Wind Farms Impacting Weather (Cause global warming and/or desert land?)

Science Daily ^ | 10/1/2005 | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., and the American Society of Civil Engineers

[N3WBI3]

yuck sorry about the poor formating
FUD! And FUD that was conveniently edited to look bad in the post.

"But the researchers found that in the predawn hours, when the atmosphere is less turbulent, a large windmill array could influence the local climate, raising temperatures by about 2 degrees Celsius (about 4 Fahrenheit) for several hours."

Notice there is no definition of 'local' and no mention if it being 2 degrees warmer from 0400-0600 followed by normal temps from 0600->0400 if at the edge of 'local' or right where the turbine sits..

If local is say a square mile around the turbine it has a smaller effect on local temperature than a supermarket and its parking lot!

"The rotating blades could also redirect high-speed winds down to the Earth's surface, boosting evaporation of soil moisture."

This could be troublesome, can they demonstrate this or is this akin to so much of the eco junk science pushed out there today..

"Electricity can't be stored: it must be produced on demand"

What a load of crap it can be stored just was hydro energy is stored via a transfer to kinetic.

[Young Werther]

Doofus Alert!!!

A anti windmill advocate warned that wind mills could capture air flow but would slow down the Earth's rotation and affect the day nite cycle which would do serious damage to hoot owls. Hows that for a Hooter Alert!

[DungeonMaster]

I Can't imagine why.

Probably because it'd grossly dumb.

[Magnatron]

Yes I did pull out relevant quotes, but I also provided links to both articles for someone to read further.

My point is, if scientists are finding that massive wind farms can alter local climate, what’s to say what will happen further down the line beyond that farm? Have we studied this enough? It’s common scientific sense that you can’t capture energy from a source without removing energy in the process. Even fuel as it’s burned holds less energy capacity following that release. As a dam slows down water, so would wind farms (and I’m speaking on the massive Boone-Pickens scenario) remove wind energy from the atmosphere. It seems almost common sense that the land beyond that farm could be at risk - and how far down stream would that effect take place?

Go invest in Boone-Pickens’ plan if you don’t think this is a big enough issue to look into. Personally, I’d rather stick one oil well in the ground than construct acres and acres of ugly, flapping, inefficient wind derricks and later suffer the ill-effects of our idiocy.

[antiRepublicrat]

Wind is inefficient, wind is unreliable, wind is..., wind is ...

They always forget: WIND IS FREE

[Realism]

Personally, I’d rather stick one oil well in the ground than construct acres and acres of ugly, flapping, inefficient wind derricks and later suffer the ill-effects of our idiocy.

If you need more carbon monoxide in your diet, may be you should take up smoking.

[MediaMole]

It’s very possible to change local climate. Cities are warmer than rural areas, tall buildings change wind patterns.

It’s just very unlikely that we can affect global temps.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Publius6961]

I asked this question a long time ago. I guess someone finally took it seiously.

I've been asking the question for at least ten years.
When energy is involved, and it's being added to or deleted from the natural state of things over a large enough area, something has to be affected.