Any physicist / meteorologist around

[Spectric]

Hi all

All this desperate scramble to become "green" may have other unseen consequences. We all know the basic laws of physics that state energy cannot be created or destroyed and that the 1st law of thermodynamics state you cannot get something for nothing so what is the real impact of windturbines and these huge windfarms? Each one converts the energy in the wind into mechanical energy before converting that to electrical energy so they must have an impact on our weather systems, taking energy out of the wind must change it's speed and potentialy if rain clouds move slower they will drop more rain on a smaller area resulting in flooding. Any scientist around with a deeper grounding in these topics who wants to comment?

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think that our weather systems are driven by energy from the sun. I think that the total energy arriving from the sun is many orders of magnitude greater than the amount of energy we humans, who are currently burning fossils, need for transport/heating/etc . I'm sure that there will be some measurable local effects - probably micro-climates near windfarms - but it's extremely hard to imagine that the effect will be anything like as significant as warming the planet by a degree or three. As I write these words, the UK is consuming about 35GW of which less than 25% is being generated by any kind of fossil-burning (wind providing more than 33%). It would be easy to fail to appreciate how far we in the UK have come in de-carbonising our electricity grid already - with only luke-warm government support. G. B. National Grid status

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Interesting thoughts. Pulling coal, oil or gas out of the ground, transporting them and burning them to release chemical by products and particulate into the atmosphere would also have that sort of effect. There are also the environmental aspects and damage through leaks and pollution to factor in when using fossil fuels.

There may be an impact with green solutions but I would imagine that a few hundred turbines with three spokes would have a very small impact on a weather front that may be hundreds of kilometres long. I think hydro and tidal solutions have a much bigger impact.

Generally speaking isn't the aim to reduce C02 emissions? We have similar atmospehric carbon dioxide levels to a time in history when shrubs were growing on Antarctica.

 

[Cabinetman]

I remember reading quite a few years ago that if we used the tides (through the gravitational effect of the moon) to generate a lot of power that the moon would eventually slow down. Yes I agree I don’t know what I’m talking about ha ha

 

[Spectric]

Hi

I think hydro and tidal solutions have a much bigger impact.

With hydro although you create huge reservoirs and force people from their homes you just borrow the energy, thats why you can have hydro dams in series or waterwheels like the miners before electricity.

 

[bjm]

Wind is just a manifestation of air pressure differentials and is not a permanent force - it comes and goes. The energy of the wind will naturally dissipate so making use of it (locally, at ground level) to turn a turbine won't change the energy in/energy out equation but it will make use of it. Turbines are also a ground based system so I doubt it would have any effect at cloud level (where there is less turbulence)?

As for flooding, I would suggest that when we (as a species) accept that flood plains are a well understood natural system (and called that for a reason) we can solve the issue by not building on them!

 

[sammy.se]

It might create positive effects, like this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45435593

 

[Spectric]

Hi

There you go, more rainfall which is good news for deserts but not so good for the wet UK.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

Hi

There you go, more rainfall which is good news for deserts but not so good for the wet UK.

I don't think you can extrapolate what that article suggests to the UK - the effects will be different in our situation (turbines over water not sand for starters, plus I don't think anyone's suggesting we'll have 9m km2 of them!). The scientist appears to agree with me:

"The authors also looked at other desert locations in different parts of the world but they found the impact on rainfall and vegetation growth was much smaller. They also believe that fewer panels and turbines would have a limited effect.
"Generally, the climate impacts are reduced with reduced installations, but this result depends also very much on the exact locations," said Dr Li."

Interesting to see the scientist agree with the other points I was making on the scale of things eg:

"The authors say that the heating impact of all those turbines and panels would not make an important difference.
"The local warming by wind and solar farms is much smaller compared with the reduced future warming from greenhouse gases that renewable power at this scale would imply," said Dr Li."

 

[craigs]

*sharpens pitch fork

 

[Fitzroy]

Good page on the subject. Solar energy - Wikipedia

Humans used 536exajoules in 2019. That’s about as much as arrives on earth in sunlight in 1 hour and 13mins.

The paper below estimates that the global energy balance and is out by 0.3PW or 9460 exaJoules per year, due to the increase in greenhouse gasses.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg1132
My take away from these two is that extracting the total human energy use from the total energy balance of the earth will do nothing at a macro level to overall weather etc.

Extracting lots in one area and effecting wind patterns over a certain area is another thing entirely.

This also reinforces the point that in all of this climate change the earth will be just fine, the fine balance that supports us humans and our cosy experience is much more fragile.

Fitz.

 

[novocaine]

If we all drive in the same direction at the same time we should be able to slow the planet down. sorry not helpful i know. But it made me smile.

You are thinking of wind as a form of energy, when its really a consequence of energy dissipation. The energy is really heat,and i reckon weve got enough of that due to our proximity to the giant ball of nuclear fission.

Side note, the new GE of shore turbines are making 10-14MW of energy each. An array is going to 140 ish of them. Thats a lot of toasters and cups of tea.

 

[RogerS]

Green energy is great. However, we have a lot to learn from the Environment Agency in terms of monetising the 'green movement'. You have a stream. You want to instal a green water turbine. You can. Only you have to pay the EA for the privilege of taking that water from out of your stream and putting it into your turbine. That very same water then goes back into the stream a little further downstream. Nice one, EA.

 

[billw]

When we extract all this oil and gas from underneath us, what's taking its place?

 

[Fitzroy]

When we extract all this oil and gas from underneath us, what's taking its place?

We fill it with water, or the aquifers around it flow into take up the volume. In some fields we have seen the seabed drop due to subsidence but localised and not noticeable unless you live on top, which is rare.

Fitz.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

The weather is driven mainly by energy from the sun. It is inherently variable due to the rotation of the earth, change to tilt, different reflectivity of sea, snow, land use, sunspot activity, elevation etc.

Even if all mankinds energy was obtained from wind farms, it would make little difference to overall weather patterns, although as others have noted there may be local effects.

If energy is extracted from the wind flow, that remaining must be reduced (conservation of energy). Bear in mind that even the largest wind turbines is less that 1000ft high - in the bottom 2% of the atmosphere.

 

[Benchwayze]

Well if you are to be compelled to replace your ICE propelled vehicle by 2030 then you should start saving now.

 

[dannyr]

like this thread - keep talking

 

[Duncan A]

It was long thought that we couldn't damage the oceans through pollution due to their size.....
It was long thought that we couldn't damage the atmosphere through pollution due to it's size.....
It is thought that cheap, green energy will solve all our problems.....
But surely everyone will go mad liberating energy that is presently tied up inside weather systems, oceans, atoms etc and the global temperature will rise as a consequence. Of course we could never do it on a scale sufficient to make a difference could we?????
Humanity has always been in a race with disaster caused by it's use of technology and I don't suppose anything is about to change soon. That sounds gloomy but I suppose I fall into the camp of "we'll figure something out in the nick of time"
Duncan

 

[sometimewoodworker]

Each one converts the energy in the wind into mechanical energy before converting that to electrical energy so they must have an impact on our weather systems,

That is true, however the impact is only capable of statistical analysis and there are so many other factors you are never going to get clean data.