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Will Wind Power Change Earth's Climate?
lommer writes "The Globe and Mail is currently running an article on a recent wind power study. A group of Canadian and American scientists has modelled the effects of introducing massive amounts of wind farms into North America and have come up with surprising results. While still having only 1/5th the impact of fossil fuels, wind power will still adjust the earth's climate with the equatorial regions warmed while the arctic grows colder. Could this be a boon for the nuclear lobby, or is this just further evidence for a diversified power-generating system?"
I surely wish Bush would agree to the Kyoto Protocol
You think wind farms (which are, after all, designed to let most of the wind pass) are going to have more effect than cities full of blocky buildings?
I think not.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. There's a finite quantity of it in this universe, and it's not changing. Of course, Planet Earth is constantly gaining energy on a daily basis thanks to the generosity of The Sun.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that any form of energy capture, no matter how you do it is going to take energy out of the environment and that as a result changes the environment. I'm pretty sure if we had massive solar panels all over the place, that'd effect the temperature by taking sunlight that would have heated the ground and diverting it. There's no free source of energy, you've gotta take it from somewhere!
Why is it that people are so scared of nuclear plants, i would find global climate change to be a lot worse than the ever reducing risk of a nuclear accident. I'd rather have a few square miles potentially ruined than a certain change to the global system.
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
...is fusion power plants!
Or solar cells in space!
"Could this be a boon for the nuclear lobby, or is this just further evidence for a diversified power-generating system?"
Yes and yes. Of all the alternative power sources wind is just about the least practical for large scale explotation. Use the right system in the right place.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Does someone out there really expect wind power to become the major supplier (more than fossil fuels and nuclear) of Earth's energy? Is anyone out there really that naive?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Their protests that we're destroying the environment is a basis for them to derive power from so that they can demand change to our way of life.
So, seriously, no matter what happens, they're going to complain.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Of course they'll have an effect! Cities full of buildings have an effect, don't they? We already know that significantly altering the wind profile of the land changes the climate.
Now, many people say that 'of course they won't have as big an affect as a big city'. Maybe not. But wind power on a scale large enough to power that same big city, it might. It'd be significant, anyway.
I'm glad there's a study saying it now, but dammit people, duh!
I think these scientists are exagerating a bit, you would need a HECK of a lot of wind farms to actually have an affect. The article didn't talk about this at all, it just made a general statement about the 'large-scale' effects of wind farms.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Slight correction, you want them pointing at the coal plants so the radioactive, mercury filled smoke goes around your (and my) house. The Nuclear plant in my town is a good neighbor, paying lots of taxes, while being invisible. The coal power plant just a few miles away is a bad neighbor, doesn't pay taxes (not in my town, I presume they pay taxes to their local town), and feed tons of poisons into the air every day.
Nuclear plants may not be perfect, but compared to the alternatives they are.
Maybe we should just hold our breath and sufficate. That would solve the whole problem...
I've heard numerous times that for the same power output, a nuclear reactor generates less radioactive material than, say, a coal fired plant. The problem is that the nuclear waste is in a big chunk, and must be stored somewhere. My question is, why not pulverize said nuclear waste and pump it into the atmosphere? At worst, we'd be doing slightly better than coal plants right? And we'd have solved the waste storage problem... right? I'm sure there's something I'm missing (other than the obvious: that's just insidiously stupid).
How can this possibly be good news for nuclear energy? A nuclear reactor produces huge amounts of heat - hence the huge, highly visible cooling towers. This point generally gets ignored, since people are far more concerned with other side effects of nuclear power - but any unbiased study of the total global side effect of each kind of energy generation is going to show wind ranking far above nuclear.
Their model is obviously not right. Maybe somebody slept through the class where they said, "If your program's output doesn't match common sense, it's probably your program that's wrong."
We occupy less than a third of the Earth's surface.
Windmills are maybe 100 meters high. The Earth's atmosphere is over 1000 times that thick (though it is, of course, thinner as you go up).
A windmill doesn't keep air from flowing even at the surface, it just slows it and disturbs it a little. Kind of like a tree. Are trees bad, too?
There is just no way we could build enough windmills to affect the Earth's climate.
Even if you could affect climate that way, who knows what other factors would show up to change the result? And that's ignoring the Earth's been getting warmer lately. Or has it? I can't keep up.
Taking energy out of the air doesn't destroy the energy - it just moves it. It'll get released into the atmosphere as heat somewhere else, eventually.
sigs, as if you care.
The best part is watching all the trucks deliver and take away the radioactive fuel and waste. Good thing there aren't ever any highway accidents.
I want to like nukes, but Chernobyl shows just how bad an accident could get.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Seriously, though, it seems as though if we require extreme amounts of energy to power our world, we will alter the world we extract it from. There is no free lunch (lifted from the article). Perhaps the answer is in being more efficient with the power we use, thereby requiring less. But I hate those damn econo-flush toilets.
Our entire electric light rail C-Train mass transportation system is powered by wind generation. Obviously, it's probably small potatoes on a global scale, but it does go to show that wind generated electricity is viable in regions that have steady wind patterns (ours is generated south of Calgary, in Pincher Creek). My understanding is that most of Pincher Creek is also powered by wind generated electricity. I honestly can't see how the climate could possibly be affected - the region is dry and extemely windy. Keep in mind that the towers are not very tall. I highly doubt they affect anything other than surface winds.
For those that are saying that they are noisy (they aren't, unless you're up close to them) or unsightly, I'd encourage you to check out a field of wind turbines, if you have one nearby. I'm not sure about the bird kill issue here in Alberta, I'd have to research that, but I've never seen a dead bird near any of the turbines any time I've visited them. They are clean, quiet, amazing structures. Pure geek awe, really...
Were you sitting in a big leather wheelchair wearing a monocle and petting a white Persian cat as you typed that post?
How about this - we have no freaking idea what the consequences of a rapid climate change will be.
"Oh crap, we killed all the phytoplankton. Now what?" This is heavy stuff.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Blacktop roads have a far bigger heating effect than windfarms and no one is talking about changing that. Anyone who lives in the southwest can tell you that the difference between the temperature within city limits and the countryside can be dramatic. There were a lot of news stories a few years ago about the problem then the press lost interest. This is more hype. Everything we do affects the environment. It's to what to degree it affects it and how do we limit damage.Windfarms don't actually increase the temperature. They raise the ground temperature by mixing the air. Overall it's debatable how much damage is caused. We know coal and oil burning causes damage. Wind and similar sources are pretty obviously the lesser of two evils. Besides when is the last time you heard of some one getting mercury poisioning from a windfarm? Coal burning is the primary source of mercury in the environment.
Nah... the air as a mass may be measured in terms of viscosity, but it's the individual air molecules hitting the building (and each other) that burns off energy.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The Tokamaks and similar thermal fusion devices (Stellarators, etc) are a dead end concept. If you want one of those, just use the power the Sun generates, at least it is for free. Making your own is anti-economic.
Innertial Confinement Fusion may solve the density issue I suppose, but that won't come cheap either and the fact that it is an inherently pulsed device carries its own problems.
So Fission beats Fusion on nearly all criteria. Even once the Tokamaks start working properly.
Cold Fusion would be nice, but I wouldn't bet anything on it.
The solution to the energy problem must lay on a mix of sources. No single source is good enough.
From TFA: "...have turbines that spin at 400 kilometres an hour..."
These guys are magic. Measuring an angular velocity in linear units.
Is it just me or is there something about journalists where, in technical articles, they have to put in gratuitous meaningless figures for no reason? Maybe it's to prove that they understand the subject.
Irrelevance be damned!
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Um, we'll have it even if the entire human race disappeared today. I can't be the only person out there who realizes that the surface temperature, atmospheric composition, ocean salinity, polar caps, etc. are all VERY dynamic things.
We're contributing to climate change, without a doubt, but mother earth herself has a much greater say than our race.
That said, humans are amazingly resourceful, I think we'll do fine with global warming, we'll move up and inland as the ocean rises, no big deal in the long run. We can ship food and people can move relatively freely on the planet, so I don't expect rising oceans or desertification to be nearly as bad as most imagine it.
What I worry about are the toxic chemicals we're dumping, that's something mommy nature really CAN'T deal with well. It'll suck pretty hard if the oceans are reduced to plankton and jellyfish, I sort of like vertebrates. We need to start taxing every pound of plastic produced or something, and start making our 'disposable' commodities (computers, coffee cups, cars) more biodegradeable or recycleable.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Actually there have been. In at least one instance the truck overturned and slid off the road due to ice. There was no release from the casks. There have been 72 incidents (mostly involving cask sweating from loading) and 11 accidents with transports since the 50's.
My biggest beef about nukes is that we have the highest damn electrical rates in the country because ComEd overbuilt the damn things in Illinois and manage them poorly.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
I want to like blimps, but the Hindenburg shows just how bad an accident could get.
I want to like space travel, but the Columbia shuttle incident shows just how bad an accident could get.
I want to like sex, but AIDS shows just how bad an accident could get.
I mean, seriously, are you honestly trying to make this sort of argument? In the development of any technology or process, mistakes are made, and they are learned from. Are you under the impression that there's never been a fatal accident at a coal-based power plant, in the history of their development? Are you under the impression that there have never been accidents with dams? With the development of air travel? Space travel?
Here's a news flash for you: production of energy, at its most basic level, involves the harnessing of an exothermic -- or at least exergonic -- reaction, either chemical or nuclear, at some level or another. This essentially means that if you are dealing with large amounts of energy all concentrated in one place, there always remains the distinct possibility that it could all blow up in your face.
This is true of every single energy production method that actually generates large amounts of energy in a small space. Wind and solar aren't dangerous because the amount of energy generated per square foot is very small; and this is exactly what makes them (at this point in time) unworkable solutions for large scale energy production.
For everything else, you're dealing with potentially explosive, volatile (but hopefully controlled) chemical or nuclear reactions. That's how you get the energy out of them. (Fusion may be an exception).
However, despite the fact that your car runs by constantly harnessing the energy produced by an exploding gasoline/air mixture, it itself doesn't explode. Why is this? Engineering. See, despite the fact that gasoline is volatile (less so now than fuels used in the past, when combustion engines were first being developed) we have figured out how to stabilize engines running on them. They don't blow up in your face. But I'm willing to bet you that when people were first messing around with driving pistons by explosive force, someone got hurt. It was inevitable. It's part of the process.
Look, no one likes accidents, but the Chernobyl thing is silly to bring up. In terms of design, it's like comparing modern cars to Pintos, and concluding that every car will behave that way in an accident -- but Chernobyl, like the Pinto, was flawed from an engineering perspective, not from a technology perspective. When the Pinto was recalled, people didn't say, "Man, this automobile technology is bunk, let's never use it again, and use pogosticks for transportation from now on", they said, "Damn, Ford sure fucked up the design of that car. Let's never design cars like that again."
Throw in the word nuclear, and suddenly, everyone is saying, "Yeah, Chernobyl was poorly designed, and to boot, the operators were running it in a deliberately unsafe manner, and there was an accident; so let's stop the development of nuclear energy completely, and just use our radioactive reserves to build weapons of mass destruction instead." I mean, WHAT?
If someone had suggested that same idea wrt to automobile technology right after the Pinto incident, people would have rightly thought he was looney. But if it's nu-cu-lar, well, darn! I guess that logic makes perfect sense!
Nevermind that current reactor designs are completely different from Chernobyl's, and that the same accident would not be possible again, even if they tried.
Yeah, let's just kill the most promising means of producing renewable, clean energy because, during early development of the engineering principles needed to control such a powerful reaction, an accident occured. Let's wax lyrical about wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power solutions solving all our problems when a) they don't scale b) are prohibitively expensive and c) have problems
I think the idea is, we don't want another ice age. We don't want Jupiter-style hurricanes tearing the earth apart. We want a habitat we can survive and flourish in (as humans) even if we have to stop some natural progression that's already been kicked off.
The money it takes to recover from each environmental "disaster" is real, it stands for human labor and time spent gathering, processing, and applying materials to rebuild economies. We do not have an infinite amount of labor or money to adapt, so we need an answer that helps us live as peacefully as possible.
Seriously. OK, so a few species will go extinct. But who's to say that some species won't flourish as a result. The ecosystem will be different, but it won't necessarily be worse. The ecosystem will adapt.
The real danger to bio-diversity is when the climate changes quickly. That leads to mass extinction, and at times like that, the top of the food chain, and the specialist species are most at risk.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Ballparked the numbers from Google; they should be reasonably accurate. Oil is a very powerful medium to transport energy.
..that is JUST to replace oil consumption ..and that's JUST for the USA alone ..and that assumes an optimistic 50% productivity ..and that assumes 100% energy transfer like oil provides - you'd probably have 50% transfer loss on top of the above - how's 12,000,000 500kW windmills sound? ..and that assumes 0 growth in USA oil production
Oil alone;
MBPD = million barrels per day
Average US consumption of oil per day: ~22MBPD
World Consumption: ~85-90MBPD
Energy in a barrel of oil: ~6.1e9 J
1kWh = 3.61e6 Joules.
Doing some numbers: 1 barrel of oil ~1700kWh
1700kWh/barrel x 22e6 barrels/day x 365day/year =
1.37e13 kWh - Yes, that's 10^13
How many windmills is that?
Let's assume medium-sized windmills for an average - 500kW units. Those are some big honking windmills, but not impractical.
How much energy will one of those provide assuming a 50% cycle (a little on the high end, but hey, let's be optimists) over the course of a year?
500kW x 24h/day x 365d x 0.5 = 2.2e6kWh
1.37e13kWh / 2.2e6 kWh = ~6,234,000 windmills. That's six MILLION windmills.
In short.. fusion, hot or cold, or someone better find out how to extract energy from the quantum vacuum (e.g. casimir effect) or we're all fu.. er, finished.
..don't panic
Good Post. Energy problems are not technological problems. Technology is a McGuffin:
The real debate is not about the technology. It is about who will be the rider and who will be the horse. Who will have the whip in his hand and who will bear the lash patiently.
My favorite debaters are the environmental advocates (many related to an assassinated President) who feel very strongly that the United States needs renewable energy sources but not where the machines can be seen from their summer homes. Then there are who insist that all of our energy problems can be solved by conservation. Few of them maintain the lifestyles of Bengali Peasants, and some of them own their own airplanes and multiple mansions.
There is no hope of progress until such time, if ever, as there is a recognition that there are problems that need to be solved, that the solutions to these problems will impose costs and create benefits, that the costs must be shared across society on an equitable basis and in proportion to the benefits received (no free riders) and that the benefits must be shared on an equitable basis and in proportion to the costs paid (capitalism is the only economic system).
There can be no sacred cows or caribou or snail darters. The residents of New York will have to bear the (very slim) risk of an adverse event at Indian Point and probably 2 or 3 other nuclear plants as well, the Kennedys will have to look at a bunch of wind machines and the folks in Nevada will have to deal with Yucca Mountain and die in the knowledge that 10,000 years from now it may leak (the Pyramids are only 4500 years old). These are all costs that we will have to bear and there will be more of them and others. Taxes will go up. Energy prices will go up. Prices of appliances, buildings and automobiles will go up.
Technology will not make the cost problem go away. It cannot. There is no such thing as a free lunch, that is a law of both physics and economics. If we want to have energy we will have to incur and allocate costs for it. That is a political and economic, not a technological, problem.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
We already knew that hydro-electric generators have this effect on water ecology. It only makes sense that wind would do something similar above ground.
... but nothing stops the production of nasty spent fuel and we've proven over and over that stuff along those lines will leech into the environment at least a little no matter what we do.
... as was pointed out today on a local NPR station when talking about Colorado's new requirement that energy sellers must produce 10% from renewable sources by 2015. They pointed out that 4% of the total must come from solar and are balking because wind and hydro are so much cheaper. Yes, cheaper for -them- but still more expensive to everything in the long-run.
But this being a push for the Nuclear lobby? No thanks. No, I'm not a conspiracy nut who refuses to acknowledge that a properly run fision plant built to modern specs can be run safely
Until Nuclear -fusion- is possible here on Earth, or unless someone figures out that solar panels will cool the Sun, I think I'll take my fusion energy from the sky.
Yes, Solar is more expensive
Of course, I will gladly watch wind and hydro generators replace "clean coal" (that damned coughing eagle!) and hold back fision lobbies, as pointed out wind is still more friendly by far than those sources. But in the end the only good solutions are going to be solar, fusion and if the Sim folks are right, Helium3.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
There is no "one true energy" - people that say so are usually selling something. Everything has advantages and disadvantages.
Nuclear energy is an interesting science experiment, but a bad commercial energy source.
1. Its too expensive, the last plant to come on line in the eighties in the US, generated electricity a cost higher than solar power of the same era (the luz plant). After around $3 trillion in R&D funding, subsidies, loan guarantees, insurance no fault legislation, etc nuclear power is STILL a commercial failure only to exist out of the "goodness" of governments around the world.
2. Smart engineers know Murphy always wins. Its not IF there's going to be a serious accident (there have been many already), its WHEN. Reliability and safety only comes in nines - no such thing a 100% perfect.
3. Nuclear proliferation. The nuclear power industry is the only other major user and generator of nuclear materials other than nuclear weapons. You eliminate nuclear power and nuclear proliferation is easily controlled. Remember it only takes 5lbs of plutonium or 25lbs uranium to make a bomb. Once you've got the material, the bomb itself is literally garage science.
4. Compared to alternative energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc.), it's less commercially viable with far more risks. Nuclear power only wins on one account: energy density. And yet, outside of a nuclear submarine, this isn't an advantage! Transmitting power is twice the operation costs and ten times the capital cost compared to the generation of that power. Small decentralized power souces such a solar, photovoltaics, wind, etc is far cheaper overall.
5. Large monolithic power plants take years to build, the investment makes no sense without government subsidies if you have to wait 5 years just to begin to make some income, and 15 years to breakeven. Modular power technologies that are built on an assembly lines, such as photovoltaics generate returns within days.
I could go on here, but I think you get the point. Nuclear energy is a fun science experiment, but commercially we should cut our losses and run.
Solar power is after all fusion power already done for us, at a safe distance, and transmitted free nearly equally around the world with sufficient energy density to suit the worlds needs for millennia to come.
Interpretation for computer guys:
Nuclear power: old complex clunky mainframe, prone to bugs.
Solar power: wireless handheld with worldwide networking
Specifically, if wind generation were expanded to the point where it produced one-10th of today's energy, the models say cooling in the Arctic and a warming across the southern parts of North America should happen. The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles.
So they created a computer model, which when run indicated drastic temperature shifts across the globe. And yet they don't know by which mechanism this occurred????
Obfuscated Code contests aside, if a computer programmer can't figure out out how his program came up with the answer that it produced, then he either lied about his C.S. degree or he's trying to sell you snake oil.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
TANSTAAFL (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).
The results of this research doesn't surprise me in the least. I agree that the actual results may be a bit different, but the general result is almost a no-brainer.
For the most part, winds are convection currents -- generated by the difference in temperature and humidity between different spots in the world -- but heat is the serious driver in this. As an overall results, physics will call for an equalization of states -- this means cooling the equator and heating the poles.
Windmills bleed off some of the kinetic energy from this process, as such, they're almost guaranteed to slow the process of pumping heat from the equator to the poles.
This is, however, probably a good thing, because other studies have concluded that the arctic will be (and has been) more affected by global warming than the temperate and tropical regions, so slowing the process would actually help to cut back some of the side effects of global warming, and possibly help to protect the polar ice caps (and thus moderate the resulting ocean level rise).
It's not a question if projects like this on a large scale would affect the weather. The answer to that is a no-brainer (yes). The question is how, and (probably more importantly) how we could most beneficially manage the resulting side-effects.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
So why don't we just make nuclear plants surrounded by solar panels. One sucks up the heat from the sun while the other pumps heat out into the environment. ;)
Seriously though, in the end any electricity we make gets turned into heat somewhere by whatever device uses it.
East Coast Brewers
Well, actually, breaking wind does indeed have an effect on the climate - at least when it is sheep and cattle that do it ;-)
Sorry, I just had to say it. Apart from that, I find it a bit funny to see that on one side a lot of people reject the thought that burning fossil fuel is a major factor in the global heating, because 'it isn't sufficiently proved', but the all jump at this one, which is not in the least as well founded, scientifically.
This is not to say that I don't think the result is valid; but if one accepts this result, there is no good reason to reject that our pollution with CO2 etc is causing the global heating; and that if we want to improve our outlook, we must take steps now by drastically reducing our burning of fossil fuel.
Especially since there's an outside chance that the atmosphereic CO2 levels could get worse a lot faster than anticipated. Climatologists are just now getting hip to the fact that the Earth's oceans are acting as giant carbon dioxide sinks by the exact same mechanism we remove CO2 from our blood streams.
This mechanism is an equilibrium between CO2 (gaseus) and carbonic acid (liquid). A shift in the pH of the oceans may indicate that the ability of them to soak up 'excess' carbon dioxide is nearly exceeded. Which would cause CO2 to just build up in the atmosphere. This would cause a dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2 almost regardless of policy decisions made by us (short of not emmitting any more CO2 at all!). Not to mention the marine life that would be deleteriously effected by a shift in pH long before.
And the cost for such cells is prohibitive to the average homeowner, and most power utilities are already set up to make live a living hell for those who wish to sell their excess power to the utility, making it even harder to pay off. Taking out a second mortgage on a power source that you'll most likely have to make use of the warranty on, as well as incurring decades worth of debt; not most people's (or their bank's) idea of a wise investment, when there is an alternative that is hardly more expensive over that 30 years. Then there's the power conversion and regulation equipment, among other things. It is just to expensive and too big a problem for most people to even consider. It's too big a risk in most people's minds. Enron stock was a guaranteed thing once upon a time.
It also snows in most areas of the US, reducing power output significantly. Plus there's the headaches involved with having either no power at night, or having to rely on other sources of energy during that time. (Again, a real problem in more northern latitudes).
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
than this Slashdot headline.
The bottom line is...
the results are inconclusive, and this needs to be studied more. It is quite possible that the predicted changes would be a good thing. My interpretation of this: While global warming tries melt the ice caps, this would cool them off.
The researcher also pointed out that the models were so rough, things could be quite different from what they predicted in this preliminary study.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
See a recent issue of National Geographic which shoes the methane (or whatever it is) burnoff from oil refineries - why isn't that worth capturing. Ever drive through Texas and wonder why those enormous gas flames atop the refineries there are heating up the night sky ?
The real issue as I see it is not how to generate more energy more efficiently with less environmental impact.
The issue is how to use that energy much more efficiently than we do now.
I don't think the generation of energy is anywhere near as significant an issue as the WASTE of energy that is taking place all the time !
The authors looked at what would happen if a significant percentage of the earth's surface was covered with wind farms; most advocates of alternative energy sources propose a diverse mix of different renewable energy sources. And, yes, it would have an effect. Probably, an effect not very different from the effect of having lots of forests.
Unlike greenhouse gas emissions, the effect is immediately reversible (CO2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries, but wind farms could be stopped or removed), and it mostly counteracts the consequences of the greenhouse effect (e.g., it creates arctic cooling).
The author himself states that he thinks that this is unquestionably preferable to greenhouse gases--he called it a "no brainer", actually.
Seriously. OK, so a few species will go extinct. But who's to say that some species won't flourish as a result. The ecosystem will be different, but it won't necessarily be worse. The ecosystem will adapt.
The ecosystem will adapt, it always has, some species will be losers, some will be winners. The question is: which will homo sapiens be, a winner or a loser? The losers tend to be those at the top of the pile when it was kicked over (i.e. us), the winners tend to be little things living at the bottom of the food chain. The Permian-Triassic extinction event wiped out 70% of all land species and 95% of all marine ones. For some time after the dominant form of life was fungus. I don't know about you, but I'm happy reading about that in a book, I don't particularly feel the urge to experience an "adjusting" ecosystem at first hand.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
In this messageboard we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
:)
Actually there is no thermodynamic impossibility here. The grandparent poster describes the following cycle:
- Cook a burrito
- Eat burrito, biochemically extract some energy from them
- Use this energy to cook two burritos
Now most of the energy contained in the burrito does not come from the cooking. It comes from the energy-rich materials contained in the beans and other ingredients, which were acquired through biological processes based on solar energy (and a whole lot of chemical reactions revolving around ATP).
So clearly there is nothing impossible in the idea of using some of this energy to heat other burritos. Of course there is a limit on the amount of energy available, and thus on the degee of cooking you can apply.
I know, I'm sad.
Thomas-
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If you were to a process to harness good intentions for power, prove that its 100% clean,safe and 110% effecient, there would still be people screaming NOT IN MY BACKYARD.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
From the study:
"The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles."
So they made a computer model and they don't know how it works and why it produces the results that it does. That sure fills me with confidence about their model.
"One unexpected finding to the study is that the hotter temperate zone/cooler Arctic effect exists in the simulations if the wind farms are concentrated in a few spots or scattered across the world."
So they have a computer model that produces the same results regardless of inputs. Yet more indication that their model is broken...
"The mechanism for local temperature changes are the vertical eddies that behemoth windmills ? these monsters can be 30 stories tall and have turbines that spin at 400 kilometres an hour ? would generate."
A turbine spins at 400 kilometers per hour? Huh? Rotation is measured in RPM, not KPH. Unless those turbines are in jet engines I seriously doubt they're moving at more than 0 kph. Anyone's guess as to what a turbine spinning at "400 kph" means.
In short, this sounds like alarmist B.S. Quite frankly it's becoming very clear that while it may have sounded silly in the beginning that it looks entirely obvious that the real agenda of "environmentalists" is economic not environmental.
"Wind power"? Causes global warming.
"Solar power"? Can cause climate change if massively deployed and can harm the local ecosystem.
"Nuclear power"? Enough said.
"Ocean current/tidal power"? Disturbs the coast's ecosystem.
There is no solution that the environmentalists like except reducing consumption of industrialized countries. Their goal is not to cure the environment. Their goal is to redistribute wealth in the world. Every potential new source of energy that they shoot down just makes that more and more clear.
"Specifically, if wind generation were expanded to the point where it produced one-10th of today's energy, the models say cooling in the Arctic and a warming across the southern parts of North America should happen.
And what changes does this model predict if we put 24,533,000 kg of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere?