Jane Wilson is scheduled for the Goldhawk Fights Back Program at 12:30, following PC Energy Critic Vic Fedeli at 12:15. Look for the button on the Boomer Radio site to listen, or tune into AM 740 in the GTA.
On Wednesday's GFB - July 11th - Zoomer Radio AM740:
GUEST – Jane Wilson , President, Wind Concerns Ontario
TOPIC – Wind turbines & Health Canada study announcement.
INFO – HALT LARGE-SCALE WIND POWER DEVELOPMENT NOW, CITIZENS’ GROUP DEMANDS – OTTAWA
Wind Concerns Ontario president Jane Wilson called for an immediate halt to approvals for large-scale wind turbine projects in Ontario, subsequent to an announcement by Health Canada that it is undertaking a large study of reports of health problems due to turbine noise.
“We have been saying this for years as people in Ontario exposed to turbine noise and infrasound are being made ill. We have demanded health studies, we have demanded research to back-up the province’s assertion that its setbacks are safe, and yet, the province issued approvals for these projects with no scientific evidence to prove they were safe,” Wilson said. “Now, Health Canada’s admission that research is needed is confirming that,” added Wilson, who is a registered nurse.
“It is unacceptable for the Ontario government to continue to approve projects when government staff refuse to acknowledge the problem, are not able to measure the noise, and cannot ensure compliance with their own regulations, which are clearly inadequate.
It is time for this fiasco to stop,” Wilson concluded.
Health Canada, in its announcement today, admits there are “knowledge gaps” in the area of measuring turbine noise and exposure to rural citizens. They say that there is “limited research” on the health effects being reported by people exposed to turbine noise and infrasound which is not factual. There is ample evidence from Ontario and around the world. Now this evidence base needs to be strengthened and acted upon.
Good interview Jane. One small beef I’d like to air concerning some comments by Dale....I like his style and am certainly pleased that he has devoted a significant amount of air time to the wind issue. However, he starts off by essentially saying “now I’m all for green energy but....” and then proceeds to go into the focus of the program which today was about the upcoming health study. It is almost like he believes that wind energy really is green but unfortunately it comes accompanied with these niggly little problems like noise etc that make it nasty and untenable to deal with. What this means (I think) is that it comes across that if the noise (and other similar technical issues) could be adequately dealt with, it seems that he would be satisfied. I hope somebody can convince Dale that there is absolutely nothing ‘green’ about wind, zero, nada, zilch, period and there still won’t be anything ‘green’ about it even if the technical problems were solved completely. Not one thermal plant will be removed from the grid, not one nuclear will come offline (unless forced off by the problems with the erratic/unpredictable nature of wind) and virtually no carbon based fuel will be reduced by the implementation of wind and solar etc. The whole thing is a scam of the order of the ENRON scam or much higher. In fact, I would like to see Dale focus on what trying to incorporate wind and solar into the grid actually means from a big picture perspective, what it means to the life of the other generating equipment on the grid, the complexity of the infrastructure that is now required, the amount of fuel that gets used collectively by all the sources, the amount of water that ends up bypassing the water turbines at Niagara when wind/solar are at their peak and/or when electrical demand is low, the concept of paying to have electrical energy taken away when it is produced in excess. It’s a complicated subject but I think that this is where the real battleground is.... once people realize that they have gotten nothing out of this grand scheme, even folks in the liberal GTA will be clammering to stop IWTs/solar immediately. I’d like to see a guest such as Dr Gordon Hughes interviewed by Dale to discuss this paper http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/hughes-windpower.pdf (or somebody closer to home who could address this subject from the Ontario perspective). Health is obviously important but right now it is being treated as a ‘trade-off’ for the benefit of reducing coal and gas. It shouldn’t be allowed to be considered to be a trade-off at all since coal and gas aren’t being reduced one bit.
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