by Robert Bryce
• In September 2010, the Copenhagen Post reported that “state-owned energy firm DONG Energy has given up building more wind turbines on Danish land, following protests from residents complaining about the noise the turbines make.” The article goes on to quote the Danish wind giant’s CEO, Anders Eldrup: “It is very difficult to get the public’s acceptance if the turbines are built close to residential buildings, and therefore we are now looking at maritime options.”4
• In mid-2011, the state government of Victoria, in southeastern Australia, announced that it would enforce a 2-kilometer setback between wind turbines and homes. The state’s planning minister said the setback was needed for health reasons.5
• In August 2011, in a peer-reviewed article in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Carl V. Phillips, a Harvard-trained PhD, concludes that there is “overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate.”6
• In October 2011, Alec Salt, an otolaryngology professor at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied the effects of low-frequency noise, says that if industrial wind turbines are placed within a mile of residential structures, “you’re asking for trouble.”7
• In 2011, Ontario’s Environmental Review Tribunal conducted an inquiry into a proposed wind-energy facility known as the Kent Breeze Wind Farm Project.8 Although the officials allowed the facility to be built, the tribunal concluded: “This case has successfully shown that the debate should not be simplified to one about whether wind turbines can cause harm to humans. The evidence presented to the Tribunal demonstrates that they can, if facilities are placed too close to residents. The debate has now evolved to one of degree.”9
• In 2012, Peter Narins, a distinguished professor and expert on auditory physiology at the University of California–Los Angeles, published a paper in the journal Acoustics Today. Narins and his student coauthor, Annie Chen, found that wind turbines generate “substantial levels of infrasound and low frequency sound,” and therefore, “modifications and regulations to wind farm engineering plans and geographical placements are necessary to minimize community exposure and potential human health risks.”10
• In 2012, a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Noise & Health found a relationship between wind farms and “important clinical indicators of health including sleep quality, daytime sleepiness and mental health.” The epidemiological study compared two groups of Maine residents with similar demographics. The residents who lived near the wind project suffered more interrupted sleep. The study, which was led by a Maine-based radiologist, Michael Nissenbaum, along with two coauthors, also found a “significant” link—probably caused by poor-quality sleep—between wind turbines and poorer mental health. The report’s conclusion:
We conclude that the noise emissions of IWTs [industrial wind turbines] disturbed the sleep and caused daytime sleepiness and impaired mental health in residents living within 1.4 km of the two IWT installations studied. Industrial wind turbine noise is a further source of environmental noise, with the potential to harm human health. Current regulations seem to be insufficient to adequately protect the human population living close to IWTs. Our research suggests that adverse effects are observed at distances even beyond 1 km.11
APPENDIX F
AREAL POWER DENSITY FOR SIXTEEN WIND-ENERGY PROJECTS
1. ROSCOE WIND PROJECT, ROSCOE, TEXAS.1
781.5MW on 100,000 acres.
Calculation: 781,500,000 watts on 400,000,000 square meters = 1.95 W/m2
2. WAUBRA WIND FARM, NEAR BALLARAT, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.2
192 MW on 173 square kilometers.
Calculation: 192,000,000 watts on 173,000,000 square meters = 1.1 W/m2
3. LANGFORD WIND FARM, NEAR SAN ANGELO, TEXAS.3
150 MW on 35,000 acres.
Calculation: 150,000,000 watts on 141,640,000 square meters = 1.06 W/m2
4. LOS VIENTOS WIND PROJECT, WILLACY COUNTY, TEXAS.4
200 MW on 30,000 acres.
Calculation: 200,000,000 watts on 121,400,000 square meters = 1.65 W/m2
5. FLAT RIDGE 2 WIND PROJECT NEAR WICHITA, KANSAS.5
470,000,000 MW on 66,000 acres.
Calculation: 470,000,000 watts on 267,000,000 square meters = 1.76 W/m2
6. FLAT RIDGE 1, NEAR WICHITA, KANSAS.6
50 MW on 5,000 acres.
Calculation: 50,000,000 watts on 20,200,000 million square meters = 2.47 W/m2
7. CHOKECHERRY AND SIERRA MADRE WIND PROJECT, WYOMING.7
2,000 to 3,000 MW on 229,000 acres.
Calculation: assume 2,500,000,000 watts on 926,730,000 square meters = 3.2 W/m2
8. CAPITAL WIND FARM, NEAR CANBERRA, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA.8
141 MW on 35 square kilometers.
141,000,000 watts on 35,000,000 square meters = 4 W/m2
9. SNOWTOWN WIND FARM, NEAR ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA.9
99 MW on 12,000 hectares.
Calculation: 99,000,000 watts on 120,000,000 square meters = 0.825 W/m2
10. RIPLEY WIND POWER PROJECT, NEAR RIPLEY, ONTARIO, CANADA.10
76 MW on 3,600 hectares.
Calculation: 76,000,000 watts on 36,000,000 square meters = 2.1 W/m2
11. ERIE SHORES WIND FARM, PORT BURWELL, ONTARIO, CANADA.11
99 MW on 5260 hectares.
Calculation: 99,000,000 watts on 52,600,000 square meters = 1.88 W/m2
12. GREENWICH WIND FARM, THUNDER BAY DISTRICT, ONTARIO, CANADA.12
99 MW on 10,000 acres.
Calculation: 99,000,000 watts on 40,468,000 square meters = 2.44 W/m2
13. KINGSBRIDGE I WIND POWER PROJECT, GODERICH, ONTARIO, CANADA.13
40 MW on 1,000 hectares.
Calculation: 40,000,000 watts on 10,000,000 square meters = 4 W/m2
14. MELANCTHON I WIND PLANT, MELANCTHON, ONTARIO, CANADA.14
67.5 MW on 2,500 hectares.
Calculation: 67,500,000 watts on 25,000,000 square meters = 2.7 W/m2
15. BP WIND ENERGY: SHERBINO 2 WIND PROJECT, PECOS COUNTY, TEXAS.
150 MW on 20,000 acres.
Calculation: 150,000,000 watts on 80,900,000 square meters = 1.8 W/m2
16. MEHOOPANY WIND FARM, WYOMING CITY, PA.15
144 MW on 9,000 acres.
Calculation: 144,000,000 watts on 36,421,000 square meters = 3.9 W/m2
Average power density for the sixteen projects is 2.3 watts per square meter. Multiplying 2.3 watts per square meter by 0.39 to account for capacity factor gives an average power density of 0.9 watts per square meter.
APPENDIX G
MAJOR PLAYERS IN NUCLEAR ENERGY
Note: The data presented here is the most recent available (as of October 2013). In a few instances, the numbers are approximate due to discrepancies in some of the nuclear databases.
NOTES
Notes to Introduction
1. Russ Mitchell, “World population will reach 7 billion,” CBS News, October 29, 2011, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301–18563_162–20127508/world-population-will-reach-7-billion/. UN News Service, “As world passes 7 billion milestone, UN urges action to meet key challenges,” October 31, 2011, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40257.
2. Erica Bulman, “WHO: Infectious Diseases Spread Faster,” Associated Press, August 22, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082202248_pf.html.
3. Maria Cheng, “2 new diseases could both spark global outbreaks,” Associated Press, May 13, 2013, http://news.yahoo.com/2-diseases-could-both-spark-global-outbreaks-133527593.html.
4. For more, see terror-alert.com.
5. Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (New York: Random House, 2003), xviii.
6. For an example of this rhetoric see President Obama’s June 25, 2013 speech at Georgetown University on climate change: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013–06–25/-we-need-to-act-transcript-of-obama-
s-climate-change-speech.html. While Obama and many Democrats and environmental groups continue to claim that carbon dioxide emissions are causing more extreme weather events, the latest IPCC report says that is not so. One quote from the report: “In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice.” For more on this, see Roger Pielke Jr.’s work, and in particular this blog entry from October 3, 2013: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/10/coverage-of-extreme-events-in-ipcc-ar5.html.
7. BBC History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/malthus_thomas.shtml.
8. Christopher Neefus, “Obama Science Czar Called for Carbon Tax to Redistribute Wealth from Global ‘North’ to ‘South,’” CNSNews.com, July 7, 2010, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-science-czar-called-carbon-tax-redistribute-wealth-global-north-south.
9. For a recent example, see Naomi Klein, “Capitalism vs. Climate,” The Nation, November 28, 2011, http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=full.
10. See, for instance, Mark Bittman, “The New Nuclear Craze,” New York Times, August 23, 2013, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/the-new-nuclear-craze/?_r=0, in which Bittman says that “Climate change fears should be driving not old and disproven technologies but renewable ones, which are more practical.” In the same article, Bittman claims that both nuclear and coal-fired electricity are “doomed.”
11. For more on cyberwar, see James Bamford’s essay, “The Secret War,” Wired, June 2013, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/.
12. Cliff Saran, “Apollo 11: The computers that put man on the moon,” Computerweekly.com, July 2009, http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Apollo-11-The-computers-that-put-man-on-the-moon.
13. Geoffrey Brumfiel, “Curiosity’s Dirty Little Secret,” Slate, August 20, 2012, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/mars_rover_curiosity_its_plutonium_power_comes_courtesy_of_soviet_nukes_.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2.
14. National Human Genome Research Institute, “DNA Sequencing Costs,” undated, http://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/.
15. Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013), 357.
16. This calculation is based on daily energy consumption of 250 million barrels per day, with a price of $50 per barrel. At the time of this writing, oil was trading at $100 per barrel. Given that natural gas and coal sell for far less than oil on an energy-equivalent basis, I used $50 as an approximate figure. Thus, on a daily basis, energy-related spending is roughly $12.5 billion. Annually, it comes to $4.56 trillion.
Notes to Chapter 1
1. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 34.
2. Pancanal.com data, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/expansion/rpts/informes-de-avance/expansion-report-201210.pdf, 6.
3. Approximately 5,600 people died during the American construction period. Up to 22,000 died during the French effort. See: pancanal.com, undated, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/general/canal-faqs/index.html.
4. Neil Gershenfeld, “How to Make Almost Anything: The Digital Fabrication Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2012, 48–49.
5. For Culebra Cut volume, see: Panama Canal Museum, “Digging in Hell’s Gorge,” undated, http://panamacanalmuseum.org/index.php/exhibits/detail/hells_gorge. For total volume of material excavated, see: Frequently asked questions, Canal de Panama, undated, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/general/canal-faqs/index.html.
6. The volume of the stadium is 104 million cubic feet, which is 3.851 million cubic yards. See fact sheet on Cowboys Stadium, http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/assets/pdf/mediaArchitectureFactSheet.pdf. For seating, see: http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/index.html?detectflash=false.
7. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 544, 547.
8. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 480.
9. Pancanal.com, undated, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/index.html.
10. Jonathan Watts, “Nicaragua gives Chinese firm contract to build alternative to Panama Canal,” Guardian, June 6, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nicaragua-china-panama-canal.
11. Pancanal.com, “The French Canal Construction,” undated, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/index.html.
12. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 167.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid, 168.
15. The excavation of the Cut stopped in May 1913. David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), 604.
16. Pancanal.com, http://www.pancanal.com/eng/history/history/end.html.
17. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I.
Notes to Chapter 2
1. For more on Ehsani, see: http://www.ece.tamu.edu/programs/EPI/labs/PEMDL/Main.html.
2. John Medina, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Seattle, WA: Pear Press, 2008), 39.
3. The sun’s luminosity is 3.84626 watts. Its mass is 1.9830 kg. See: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html.
4. For more, see: http://education.jlab.org/qa/plasma_01.html.
5. Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010), 46.
6. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/fenimore/engl491/bacon.html.
7. Library of Congress info, http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/bibles/interactives/html/gutenberg/page.html.
8. Abbott Payson Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions (New York: Dover, 1982), 238.
9. The History Guide, “The Printing Press,” undated, http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html.
10. P2P Foundation, “Printing Press as an Agent of Change,” undated, http://p2pfoundation.net/Printing_Press_as_an_Agent_of_Change.
11. For more, see http://www.gutenberg.org.
12. PBS.org, http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/deforest.html.
13. For more, see vacuumtubes.net, specifically: http://www.vacuumtubes.net/How_Vacuum_Tubes_Work.html.
14. W. Barksdale Maynard, “Daybreak of the Digital Age,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, April 4, 2012, http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2012/04/04/pages/5444/index.xml?page=2&.
15. For the clip from the movie, see: http://movieclips.com/v9zp-the-school-of-rock-movie-the-man/.
16. Gibson.com, http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Gibson-USA/Les-Paul-Tribute-1952.aspx.
17. Ken Peters, “The Fender Stratocaster: Rock & Roll’s Ultimate Design,” Nocturnal Design, November 14, 2011, http://www.nocturnaldesign.com/blog/?p=850.
18. Edsullivan.com, http://www.edsullivan.com/artists/the-beatles/.
19. Tim Brookes, The Guitar: An American Life, (New York: Grove Press, 2005), 207.
20. Mikhail Safnov, “Confessions of a Soviet moptop,” Guardian, August 7, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2003/aug/08/thebeatles.
21. Lesliewoodhead.com, http://www.lesliewoodhead.com/2011/05/how-the-beatles-rocked-the-kremlin-the-book/.
22. Documentary is available on WNET: http://www.thirteen.org/beatles/video/video-watch-how-the-beatles-rocked-the-kremlin/.
23. Amazon data, http://www.amazon.com/How-Beatles-Rocked-Kremlin-Revolution/dp/1608196143/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363229791&sr=8–1&keywords=How+the+Beatles+Rocked+the+
Kremlin.
24. Toni O’Laughlin, “Truth after 42 years: Beatles banned for fear of influence on youth,” Guardian, September 21, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/22/israelandthepalestinians.thebeatles.
25. James Shingler, “Rocking the Wall: East German Rock and Pop in the 1970s and 1980s,” undated, http://thevieweast.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/rocking-the-wall-east-german-rock-and-pop-in-the-1970s-and-1980s/.
26. Virginmedia.com, http://www.virginmedia.com/music/pictures/toptens/banned-popstars.php?ssid=6.
27. Eric R. Danton, “Pussy Riot Member: ‘What Happened to Us is Unacceptable,’” Rollingstone.com, March 25, 2013, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/pussy-riot-member-what-happened-to-us-is-unacceptable-20130325.
28. PBS.org, http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/deforest.html.
29. Loz Blain, “Inventions that changed the world: Mikhail Kalashnikov’s AK-47,” July 22, 2009, http://www.gizmag.com/kalashnikov-ak-47/12306/.
30. C. J. Chivers, The Gun, excerpted in Esquire, October 27, 2010, http://www.esquire.com/features/ak-47-history-1110.
31. For more, see: http://www.gunclassics.com/list.html.
32. Amnesty International, “TheAK-47: The World’s Favorite Killing Machine,” June 26, 2006, http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_17010.pdf, 4.
33. Ibid.
34. See, for instance, “Ak74 Torture test,” May 31, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHwDfx5nCrA.
35. BBC, “AK-47: Iconic Weapon,” December 5, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4380348.stm.
36. Flag data on Mozambique available here: http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/world-countries-flags/mozambique-flag.gif.
The Hezbollah flag can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hezbollah_Flag.jpg.
37. Nicholas Schmidle, “Top Gun,” Slate, November 1, 2010, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2010/11/top_gun.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2.
38. For more on this, see globalissues.org, http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/78#UNConferenceontheIllicitTradeinSmallArmsJuly2001.