Antinuclear

But as any proponent of “wind turbine syndrome” will tell you, it’s infrasound – low-frequency sound beyond human hearing – that allegedly causes problems.

However, despite comments from the prime minister, Tony Abbott, that windfarms are noisy, “visually awful” and have a “potential health impact”, and from shock jock Alan Jones that living next to them was “hell”, the Davies family don’t have any complaints.

Their only gripe is that cuts to the renewable energy target mean the second stage of the development has been shelved, and they’re unlikely to get the final four turbines they had been promised………

From the boundary fence of their house yard, about 100 metres from their back door, you can see close to 100 turbines dotting the undulating paddocks. From this distance – approximately 900 metres – the susurrus of slowly turning blades sounds like a distant country road, minus the intermittent heavy rumble of semitrailers that are a fixture in less isolated rural areas.

At night, if you are quiet, you can hear them whirring from the Hills Hoist.

There is no objective measure for visual awfulness but it’s hard to find anyone in Merredin who thinks they’re ugly. People certainly think they are less ugly than Muja power station, the coal-fired generator that sits at the Collie end of the industrial power corridor, and preferable to fracking, the other energy source farmers have come to associate with their land.

Once you get into the Davies family’s house, the noise of the heat pump takes over……..

“Any ill health effects?” he asked, cracking open a second can of bitter before answering his own question. “Yes, it gives me more money so I can buy more beer.”……….

Real as it may feel to those who suffer from it, there’s very little scientific evidence backing the existence of wind turbine syndrome. In February a report from the National Health and Medical Research Council found “there is currently no consistent evidence that windfarms cause adverse health effects in humans”.A separate Sydney University review of 25 studies into the effects of wind turbines on human health found none produced evidence that they were actually harmful.

But that hasn’t stopped the symptoms from piling up.

Headaches, vertigo, tinnitus, a sense of panic and a compulsion to flee are among the most commonly reported……….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/26/minimal-sound-and-almost-no-fury-life-in-the-shadow-of-australias-windfarm-hell