Wind power links

Australia

Australia - General

• The Australia Institute is an independent public policy research centre funded by grants from philanthropic trusts, memberships and commissioned research. It has a pdf document about The facts and fallacies of wind power.
• The Clean Energy Future Report by the Clean Energy Future Group is very informative on many energy-related matters.
• The Climate Group report on greenhouse gas production, electricity generation, provide information on progress toward reducing greenhouse gasses, etc.
• Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute is a non-partisan, independent research organisation that works with community, business and government to drive innovative and effective climate change solutions. We research. We educate. We communicate.
• CSIRO Wind Energy Research Unit
• Energy Matters has a free newsletter that is very informative.
• Doctors for the Environment Australia are supportive of sustainable energy.
• Andrew Miskelly has devised a useful tool to plot the daily wind farm electrical output in a graphical form. He also provides generation data from longer periods in 'csv' format with the option of averaging hourly or monthly.
• Wikipedia – Wind Power in Australia, Wikipedia wind power in SA; there are pages on wind power in other Australian states too.
• ElectraNet SA Annual Planning Report 2011; includes much about where wind power can go in the future in Australia's most wind-energy intensive state.
• Australian Sustainable Energy - by the numbers (inspired by Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, by David J.C. MacKay, FRS), by Dr Peter Seligman; Freely downloadable from UniMelbourne.
• Clean SA; South Australian Climate Emergency Network.
• CSIRO report "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot"; found that there is strong community support for wind farms and discussed ways of increasing this further.
• digplanet - Wind power in Australia; a Wikipedia-style treatment.
• Paul Gipe's informative Wind Works pages (North America).
• EnergyQuest, "EnergyQuest Australia provides timely data, rigorous analysis and sound strategic advice on Australian oil and gas, coal seam gas, LNG and liquid fuels" and also some interesting stuff on wind power.
• Why wind is cutting energy costs, Climate Spectator, Giles Parkinson.

Australia - Pro-wind power

• Yes 2 Renewables, supporting the development of renewables in Victoria
• Gippsland Friends of Future Generations: a group who are devoted to disseminating information and providing a foram for open discussion on windfarms, not only in Gippsland but in the whole of Australia.
• Beyond Zero Emissions is an award-winning, not-for-profit, volunteer based organisation. "Our core goal is to develop blueprints for the implementation of climate change solutions that will rapidly reduce emissions and give our society and global ecosystems a chance of surviving into the future."
• Myths and facts on wind turbines, a six-minute informative animation produced by Friends of the Earth, Victoria.
• 100% renewable energy: "a community initiated campagn working to build community and political support for renewable energy."
• Blind Carbon Copy; A blog about climate change, socialist ideas, activism and sustainability.

Australia - Anti-wind power

• Australian landscape guardians; ALG are linked to the so-called Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), an off-shoot of the right-wing think tank the pro-nuclear Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). Both the ALG and IPA have climate-change scepticism leanings and links to mining; see here.
• The Waubra Foundation claims to be independent, yet is run by anti-wind people and is effectively anti-wind-power; see here.

Australia - Regulation

• The Australian Energy Market Operator "delivers an array of gas and electricity market, operational, development and planning functions". The AEMO has replaced NEMMCO; see below. Non-Scheduled Generation Data - makes available wind farm generation data in a not very useful format. On the same page, 'Next Day Dispatch', does the same for Scheduled Generation Data. The AEMO 2011 SA Supply and Demand Outlook Report and 2011 Annual Planning Report are available from Electranet.
• National Electricity Market Management Co. Ltd. NEMMCO. (NEMMCO has been replaced by AEMO; see above.)

Australia - Government

• Dept. of Climate Change site covers renewable energy legislation and targets.
• Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) has published draft guidelines of wind farms at http://www.ephc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/25.
• Operational renewable energy generators are shown on maps on AGSO's site.
• Senate inquiry into 'The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms'. Some informative submissions to the Senate inquiry included:
  • No. 204, by Dr Mark Diesendorf;
  • No. 353, Professor Peter Seligman;
  • No. 605, Climate and Health Alliance;
  • No. 628, Simon Holmes à Court, Chairman, Hepburn Wind;
  • No. 638, CFMEU (Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; no illnesses from turbines in workers on wind farms)
  • No. 801, Australian Psychological Society;
  • No. 829, by Doctors for the Environment Australia
• Sustainability Victoria, a Victorian government organisation.

Australian opinion surveys

• Pacific Hydro
  November 2011 surveyed attitudes to wind energy in ten communities across Victoria, NSW and SA where wind farms were operating or proposed. The main result was 83% support, 14% opposed, 3% undecided. Support for wind energy by states: NSW, 77%; SA, 90%; Vic., 84%. The research was done by Qdos, a branch of Interconsult.
• CSIRO, November 2011
  A few days before the Pac. Hydro report, CSIRO released a report, "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot". Some of its key findings were:
  • There is strong community support for wind farms;
  • There is more support than suggested by media reports;
  • Wind farmers might improve acceptance by developing a 'Social licence to Operate' approach.
• Mid North SA - TRUenergy
  A Community Survey, March 2011, involving 358 people living near the existing Waterloo, and proposed Stony Gap and Robertstown wind farms. The survey indicated that 66% of respondents were concerned about climate change, 77% supported wind farms, 69% supported nearby wind farms, and a majority saw wind farms as positives for: appearance, tourism, local business, short term jobs, local economy and landholder income.
• Clean Energy Council, December 2011
  I have become aware that another survey of wind power acceptance was carried out in late December for the Clean Energy Council, and while the results have not yet (2012/01/26) been officially released, the results showed in the vicinity of a 75% acceptance of wind farms. This survey was carried out by Market Metrics.
• Market Media survey, January 2012
  A friend in Crystal Brook informed me that she answered a telephone survey about her perceptions of wind farms on 2012/01/25. I do not yet know for whom this survey is being done.
• NSW Government
  Into Community attitudes to wind farms and renewable energy in NSW, 2010. 81% of the people surveyed saw wind as an acceptable power source, more than any other energy source other than solar.

Australia - Wind Energy Industry

• The Clean Energy Council (which replaced Australian Wind Energy Association) has some information on the Australian wind industry, although their Net site seems poorly written, difficult to navigate and less informative on wind power than that of the old WEA. I have not found the Clean Energy Council to be of much use; they often do not even respond to my inquiries.
• ElectraNet "Is the principal Transmission Network Service Provider (TNSP) and System Control Centre Operator in South Australia, and we operate in the National Electricity Market."
• Julian Law of Macquarie Generation has been putting the locations of all Australia's power stations, wind and all the others, on a special page of Google Earth.
• Hydro Tasmania takes its responsibilities to inform people about the environmental aspects of its operations very seriously.

World

• The journal Environmental Health (impact factor given as 2.45). Health Effects and Wind Turbines: A Review of the Literature, by Loren D Knopper and Christopher A Ollson, 2011/09/14. Suggests no direct causal link between wind turbines and ill-health.
• British Wind Energy Association.
• American Wind Energy Association
• Danish Wind Energy Association, The best site of all for detailed information on wind power in general.
• GWEC, Global Wind Energy Council (Produces an annual global wind energy report)
• Power plants around the World; a photo gallery of power stations of all types, including wind.
• Wikipedia has an extensive page on the Environmental effects of wind power, and many other pages relevant to wind power.
• World Wind Energy Association
• UK Centre for Sustainable Energy, and in particular, their document on Common concerns about wind power (this is to some extent specific to the UK situation, but contains a number of very good references).
• The US Acoustic Ecology Institute's "Wind Farm Noise 2011: Science and policy overview" is generally well balanced and interesting. The author seems convinced that wind turbines have some physiological health effects, but states "it's extremely rare to hear of health problems from residents more than 1.5 – 2 km from wind turbines". He makes the point that there is much more annoyance from wind farms in rural areas than in suburban areas.
• Canadian Wind Energy Association
• Mike Barnard's Answers about wind power. Mike is based in Toronto.
• Ontario, Canada, Environmental Review Tribunal finding in the Kent Breeze proposed wind farm. "The Environmental Review Tribunal finds that the Appellants have failed to show that Suncor's Kent Breeze Project, as approved, will cause serious harm to human health." (With some qualifications.) The findings document seemed mainly to discuss harm that could be caused by wind turbine noise.
• Ontario, Canada The Potential Health Impact of Wind Turbines; "The review concludes that while some people living near wind turbines report symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, and sleep disturbance, the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects."
• Renewable Energy World "World's #1 Renewable Energy Network for News and Information".
• Strategic Health Impact Assessment On Wind Energy Development In Oregon. A 106 page review of the literature. No direct links found between wind turbines and health apart from anxiety related matters.
• Massachusetts (USA) Dept. of Public Health wind turbine impact study; report by an impressive expert panel, January 2012. Difficult to summarise in a few words, but suggests no direct adverse health effects from turbines.
• Infrasound from Wind Turbines – Fact, Fiction or Deception; Geoff Leventhall. Published in Canadian Acoustics, Vol. 34 No.2 (2006).

World – The facts of wind power

• Most popular wind power myths; whywind.org. This page is of most value for the numerous references and links it gives to studies backing up the statements on the page.
• The facts about wind energy and emissions, Renewable Energy World
• Wind Energy - The Facts; claims to be "widely considered to be the most important wind energy reference in the world"; dated 2009.

World – Pro-wind power groups

• Ontario Highlands Friends of Wind Power, Canada. Review of studies re wind turbines and health - letter to the Editor from Paul Masotti of OHFOWP.
• Pro Wind Alliance, UK (their page has a list of other pro-wind groups worldwide).
• Yes 2 Wind, UK

World – Anti-wind power groups

• The Industrial Wind Action Group, an anti-wind power group based in the USA.
• The Society for Wind Vigilance, "advocates for authoritative guidelines for wind energy development to protect the health and safety of communities like yours".
• National Wind Watch, A US site that claims to be "Presenting the facts about industrial wind power", but actually is very loose with the truth.
• European Platform Against Windfarms, an organisation that brings together the work of many smaller anti-wind power groups.

Miscellaneous

Coal to gas: the influence of methane leakage; an interesting paper on how methane leakage from the natural gas industry could prove worse for climate change than burning coal (and it doesn't seem to consider the leakage from coal seam gas).

Many photos of wind turbines and wind farms are on Flickr at my wind farm photos set and international wind farm photos.

Homegrown Power: projects and info from TheBackShed – Build your own wind turbine.

The physics of sound: Uni. NSW has a fascinating site with lots of graphics and audio pieces on what sound is all about.