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The Science Is Clear: Offshore Wind Isn’t What’s Killing Whales (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by paul0207@lemmy.sdf.org to c/science@mander.xyz

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"Politicians and nonprofit groups have blamed offshore wind turbines for whale deaths, but the science doesn’t support those claims—at all"

"Conducting necropsies on beached whales to pin down a cause of death is made difficult by the animals’ layer of blubber and by the fact that organs can literally cook inside a stranded whale. But it is starkly clear that human activity—in the form of ships that hit whales or fishing gear that wraps around them—is often to blame."

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[–] paul0207@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Their pseudo science blames some kind of infrasound waves from the turbines.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

"Some kind of infrasound waves"

Haven't read the article yet so please excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't driving the pillars for the foundation into the sediment produce infrasound? And once the turbine is running, it's hard to imagine such a large device to not cause any kind of sub 20Hz vibrations. After all, you can usually hear and sometimes feel them when standing close by the mills on land. (Edit: or, you're really only hearing the ripples propagating along the infrasound wave, or "woosh", of the blades passing the tower. The time^-1^ between two "whoosh"-es being the frequency of this particular infrasound wave.)

Though, whether the infrasound is loud enough to be a problem is questionable.

[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Vibrations that low would make the turbine unstable, the resonant frequency of the structure would be much higher. The control system would also attenuate any resonant frequencies that low.

[–] paul0207@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 months ago

I agree that they could be a source of weak infrasound (<20 Hz), but apart of fringe web sites nobody was able to determine a significant effect on humans or animals.