emotional energy generated by human resistance to change could be tapped into, we might not need any other supply sources.
It is unfortunate that many voters emerge into the working world and spend their lives without a basic understanding of energy flow, where it comes from and that it is the lifeblood of society. As pointed out many years ago, the event of "peak oil," as first coined by U.S. geologist King Hubbert, like it or not, will change our business-as-usual growth-oriented societies forever. Many knowledgeable energy experts agree that peak oil has arrived.
Today’s young will live in a renewable energy society, or they will have no society. So, the question boils down to which is more important: catering to NIMBY wishes today, or for us collectively laying the groundwork for a sustainable society?
|
|
|
