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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!
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.)
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.
Changes are made to a ecosystem and the ecosystem reacts to those changes, news at eleven.
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
To sum up your post: entropy is a bitch.
The Sun only provides so much energy and that energy is what make the Earth run.
Well, the Sun as well as the Moon's tidal forces which cause the Earth to flex by approx 30cm daily causing friction in the Earth while also massaging the crust to help relieve pressure.
Well, that and the previous star(s) that blew up and who's energy is present in the matter and angular momentum preserved in the forming of our solar system.
You could very well also argue that if we continue using energy at this rate, we'll also accelerate the Heat Death of the Universe.
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"
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'