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Wind Could Provide 100% of World Energy Needs
Damien1972 sends in a report on a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, which finds that wind power could provide for the entire world's current and future energy needs. "To estimate the earth's capacity for wind power, the researchers first sectioned the globe into areas of approximately 3,300 square kilometers (2,050 square miles) and surveyed local wind speeds every six hours. They imagined 2.5 megawatt turbines crisscrossing the terrestrial globe, excluding 'areas classified as forested, areas occupied by permanent snow or ice, areas covered by water, and areas identified as either developed or urban,' according to the paper. They also included the possibility of 3.6 megawatt offshore wind turbines, but restricted them to 50 nautical miles off the coast and to oceans depths less than 200 meters. Using [these] criteria the researchers found that wind energy could not only supply all of the world's energy requirements, but it could provide over forty times the world's current electrical consumption and over five times the global use of total energy needs."
... to have a noticeable impact on the Coriolis force?
And Holland's tourism industry would crash, I mean without the windmills, why would you want to go to the Netherlands... I mean isn't that what draws all those young folks to Amsterdam these days?
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Let's fill the world with gigantic metal spinning blades suspended hundreds of feet in the air. What could possibly go wrong?
Scientists confirmed today that Global Slowing is real. After years of speculation, it's now been confirmed that our harnessing of wind power for our energy needs is slowing the Earth down, and within a matter of decades, the Earth will come to a complete stop. Scientists are currently unsure whether this Global Slowing can be reversed, but some have proposed using fossil fuels to create artificial wind to help the Earth keep moving.
It'd seem having massive wind turbines would slow down the movement of air, which might lead to scenarios where the current global warming scare would be merely a trifle.
Not if you fit the turbines within the Senate's chambers...
The long term plan is to let evolution take its course. Eventually we'll be left with Ninja birds that have learned how to avoid wind turbine blades. These will then be put through further training to teach how to stop crapping on my car right after I've washed it.
Not if you fit the turbines within the Senate's chambers...
damn that's a lot of hot air right there.
Deja Moo: The feeling you've heard this bullsh*t before.
if we have nearly unlimited electricity what will we do with the heat?
Crank up the air-con. Uses up some of the spare electricity AND cools things down. Problem solved.
You have a really valuable argument that people should spend a lot of time worrying about. It's a real shame that most people won't see it, since it's posted anonymously. Wind is essentially created by heat from the sun. Using all these wind turbines will obviously make the sun go out.
That would be a real problem.
I've heard of the dihydrogen monoxide, there's a cemetery in my town where every single corpse buried there was a dihydrogen monoxide drinker. obviously, that compound has a 100% lethality rate.
Paint them black and cover them with photovoltaic cells.
I see a red windmill and I want it painted black
No birds fly anymore I want them to turn black
I see the vanes turn round dressed in voltaic cells
I have to turn on lights until the darkness goes
Doesn't matter. You can erect five turbines and use the energy output from them to make a hundred more. With those hundred turbines you can make ten thousand. It's called a windfarm because that's where you breed new turbines.
No sig today...
Terminal* as in the end of the line (in this case, death).
*From the latin Terminae, meaning "cyborg sent from the future to destroy the leader of the resistance before he is ever born"
which is totally what she said