Renewable energy technologies have only just started developing and with the new technologies it is almost impossible to please everyone as the example of wind turbines clearly points out. A significant number of people still believes that wind turbines are hazardous for our health because of the noise they make and are therefore not welcoming new wind power projects in their neighborhoods. Is this noise really a valid reason to be worried about wind turbines?
There have been many scientific researches studying this issue with vast majority of scientists concluding that the sound coming from wind turbines has very little or in most cases no impact at all to human health.
The only thing that needs to be done is to build wind turbines (especially large wind turbines) far enough away from people's homes. For instance, in most cases the distance of 500+ metres is enough to keep the sound level below 40 decibels, which is the average level of sound found in our living rooms and bedrooms.
Some people also claim that wind turbines have a negative impact on our health because of the low frequency sound and infrasound but scientists weren't able to discover any proof to these claims.
The conclusion to this story is quite simple, with the appropriate setback wind turbines are anything but hazardous to human health and people should really be more open-minded with new technologies especially when you consider what damage to our health does our dependence on fossil fuels.
When discussing the drawbacks of wind power we can talk about the things like intermittency, costs and efficiency but mentioning the possible health hazards is really ironic given the damage that fossil fuels do to our health.
Wind power is certainly not the perfect source but it's definitely way better than fossil fuels. Not only for our health but for our environment too.
