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New Study Suggests Wind Farms Can Cause Climate Change
nachiketas writes "A study led by Liming Zhou, Research Associate Professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of New York concludes that large wind farms could noticeably impact local weather patterns. According to Professor Zhou: 'While converting wind's kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface-atmosphere exchanges and transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere. These changes, if spatially large enough, might have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.'"
Who wrote that headline and how can we make him stop writing new ones.
We must stop this reliance on wind energy, which is causing such harm to the environment! Increased usage of this harmful wind pollution will inevitably result in a global climate catastrophe within the next century! We must start finding alternative fuels NOW!
This has been done to death already elsewhere. The bottom line is that increasing the surface temperature (at the expense of cooling the air) increases the thermal radiation into space and therefore has the overall bottom line effect of (very slightly) cooling the earth.
Modifying wind patterns will very obviously have an effect on local climate. Local is the key word - these guys are talking about and increase of under one degree, directly above those wind farms, and it seems likely that this is caused by the small amounts of turbulence generated by the turbines.
Now, if evidence emerges that this is harmful in some way, then we should of course evaluate that and make sure we understand the effects. However, I think stating "Wind Farms Can Cause Climate Change" is clearly intended to sensationalise this research and attract page views - especially given The Telegraph's well-known rabid-anti-environmentalism (they're especially anti-wind-turbine.)
From TFA:
However Prof Zhou pointed out the most extreme changes were just at night and the overall changes may be smaller.
Also, it is much smaller than the estimated change caused by other factors such as man made global warming.
“Overall, the warming effect reported in this study is local and is small compared to the strong background year-to-year land surface temperature changes,” he added.
...
“This makes sense, since at night the ground becomes much cooler than the air just a few hundred meters above the surface, and the wind farms generate gentle turbulence near the ground that causes these to mix together, thus the ground doesn't get quite as cool. This same strategy is commonly used by fruit growers (who fly helicopters over the orchards rather than windmills) to combat early morning frosts.”
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Any removal of energy from the environment wlll affect the environment.
Solar energy capture reduces ground heating. Hyrdo capture reduces errosion and soil redistribution. Wind capture reduces winds and associated head and moisture distribution. Wave energy capture reduces shore errosion and fine particlate distribution. Tide capture does really really small scale stuff to the earth-moon-sun relationship.
You don't get anything for free. The question is what do we accept as side effects of the energy extraction.
All rational people understand that entropy exists and is always increasing. The point is not that humans can have an impact on climate and environment, the question is can we do things to minimize the impact.
For example, we replaced horse poop all over the city with leaded fuel exhaust. When we did not all live in cities, the horse poop was not so bad, but cars were better for cities. Then we realized that lead was not so good for us, so we took lead out. Then the exhaust was still not so good, so we made cars more efficient. These changes costs important people lots of money, so they were opposed by uncreative people with lots of money, but in the end we have more efficient transportation that do not leave piles of feces in the street.
So I read this report the other day, and my question is still the same. Would these locations prefer a windmill farm or coal fired plant. I ask this question because ultimately we cannot continue to reap the benefit of electricity production and outsource the consequences. It is expensive to do so. The question is not that does the new tech cause problems, but are those problems less than the old tech. I think it is arguably so.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Wouldn't this really just be the same effect as an equivalent area covered by large trees? Yes, it could slightly alter the climate, but any physical environment change will.
Anything that sticks out of the ground is going to have an impact on airflow and climate. We should demolish all buildings and trees and live underground. Lizard people figured this out centuries ago. That's why they live underground.
Isn't one of the main purposes of using wind power to reverse the effects of global warming, in other words to change the climate?
You know, there are large projects which involve planting trees along freeways to help reduce the noise of the vehicles passing through. And sometimes, in cities where the tall buildings grow, the streets are extremely windy because the streets, sans foliage, tend to channel and concentrate the flow of air as it rushes from high pressure to low pressure zones.
Trees and wind farms do tend to act against the constant shift of balance from high to low. And without them resisting (but not stopping) the flow of air, the changes become more gentle... at least near the surface... (Nothing is stopping the flows where the REAL weather is happening... up, thousands of feet above the surface of the ground.)
"You cannot take energy out of a system without impacting the performance of the system." Yeah... kinda true... sort of... but the thing that makes weather is discarded energy sent to us from the sun. The sun sends out its energy in limitless amounts. No amount of pin-wheels will change what the sun is doing and so the difference in potential which is where we get energy, will remain pretty much the same regardless of how much we are able to extract from it.
... change of climate (which is what I think TFA is implying, didn't read though) is not the same as "climate change".
Because it's mostly BS. Think about it. What do you think planting trees does to the wind? What about cutting trees down? We've cut enough trees down over the past 200 years that we could probably put a billion wind turbines up and not get back to what was "natural" 200 years ago.
As far as the forces involved, imagine a kid dabbling his toes in a river. Does he slow the river down or change its course? No. What about 100 kids? Still no. The forces pushing the river are so much larger and stronger than anything toes can interrupt. Sure a tiny bit of the river slows down as the water swirls and eddies around the toes, but as gravity continues to pull it downstream, it speeds right back up to the speed it was going before. If you're not actually removing water (e.g. for a city water supply) or blocking enough to form a lake (e.g. a dam), you're not going to have a noticeable impact downstream.
Changes are made to a ecosystem and the ecosystem reacts to those changes, news at eleven.
http://www.epa.gov/hiri/ "The term "heat island" describes built up areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas. The annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8–5.4F (1–3C) warmer than its surroundings. In the evening, the difference can be as high as 22F (12C)." Great news story, I really feel clued in to the important issues of the day. *kills self*
Windfarms only cause apparent climate change when meteorologists have their thermometers on the ground. Mixing air of different temperatures doesn't heat it, not while the conservation of energy is valid.
I think this almost falls into the 'no shit, Sherlock' camp. I'm glad someone with credentials is finally saying it. Please pass it along to the geo-thermal guys, who seem to think that sucking energy from the inside of this planet will never have an effect. Oh, and the wave-power-generation guys need to know too - they'll be disturbing ecologies and water flow patterns for miles around - who knows how far those effects will cascade? Scale counts - oil consumption wasn't a problem until we scaled it out - the same fate awaits any terrestrial energy source we scale.
There are only two places to get energy: 1. Earth, 2. Not Earth. Given a choice, I'll choose 2.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Skyscrapers and any large man-made structures also have an effect on regional climate. Is this any different? At least with wind farms, we're not dumping high levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and superheating the earth.
To sum up your post: entropy is a bitch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem
"An ecosystem is a biological system consisting of all the living organisms or biotic components in a particular area and the nonliving or abiotic component with which the organisms interact, such as air, mineral soil, water and sunlight."
Even if windmills are not living beings, they interact with wind that in turn interacts with living beings and other abiotic components. I'm no biologist but I think this is quite obvious.
And this same exact effect is also observed in a forest. And those areas where the wind farms are (except for off shore ones) used to have Huge old growth forests only a few hundred years ago if you are talking about the USA, 6000 years ago if you are talking europe, asia, middle-east, etc..
So what about the effect on climate from all those damned trees?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You're forgetting how few people actually understand thermodynamics.
I imagine most people (and politicians) think wind / solar / tidal energy = magically free energy, with an emphasis on the word magic.
I am John Hurt.
A very concerned bum asked me about that one time while I was walking around with a hard hat on.
I told him "No, solar panels won't suck up all the sun, they just used the wasted sunlight, so there will still be enough for you"
damn I never have mod points when I need them. +1 Funny :)
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Dumbass, he wasn't talking about "building a farm on the Sun", he was talking about a farm where we could grow our own tiny stars right here on Earth.
A stretch of highway will have far more affect on climate than an entire wind farm. I live in the eastern end of the Phoenix metropolitan area and just driving 15 miles west in the summer can increase the temperature 10 degrees just from all the concrete and black top. The temperature difference they are talking about from windmills is minor. Black top causes major increases. If you want to reduce heat don't not build windmills make roads a lighter color. It's been discussed for years but there's no political will to do it.
Wind farms *MIGHT* perceptably slow down air near the surface of the earth only... within a hundred meters or so.... in a not entirely dissimilar way to how buildings can shelter people from wind.
But you could cover the entire planet with wind farms, and that would have negligible impact on the earth's climate because 100 meters is positively puny compared to the total size of the earth's atmosphere. It would impact even less than buildings because buildings actually block the air, where turbines let it all through. Further, the cross sectional area of a blade that is 10 meters long is perhaps at most about 10 square meters, while the total swept area of a blade that long is over 300 square meters. Allowing for the fact that there are 3 blades per turbine, the turbine is only affecting (at most) 10% of the air that is passing through any given turbine. And again, it's not actually stopping it... it's passing right through. Coupled with the absolutely enormous mass of air above the turbines that is even more negligibly affected by the presence of stuff on the ground, the net impact on climate stands to be somewhere near nil.
One might as well suggest that harnessing the energy from tides might perceptibly impact the orbit of the moon...
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://www.theonion.com/audio/wind-reserves-to-run-out-by-2036,13448/
The study talks about local temperature changes in the vicinity of wind-farms by comparing non-wind-farm areas very near by. This kind of invalidates the word climate in the headline as climate is global, not local. Weather is local. While the paper does say that if large enough, a wind farm could have a climatic effect, I'm assuming it would have to be an apolitically huge wind farm. The study also notes that the effect is small when compared to anthropogenic factors.
The reason fossil fuels are well known to cause climate change is the effect is, practically permenant since we are raising the level of the CO2. The CO2 will STILL BE THERE after we stop burning fossil fuels, even after we have depleted every bit of coal and oil, it will be in the atmosphere for a long time. The idea that wind farms would cause warming is absurd, since wind farms could displace Co2 consumption they would reduce it by reducing Co2 emissions. The effect of reducing or eliminating CO2 would have a far greater positive impact than any negative of wind. The effet of Co2 is permenant and irreversible. A Wind farm can be turned on and off at will.
Another reason for these renewables is they are renewable, climate change is happening but the fact tht solar and wind are renewable alone makes them better choices than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will be depleted, first hitting peak and then decling, hence peak oil. THAT is an absolute, gauranteed physical certainty. It is hard to precisely estimate how much longer fossil fuels will last but they WILL run out. And sooner than later. Since data on how much is in the ground is imprecise there is uncertaintly in the precise amount but we have a general idea. Its like you have an hourglass and you can see that the top half of the hourglass is a certain size, but you dont know how far it is filled with sand, because the top half is opaque, but you can see how much has poured into the bottom half and how long it has been pouring in there, thus a rate of depletion,, you know that there is a finite amount of sand in the top half and that it is emptying out, and you can see by the rate it is emptying that the sand will be depleted not too far from now, even though you do not know exactly when, you know it will happen and it is not that far away. The "cornucopians" who think thje earth has an unlimited amount of fossil fuels and that basically we can do anything, that the laws of nature dont matter, that we can if we want generate infinite amounts of fossil fuel energy, basic physics be damned, well, they are basically saying that since we cannot see the amount of sand in the top half of the hourglass that since we cannot make a precise measurement that therefore we might as well just assume the amount of sand is infinite. This is despite thje fact that the top half of the hourglass is of a finite size, the sand is pouring out quickly and already a lot has poured out.
Basically the cornucopias, they are living in a fantasy world, insisting the top half of the hourglass contains an infinite amount of sand, are in denial about the dire state of affairs and the fact we are headed towards practical depletion of fossil fuels.
That makes two things entropy has in common with my ex. (The first: both are always increasing)