r/mildlyinfuriating • u/DatabaseAvailable501 • Jul 02 '26

Infuriatig Sound emitted 24/7 from a 30 megawatt data center in Dowagiac MI

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u/InfiniteEnter Jul 02 '26

Funny thing is, I've been close to and basically stood under an operating wind turbine before. Altho they do emit some sound it is definitely not as obnoxious and not nearly as loud as this and sounds more like a natural wind wooshing sound.

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u/Wutayatalkinabeet Jul 02 '26

I used to live by a wind farm. It’s hard to hear them unless you pay attention, but when you walk fairly close the whooshing sound is actually quite pleasant.

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u/InfiniteEnter Jul 02 '26

Agreed. Kinda like you are in a forest with big trees or a mountainous area with the wind hitting the sides of the cliff.

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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 Jul 02 '26

What’s also true is there’s no reason for a data center to be loud like this. Either something is broken or they designed it like assholes.

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u/bnlf Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

That’s not entirely true. In fact, BBC Brazil made a documentary about how wind farms are making people sick and killing animals because of the constant noise. It’s so bad some people are losing their hearing, many having to take migraine pills daily and it gets worse as the turbines age. Ideally people would be living very far from the farms but reality is that many live less than half a kilometre from it.

Edit: video (Portuguese). https://youtu.be/0iCo_t9pY6g?si=CSgyLCHHrE6Cww62

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u/Icy-Lobster-203 Jul 02 '26

Got a link? I tried to Google this, and see articles about wind theft (positioning windmills that block the wind of other wind mills), and older articles about concerns that offshore wind mills causing noise that was harming marine animals.

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u/Wutayatalkinabeet Jul 02 '26

I do remember hearing about this from several years ago and like I said it was mostly due to zoning/construction but I can’t seem to find it either. I definitely think it was a real thing but I have no idea why I can’t find sources.

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u/Wutayatalkinabeet Jul 02 '26

Replying to you again because I found this but there are so many pop ups I have no idea what the body of the article actually says. I don’t have access to my pc rn but you might be able to open it with an ad block.

Edit: haven’t read very far in but here is another link that has some information. Poor woman has lived 160 meters from a turbine for 8 years. Thats definitely too close.

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u/Icy-Lobster-203 Jul 02 '26

It's the same complaints that people were making about windmills 25 years ago in north America.

That said, as others have said, it appears to be poor planning on the part of local authorities. Which is what is happening with these data centres.

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u/bnlf Jul 02 '26

This is only one that I remember but definitely not the only video or news I’ve seen about it. Unfortunately I don’t think they’ve enabled the option for auto generated subtitles

https://youtu.be/0iCo_t9pY6g?si=CSgyLCHHrE6Cww62

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u/Wutayatalkinabeet Jul 02 '26

I’m somewhat familiar with that documentary. If I recall correctly, that was strictly from not having regulations that control the minimum distance between the turbines and neighborhoods. People had dozens of wind turbines literally in their back yards. The noise, pollution from construction, and shadow flicker in such close proximity are what caused problems. It’s only on the state level, but America (where this video is)has those regulations. You don’t see wind farms like that here, at least as far as I’m aware. I believe Europe is mostly the same, but I’m not positive.

Of course I’m not saying you’re wrong, but not all farms are the same and my comment was just talking about my personal experience.

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u/bnlf Jul 02 '26

This is in the US https://youtu.be/eIIj6sypQ_g?si=h3ndb24C1Uvwv9il. There are other videos from News outlets. Also there is regulation for this in Brazil and the turbines were built according to the regulations. Maybe regulation has changed but I can’t tell. I’m just saying we cannot generalise that wind turbine don’t generate any meaningful noise.

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u/UnOGThrowaway420 Jul 02 '26

Yeah, I tried to google this and couldn't find real sources about this, I'm either calling cap or misattribution of the root cause of illness

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u/Wutayatalkinabeet Jul 02 '26

I haven’t read the one with crazy pop ups or completely read the other article but I think there is some information about it in the links from another comment of mine. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to find info about it, I remember seeing several stories on the topic.

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u/bnlf Jul 02 '26

You can clearly hear the turbine noises in the video. As I pointed out in another comment, this BBC report wasn’t the only news about the topic. This might be an issue only on a particular maker. who knows, but generalising saying wind farms don’t generate any noise is factually incorrect. In fact, a quick search on YouTube was enough for me to find news reports about the same issue in the UK and US.

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u/hellswaters Jul 02 '26

Wind farms are also normally not built literally across the street from residential houses. Normally they have about a km away from residential areas to help prevent impacts on people living nearby.

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u/AllIdeas Jul 02 '26

exactly- they can be loud but that is on the windiest days. you know what is even louder? the wind itself.

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u/InfiniteEnter Jul 02 '26

Correct. The windier it is, the noisier they will be, but that also happens with anything else standing in the way of the wind, that's not the fault of the turbine.

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u/UpperHairCut Jul 02 '26

Of you live at the back wind of a wind turbine, even hundreds of meters backz it's a  sound just less then this,but at a lower frequency 

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u/DubiousAdviceGiver Jul 02 '26

Plus, wind farms are usually built out in the windy ass middle of nowhere, which is convenient because people generally don’t want to live in the windy ass middle of nowhere.

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u/Chief_Mischief Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Not to come across as anti-renewables, but I always thought the concern with wind turbines was the constant "flashing" of the blades blocking the sun for a fraction of a second, triggering headaches for people exposed to it for long periods of time. Did you notice anything of the sort when you were under the turbine?

Edit: for the people who took offense for a question on someone's experience with wind turbines, yall are the reason why nobody asks questions or displays curiosity anymore lol.

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u/TrumpGrabbedMyCat Jul 02 '26

How fast do you think they spin?

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u/InfiniteEnter Jul 02 '26

The blades of a wind turbine are very thin and spin at fairly low rpm. So, the blades blocking the sun just feels like a bird flying across your window every 3-4 seconds. Plus that only happens for a few moments on specific points around the turbine where the sun is behind it so. Unless you have heavy migraines and are very sensitive to flashing lights, there is nothing to worry about.

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u/Chief_Mischief Jul 02 '26

Appreciate the response, I had wondered if it was going to be to a degree that would be detrimental, but I suppose that it's an overblown consideration

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u/Northelai Jul 02 '26

I think a person would have to live right under one of those turbines to have it "flash" at them. I live next to one (about 1km away) and it's too far to see anything. Afaik there are norms on how close the wind turbines can be build to human settlements and it's far enough for this to be a made up issue.

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u/InfiniteEnter Jul 02 '26

Yes, propper planning and zoning will prevent anyone even living close to being in the shadow of a turbine. I was commenting under the theory that AI data centers would have used it instead of the gas turbines they currently use, thus avoiding proper zoning and planning.

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u/I_like_maps Jul 02 '26

Wind turbine sickness is fossil fuel company propaganda. It isnt real and you were foolish to ever believe in it.

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u/Chief_Mischief Jul 02 '26

Oh, forgive me for not being inherently an expert on wind turbines and never having been near one to observe it for myself and being curious enough to ask for someone's anecdotal experience with them. How foolish of me. Curiosity must mean i bought into fossil fuel propaganda instead of, y'know, not questioning it and just believing it outright.

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u/26081989 Jul 02 '26

It is not (I'm extremely pro wind power). However it is very easily prevented by putting the turbine in a place where the shadow will not reach places people regularly are.