It seems totally bizarre to me that there are people protesting against the wind farm to be built near Colac, Victoria. There are protest movements around the world against the creation of wind farms. Some people find them ugly and claim they make noise that keeps them up at night. Some environmentalists claim they kill birds and bats.

Contrary to what a lot of these protesters believe windfarms do not create a lot of noise. There are many videos on YouTube that prove this, at least to my satisfaction.

Recently there is a new complaint against windfarms. Apparently windfarms create massive amounts of infra-sound that can cause a very rare and little-known illness called vibroacoustic disease. This sounds very plausible, but there are several things wrong about this theory.

1. Every scholarly article you find about vibroacoustic disease appears to be co-authored by the same man, Dr. Nuno Castelo Branco. This is a problem because until there is a number of papers supporting the theory that infra-sound can cause disease it can only be considered conjecture. There doesn’t seem to be agreement in the medical or scientific community that the disease exists at all.
2. If infra-sound from windmills created disease hospitals would be filling up around the world. Just as some people believed, and some continue to believe that mobile phones can cause brain cancer, but there is no epidemic even though virtually everybody in the Western world uses a mobile phone.
3. There are many other sources of infra-sound the wind itself for one. There are many machines that we live with every day that create huge amounts of infra-sound. How come this does not seem to cause any ill effect?
4. Some animals such as whales and elephants use infra-sound to communicate. If infra-sound is damaging to life surely these animals would have died out or stop using infra-sound to communicate.

Even though there is virtually no scientific evidence to say that infra-sound could be damaging there is also no scientific evidence to say that it isn’t damaging. Being a scientific person I’m forced to say there is a very remote chance it could be damaging. Any concerns about sound, infra or otherwise, can be solved by situating windfarms away from houses. The Colac windfarm will be situated on grazing land between Mount Gellibrand and the Princess Highway – not in residential areas.

There are people against any kind of new technology. People by their nature are also scared of change. When the printing press was brought to Europe it helped spark some of the worst wars the world has ever seen. These days people are far more open-minded, but there are still those that use the fear of job loss, disease and large corporations changing the landscape to resist development.

There are pundits who use the results of a Spanish study to say that windfarms cost jobs. The study authors claim that for every one green job created two are lost. In subsidising the cost of creating green power the cost of electricity goes up. Companies have to pay more for energy and therefore employ less people. But the fact is we don’t all live in Spain. Companies can always increase efficiency and reduce energy wastage saving money. They can also install solar panels reducing the need for electricity from the grid and getting paid for the energy they return to said grid. The green energy jobs knife cuts both ways. By supporting the green energy industry in a given country that country could become an exporter of green technology creating more jobs.

Another complaint about windfarms is the way big corporations seem to have overtaken the industry and claim to be making large profits from green energy. The green energy industry is subsidised and of course those subsidies to go to help windfarms achieve a profit. But there are also average people making a profit from windfarms, such as the farmers that allow turbines to be built on their properties. Subsidies are needed to encourage the development of green energy projects – even if you ignore global warming. We need to transfer over to renewable energy simply because fossil fuels are finite. All those electric cars need to get their electricity from somewhere.

Windfarms make a positive difference for the environment. They are needed to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to help battle climate change. Even if you are a climate change sceptic you cannot deny that fossil fuels, particularly oil, are running out. Possible possible disease affects from infra-sound can be completely eliminated by situating windmills away from people. Offshore windfarms are ultimate solution out of view of everyone except fishermen. Yes some birds may get killed by wind turbines, but climate change kills animals too. Windfarm protesters really do have very little to complain about, but of course this won’t stop them.