By Jo Nova
Lordy! It’s just another catch in a low density energy grid
If your neighbor builds an industrial wind turbine plant, you might need developmental approval to build anywhere close to them even on your own property. Why? Although wind turbines are officially wonderful, the people living in the new home might file a noise complaint which will lead to ‘operational risk’, and ‘investor uncertainty’.
Neighbourhood row blowing in with WA wheatbelt wind farm plans
By Paige Taylor, The Australian
The WA Cook Labor government is preparing to adopt contentious rules which could prevent farmers from building a dwelling on their own land if it is deemed too close to their neighbour’s wind turbine, as the West Australian wheatbelt becomes the next frontier for renewable energy companies.
Current modeling typically suggests gaps between homes and turbines of 1.5 kilometer (~1 mile).
WA Planning Minister John Carey said the proposed renewables code, open for public comment until April, encouraged early engagement with communities.
“Proposed mandatory noise modelling aims to ensure turbines comply with noise limits, which typically results in a minimum separation of around 1.5km between turbines and noise-sensitive land uses such as a house,” he said.
We can all see where this is going. Soon, new wind plants will have to compensate neighbors for the loss in amenity and use of their own land. So the cost of wind energy will rise even further.
For Western Australian farmers see the Draft Renewable Energy Planning Code open for feedback until 10th April. Have Your Say.
Who would have thought that collecting energy spread over thousands of square kilometers could have an impact on the air, the rain, the birds, frogs and mammals living underneath them?
Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash
Not just dwellings. Any construction that the renewable company thinks could impede their wind gathering capacity. That could include silos for grain storage. The buffer zones effectively push their planning approval onto neighbouring land. Any ageement for compensation with a neighbouring farm will carry provisions which effectively acts as a gag order. Once signed the company makes sure you can’t complain or take legal action against any existing or further developments on the project site.
Caveats are taken on the land used for turbines that give the company decades of interest in the land and appear on the title. Any sale, financing or change in ownership requires the approval of the renewable company. Only greedy foolish farmers sign up with these parasites.
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The wind project developers should be required to purchase any land subject to their caveats and “buffer zones” before any development approvals are given, as well as pay for any connections to the existing grid. They have been gaming the system for too long.
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A mining development is required to acquire land that can be impacted by the operation of the mine. This includes noise from washeries and loading equipment. Wind factories should be required to abide by similar rules. This would mean the developers could not build a wind turbine within 1.5 km of the boundary of the host property. That might slow down a few developments. Obviously removal of subsidies, or the threat by an incoming conservative government to remove subsidies, would achieve the same result; stopping wind projects dead.
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Who would have thought that bird chomping, bat munching, raptor ravaging windmills would become a legally protected species? This is Green ideology gone mad.
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I believe that the key is wealth creation at taxpayer’s expense providing operating profit via subsidies before supplying electricity and therefore load shedding expense as well.
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Never forget that Wind capacity factor for Australia is now only 24% or just 2.9 months per year, every year.
Solar is only 15% CF and in winter not so much and averages only 1.8 months per year and totally disappears every night.
And weeks/months of frosty cold nights means SFA Wind in these areas.
Big Batteries costs are horrendous and only lasts for a few hours anyway.
Are we so dumb that we don’t teach this in schools and tell the truth to the voters as well?
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The incumbent Labor governments will never tell the public anything resembling the truth when it comes to renewables. The Conservatives have an open goal if they have the courage to take the shot and start telling the voters the facts with costings. When people realise what they are paying and to whom, imagine the advertisements, this scam would collapse quickly.
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The first falsehood peddled is in the name itself. The proper term is intermittent.
I’d be impressed to hear somebody ask the question of exactly which components are renewable? It is the solar panels? Is it the wind turbines? Is it the batteries? Is it the dispatchable generators providing backup? Is it the grid wiring connecting it all together?
Each of those components must be renewed regularly. As above the power itself is intermittent.
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Example government talking about wholesale prices and ignoring that consumers pay retail price for electricity and including service to property charge containing cost recovery and profit margin.
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Remember when…
Each town and city had their OWN power supply network?
There would have been hundreds of them.
Then they built a few, then more, in-state coal fired power stations
because this made the supply of power cheaper. Nice and compact.
AND, more reliable.
Then along came people (Black-Out Bowen ring a bell?) who thought it would be a good idea to site
hundreds of smaller “power stations” miles from everyone which
required thousands of miles of electric string and the clearing of large
scathes of vegetation and procurement of large areas of farming land
to make supplying power even CHEAPER.
Because we’ve got “free” wind and “free” sun.
And we all know how this is turning out, don’t we?
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My Dad was an alderman on the Shire Council (remember them?) when the local meat works asked permission to build a diesel fired power station. At that time the NSW town had no electricity.
Some wealthy folks and farmers had their own 32volt generators for lighting and refrigeration. These usually had a bank of lead acid batteries that kept the lights on at night without the generator noise outside.
The council proposed a deal where the meat works built a bigger generator set in town, got free power, or even some money from rate payers and they built a power network around town. Until the Wran Labor government govt into power Tenterfield was one of the first powered towns in Australia and had the lowest cost power of anywhere in NSW. All running off massive Mirrlees diesel generators. When demand ramped up they would start up one or two more generators and throw the switch by hand to lock them into the grid. I clearly remember Dad taking us in and I watched Joe Hocking (the Scottish engineer who built the system) explain how it all worked.
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Those were the days. During the war (yes, I’m old enough to remember it) my Dad worked for the British Aluminium Company at their smelting works in Fort William, in the north west of Scotland. They produced aluminium ingots that were transported to Swansea in South Wales (the Old one!) for rolling into sheet metal for building Spitfires and Hurricanes. The smelting works were powered by two gigantic water turbines that were powered by water from a string of lochs, well above them in the Highlands. Any excess power from the turbines was diverted into the town power supply, keeping costs down for the inhabitants. We eventually ended up in Swansea where we were bombed almost nightly by, luckily, mainly off target Germans.
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Victoria is worse they can come onto your property uninvited and you can be arrested trying to stop them.
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There are MANY reasons a LOT of folk refer to “that place” as: “WORST AUSTRALIA”.
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Hmmm. If the wind farm can sue upwind people for interfering with their wind, then surely downwind people can similarly sue the wind farm?
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Yes, and knowing the variables of wind direction, you could be sued one day and the next sue them.
I wonder who could have thought up this bright idea?
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Under this legislation windmills are protected species.
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The next logical step is to ban farming.
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Don’t give them ideas.
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The wind factory [part-time] may have deep pockets behind it. Perhaps Your pockets, if the Glorious Government supports trying to milk the wind. And I know some Governments that do ….
Auto
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Are they then going to sue oil companies or Gaia for “climate change” when they don’t achieve their designed capacity factor?
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Well gee, that was completely unpredictable.
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Wouldn’t requiring a 1500m setback from any boundary fence for the windmills solve this issue?
Or is that too simple?
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No, because the low-frequency infrasound generated by the turbines can travel 10 kms or more, so a 1.5 km limit is useless. These sounds, below the measurement filter levels of acoustic sound measurement devices, can severely impact humans. (Will add a link to an excellent YT presentation on this subject.)
See Sept 2017 presentation by Prof. Mariana Alves-Pereria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu8z7dyQA9Y
Human body resonance effects: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/human-body-resonant-frequencies.501607/
Some other links to this subject:
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/12/10/green-energy-guinea-pigs-wind-industrys-american-victims-monitored-for-infrasound-effects-on-heart-health/
https://stopthesethings.com/2019/02/01/home-wreckers-finnish-study-finds-wind-turbine-infrasound-unsafe-for-residents-living-within-15-km/
https://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2020/10/wind-power-infrasound-noise-problem.html
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/21/when-did-they-know-industrial-wind-on-the-health-firing-line/
https://notrickszone.com/2024/06/27/people-living-near-wind-turbines-vacate-their-homes-due-to-harm-to-pets-livestock-water-supply/
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Just imagine a new BASE-LOAD power stn opening and then the govt tells us we’ll restrict its random use to just 2.9 months of every year.
But we can’t tell you when this will happen and for how long the stoppage will take place.
But don’t worry we’ll have a back up with big batteries that could last for a few hours.
But we also can’t guarantee when we’ll switch the stn back on again to save our businesses and jobs.
And the new stn would be replaced every 15 to 20 years and the batteries even more regularly.
This is what happens when you build toxic, unreliable W & S and batteries.
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Great comment. Certainly brings the stupidity and unworkability of wind and solar into clear view for the believers. I’ll try it.
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There is a now fairly old but influential Australian court case about somebody who built a home next to a golf course in Frankston Victoria. The golf course asserted that golfers had been accidentally hitting balls over the fence for a long time and the home owner could not reasonably expect the golf course to prevent it. The court ruled that the golfers never had any right to hit balls over the fence and found in favour of the home builder.
On the other hand there are multiple lines of precedent dating back to the industrial revolution where people were having, for example, coal smuts dirtying washing while it was drying. The courts ruled that people living in industrial areas cannot expect to be free from the impacts of those same industrial activities.
Like all other areas of law property rights bear the scars of centuries of clever lawyers trying to win cases. My guess is that the current kerfuffle will end up with legalised impairment of the rights of property owners but not enough to upset the apple cart completely.
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O/T sort of.
Question to those who know the law.
One precedent that intrigues me is that of Jeremy Clarkson’s GGG Grandfather,
Caleb Kilner, owner of Kilners glass bottle factory. Although from the 19th century English Common Law could it be used as precedent in Australia?
https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1997938/jeremy-clarkson-family-fortune-lost
“However in 1871 they hit a speed bump when they faced a court case brought by the estate of the Earl of Scarborough against them.
It was argued that smoke from the Thornhill Les factory was polluting land around the factory. The judge ruled against the Kilners arguing that, “no man has the right to interfere with the supply of pure air.”
Disregarding windmills and solar panels, could this ruling apply in Australia to the many and varied means of polluting the air?
Is it a straightforward “NO” the precedent does not apply in Australia or may it be available.
Regards
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Here’s the 3 line version.
If it is English common law then it is also Australian common law. What happens though is that over the centuries some decisions become persuasive and their principles are applied widely. Others are become limited to their facts and are not applied widely. And then over the top of all that is the question of whether there is any legislation overriding the common law.
My guess without further reading is that there is so much legislation covering air pollution that it is very unlikely any case law from the days before the legislation would survive.
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Thankyou Forrest, being unknowing of matters of law, and hearing of precedents always being quoted, my old plumbers brain wondered about the ruling of “no man has the right to interfere with the supply of pure air”.
Regards
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So where’s the reliable BASE-LOAD energy coming from to run our AI data centres or do Aussies forget about AI and leave that to China, Asia, the USA and parts of Europe etc?
We’ll certainly need more reliable Base-Load Coal, Nuclear or Gas soon or we’ll have completely missed the AI boat.
Of course most of Asia will have AI soon and larger populations to consider by 2040.
Here’s the populations of a number of countries as we move towards 2100 and the global population will be about 9.2 billion by 2040 and 10.1 by 2100.
Africa is projected to have about 3.8 billion by 2100.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-long-run-with-projections?country=CHN~BRA~NGA~IDN~USA~JPN~IND~OWID_WRL~AUS~UN_AFR
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Follow the money trail,who in the west australian government is helping
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David @ #13 mentions the money trail. Having witnessed the construction of these industrial wind parks in Victoria it’s all about the jobs, a lot of which are unionised. There’s a big sugar hit during construction of workers, but once built the workforce for the operation is minimal. Hence, you then need the next wind development to maintain the jobs. The unions benefit and so do the superannuation funds , which are partly run by ex union , ex Labor people. There’s your money trail pure and simple. That’s also why you need transmission lines – more jobs. The ALP love it , it’s why Victoria keep building more tunnels for road and public transport as well. The workers generally all vote left- Labor or Greens. Debt you say? Who cares?
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On that basis, they could keep building more wind farms, but not bother to build any transmission lines. All the benefits at immensely lower cost.
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Unreliable, toxic W & S are chosen for us because of our terrible, dangerous CC and “we must do something”.
But by 2100 our poorest continent Africa will have 3.8 billion people and their life expectancy then is projected to be 74 years or 10 years higher than today.
Don’t forget all these people have to be fed, clothed and have houses, education and health care etc.
In 1950 Africa’s population was just 227 million but today is 1550 million and projected to be 3800 million by 2100.
I still can’t see their so called dangerous CC in those UN numbers.
BTW here’s the UN’s life expectancy projections for a number of countries by 2100.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/future-life-expectancy-projections?tab=line&country=SWE~JPN~CAN~USA~AUS~ESP~SGP~UN_EUR~UN_AFR&mapSelect=SWE~JPN~CAN~USA~AUS~ESP~SGP
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As mentioned previously, “They” label this deliberately as a ” noise” issue to hide the true science.
The real problem for human life is the ULF pulsing which overrides the central nervous system and causes sea sickness, on land, dizziness and vomiting before it sends you down with heart trouble.
They are cunning.
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A farmer from Waubra, Victoria who sited one of the original turbines on his property had to purchase another home in nearby Ballarat. When he was living at the farmhouse and there were S/W winds he became very sick with all those symptoms you listed. So, based on wind forecast he would reside in his Ballarat home until the wind either changed direction or subsided.
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There’s another post here with some replies:
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/10/who-needs-windows-anyway-study-shows-homes-near-wind-turbines-need-airtight-shut-windows/#comment-2486112
Windmills aren’t the only problem.
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The market income of all the wind farms connected to the NEM peaked in 2022 at $3510M. The total wholesale income for 2025 was $2230M.
The economic curtailment more than doubled to 12% of actual output.
Building more wind farms in the NEM is a clear waste of money. It can only happen if governments guarantee profitability because they are already past maximum income extraction from consumers.
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I’m waiting for ze blob to open “renewable energy learing centres” so we can lear about renewables.
Maybe we should rename it “Somali energy”, as we all funded the scam, we’re not allowed to look at the figures and where the money went, and it’s empty inside with no substance, and only now is being exposed.
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This fairly recent story should make farmers wary of allowing wind turbines on their farms: https://bucoa.org/2024/06/01/iowa-farmer-regrets-signing-wind-turbine-lease-after-both-turbines-on-her-land-burned-to-the-ground/
And here: https://stopthesethings.com/2024/07/10/fibreglass-from-shredded-wind-turbine-blades-renders-farming-land-useless/
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So, they must know that these things are detrimental to the long term health of humans and are avoiding liabilty down the road.
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