Wind farms vs. neighbors - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 26

to coordinate various competing uses of marine areas within a large body
of water. The EU created a roadmap for greater spatial planning in Europe's
water bodies in 2008, and some countries in Europe have already adopted
marine spatial plans to help promote more fair and efficient use of sea
resources. 38 Such planning will grow ever more important as a tool for
managing potential conflicts with beachfront views, shipping routes, fishing
operations, habitat preservation, offshore oil and gas development, and
other marine uses as offshore wind energy development continues to spread
in the coming decades.
Wind turbine noise and health impacts
Concerns over turbine noise are another common source of opposition to
wind farms. Commercial wind turbines undeniably generate some amount
of noise. A turbine's mechanical noise, which typically originates from its
gearbox and other mechanical parts, is not typically the main source of
noise complaints at a wind farm. 39 More often, these complaints relate
to the aerodynamic noise a turbine can generate when its blades rotate
through the air. 40 The relative loudness of a wind turbine depends to a large
extent on the size and design of the turbine itself. For any given turbine
design, the noise level it produces can also vary based on prevailing wind
speeds and the turbine's angle in relation to the wind.
Over the past several years, academicians across the planet have conducted
dozens of studies on wind turbine noise and its possible effects on humans
and animals. This chapter does not attempt to summarize the voluminous
amount of published scientific and empirical research on this topic, which
would go well beyond the scope of this topic. Instead, what follows is a
brief primer on the main issues surrounding the wind turbine noise debate,
which should be sufficient to educate readers on the basics and to provide a
launching point for those interested in further investigating this important
subject.
Just how noisy is a wind farm?
Wind energy development can introduce noise into a community in two
primary ways. First, the wind farm construction process involves large
machinery and activities that inevitably produce some noise. For example,
some studies suggest that noise associated with “pile driving”—the driving
of support poles into the seabed floor—is the “most significant environ-
mental impact” associated with offshore wind energy development . 41
Temporary construction noise is obviously not unique to wind energy—it
can occur in connection with almost any type of major construction project.
Nonetheless, such noise can substantially interfere with neighboring land
uses and thus often warrants consideration during the development process.
Commonsense measures requiring developers to perform the loudest