Time is right for turbine ban

Sir, – There has long been anecdotal evidence of wind turbines having serious adverse effects on human health; now thanks to a team led by Professor Christian Friedrich Vahl at the medical university of Mainz in Germany, we have an explanation for this.

Professor Vahl’s team have discovered that low frequency noise or infra-sound, which we cannot hear, can weaken human heart muscle by up to 20% and can also alter blood flow.

In an interview, he described the effect of infra-sound as being like a jammer for the heart.

Given that the theoretical limit for wind turbine efficiency is 41%, the majority of the energy extracted by the turbines from the wind is dissipated as infra-sound.

Worryingly, one of the characteristics of infra-sound is that it is very penetrating.

Normal walls will make essentially no difference to it.

The professor points out that to protect from infra-sound you would need a very high eight metre thick wall.

Such a wall would have to be thicker than most houses and considerably taller.

When we add the serious threat to human health to the other problems of wind turbines (expensive part-time electricity, turbine flicker, damage to the environment and, when construction is taken into account, not reducing CO2), it is clear that the time has come for a moratorium on new turbines.

Otto Inglis. 6 Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh.