Posted on 09/10/2018 7:40:03 AM PDT by ETL
Energy generation by wind and solar farms could reduce carbon emissions and thus mitigate anthropogenic climate change.
A new climate-modeling study, published in the journal Science, finds that large-scale installations of wind and solar farms in the Sahara Desert and the neighboring Sahel region — areas particularly desirable for such farms because of their vastness and lack of inhabitants — would increase local temperature, precipitation and vegetation. ..."
“Our study is among the first to model the climate effects of wind and solar installations while taking into account how vegetation responds to changes in heat and precipitation,” Dr. Li said.
“Previous modeling studies have shown that large-scale wind and solar farms can produce significant climate change at continental scales. But the lack of vegetation feedbacks could make the modeled climate impacts very different from their actual behavior.”
The wind and solar farms simulated in the study would cover more than 9 million km2 and generate, on average, about 3 terawatts and 79 terawatts of electrical power, respectively.
“In 2017, the global energy demand was only 18 terawatts, so this is obviously much more energy than is currently needed worldwide,” Dr. Li said.
The model revealed that wind farms caused regional warming of near-surface air temperature, with greater changes in minimum temperatures than maximum temperatures.
“The greater nighttime warming takes place because wind turbines can enhance the vertical mixing and bring down warmer air from above,” the researchers said.
“Precipitation also increased as much as 0.25 mm per day on average in regions with wind farm installation.”
“This was a doubling of precipitation over that seen in the control experiments. In the Sahel, average rainfall increased 1.12 mm per day where wind farms were present,” Dr. Li said.
“This increase in precipitation, in turn, leads to an increase in vegetation cover, creating a positive feedback loop.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...
Is there a reason you spelled it Shara throughout your entire post instead of Sahara? Just curious.
I get the joke but rain in the desert is dirty too.
I washes the dust out of the air.
Stomata count of plants is reverse correlation of CO2 concentration. Water loss directly correlated with Stomata in leaf surface. High CO2 practical result is less water loss from plants. Plants survive arid conditions better with increased CO2.
The wind and solar farms simulated in the study would cover more than 9 million km2 and generate, on average, about 3 terawatts and 79 terawatts of electrical power, respectively. “In 2017, the global energy demand was only 18 terawatts, so this is obviously much more energy than is currently needed worldwide,” Dr. Li said.
Why? Because 3 is so much more than 17? So-called renewables give you power when its available, instead of our on-demand generation, where power is available when its needed. The electricity supply is one of the things that has incontrovertably improved our lives, and makes it possible to have modern civilization. Now, if the simple doctor suggests covering all of, say, Libya, with a canopy of photovoltaic cells, necessitating the elimination of all jihadist life in Libya, and to then to train all real refugees in the skills needed to maintain such an array (like repairing wind damage, which would be measured in acres- or hectares-per-day), and to use the electricity to meet peak demand (obviously in Europe, which would be in the same or adjacent time zones) and the excess capacity to desalinate seawater and pump the fresh water into the Qattara Depression, and/or a trickle irrigation system to refoliate the entire Sahara. Hmm, not bad. Thanks ETL.
A quad is a unit of energy equal to 1015 (a short-scale quadrillion) BTU, or 1.055 x 1018 joules (1.055 exajoules or EJ) in SI units. The unit is used by the U.S. Department of Energy in discussing world and national energy budgets. The global primary energy production in 2004 was 446 quad, equivalent to 471 EJ. Some common types of an energy carrier approximately equal to 1 quad are: 8,007,000,000 gallons (US) of gasoline, 293,071,000,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh), 293.07 terawatt-hours (TWh), 33.434 gigawatt-years (GWy)... [Quad (unit) | Wikipedia]
(446 / 365 = 1.2219178082, 1.2219178082 x 293.07 = 358.10745205 terawatt-hours per day? 358.10745205 / 24 hrs = 14.921143835 for our average in 2004; that means a 20 percent rise in 13 years, which is roughly correct; growth in electricity demand is going to rise significantly as China and India continue to modernize)
Yes, we know about dirty rain where I live. Oh, and dust when it isn’t rainy which isn’t very often.
It would be kind of funny if they contributed to global warming..
Actually, it would be that funny.
...it wouldn’t be that funny.
Remember Operation Desert Storm when the turbines in our helicopters and aircraft were destroyed in a few days of operation by the desert sand.
The military had to quickly come up with and install special air filters on the aircraft to keep them operational.
Unless something has change in the last few years, the cost of manufacture, transport and installation and maintenance of wind mills for power generation costs more than all the expected energy they produce over their lifetime...
Its a complete scam, largely funded by government subsidies and everyone knows it.
Yup. What a fiasco?
What could possibly go wrong go wrong go wrong go.....
Flaws in solar and wind power are never off subject. It’s astounding that supposed environmentalists are ignoring potential long term impacts of these endeavors.
“The only models climate change fanatics have been accurate with is the flow of funds in direct correlation to their dire predictions...”
Ding, ding, ding!
Or they could just install a car wash in the Sahara desert. Every time I wash my car it rains. See, scientific proof of how to create rain!!
So true. They are incapable of seeing the larger picture. All the birds killed with these things will have an affect on other systems when they don’t spread seeds and droppings like nature intended.
The lack of intelligence among the left is truly staggering.
Damp sand.
Why are there only 6 turbines rotating while the rest are motionless?
I don’t know. Good question.
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