What is infrasound? It’s simply any very low frequency sound outside the lower range at which our ears can hear it – for most people below 20 Hz. It’s all around us from natural and man-made sources at low and irregular levels. Elephants and blue whales even use it to communicate, since it travels very well over large distances. Much further than the sounds we can hear.
What is the issue with wind turbines and infrasound? (and why don’t developers tell you about it!) Inevitably, even new turbines generate sounds – from the gears in the hub, to the swooshing of the blades. None of which are likely to improve as the machinery ages. However, the infrasound is generated as pulses of huge air pressure changes (which are inaudible) every time a blade passes in front of the large metal tower.
Why is this a big deal? These pressure pulses of infrasound travel many kilometres from the turbine, and unlike audible sounds will penetrate any buildings in their path, and indeed our bodies, and the cells that make them up – property insulation or headphones can’t keep them out. Of course, being made by a wind turbine, they’re both very regular, and also vary in amplitude or strength according to atmospheric conditions – wind speed, temperature, humidity. They’ll also be influenced by the land’s contours and the presence of infrasound from other nearby turbines.
Does turbine size have any influence? Sadly, yes. The bigger the turbines, the longer the blades, the bigger the pressure change pulses which are generated.
But if we can’t hear these sounds, why does it matter? When larger turbines began to be erected in the early 2000’s, many people living close to them began to become sick, with a range of health issues. Doctors called it “wind turbine syndrome”. More recently, scientists from around the world have worked out why – the repetitive infrasound (although we can’t hear it) activates a couple of small areas of the brain (the ACC and amygdala) which are responsible for our normal protective responses to stress, and emotions. MRI scans clearly confirm this. It doesn’t affect everyone, but around 30 % of the population has a genetically determined sensitivity to this – nothing you can do will alter it. Badly affected people simply can’t cope with the chronic ill health (migraines, vertigo, tinnitus, heart damage and much other internal cellular damage caused by the pressure pulses) from constant turbine infrasound, and are forced to leave their homes on a temporary or permanent basis.
Why don’t developers warn us about this? Clearly, owning up to this problem (that turbines can harm the health of a large number of local residents) isn’t a good ‘sell’. (Look at where a short discussion of infrasound is hidden in the nearby Waun Maenllwyd Wind Energy Hub documents. 59th of the list of 60 environmental statement appendices to the outline planning application – after all those relating to bats, birds, lichens, views, planes, forestry, archaeology, etc… It’s there, but with a few old references, and questions raised about the veracity of the health problems caused.) Globally, Big Wind is very Big Business. We all know how long it took for the dangers of smoking, thalidomide, asbestosis, Teflon, to be admitted by their proponents. Ask yourself if all the people affected by wind turbines who are interviewed in the documentaries below are making their stories up?
Fortunately, Wales is quite late to this big industry party. Many other countries have already used their communities as unwitting guinea pigs for this new ‘green’ industry. And these rural communities have suffered the consequences of wind turbine development and its infrasound health impacts on them.
Future health issues are far more concerning for anyone affected than illusory “Power for prosperity”.
Here are a few films worth watching to get up to speed on what’s ahead for our communities, if permission is granted for these projects:
A half-hour German documentary exploring the issues of wind turbine-generated infrasound. How it’s been measured and how its impacts on health have been recently studied. And how a couple’s life has been turned upside down by it.
A long documentary on the damage done, and battles fought in Canada, where a similar politically driven rush to wind power has wrecked lives and communities (and in a landscape frankly far less beautiful than upland Wales).
Given in Copenhagen, Denmark – the heart of the wind turbine industry on 8 Oct 2025. This film is a recording of a very recent lecture by Professor Ken Mattsson, a Swedish researcher in the field of infrasound measurement and modelling for over 25 years.
This contemporary peer-reviewed published paper, by Mattsson, et al. published in Applied Acoustics
Volume 243, 5 February 2026, 111156 covers the same subject matter as Mattson’s lecture in more detail with clear sound contour model maps:
Another recorded lecture from 2018 about the health impacts of infrasound by Professor Mariana Alves-Pereira, who has researched this topic for 30 years. Much information is discussed, including histopathology slides of several tissue types, which highlight the potential impact of chronic infrasound exposure on many organs in our bodies. She has said in another interview:
“I personally would not live 20km away from them… We have identified the wind turbine acoustic signature in a home 12km away from the closest wind turbine.”
- If you’d rather read something, again from Canada, try this good summary article: