Posted on 04/30/2012 6:27:28 PM PDT by Kaslin
New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomenon that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.
Researchers used satellite data from 2003 to 2011 to examine surface temperatures across as wide swath of west Texas, which has built four of the world's largest wind farms. The data showed a direct correlation between night-time temperatures increases of 0.72 degrees C (1.3 degrees F) and the placement of the farms.
"Given the present installed capacity and the projected growth in installation of wind farms across the world, I feel that wind farms, if spatially large enough, might have noticeable impacts on local to regional meteorology," Liming Zhou, associate professor at the State University of New York, Albany and author of the paper published April 29 in Nature Climate Change said in an e-mail to Discovery News.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Warming the earth?
I suppose one could claim that my home heating system is warming the earth, or that when I smoke a cigar I am warming the earth.
But the earth knows.
ML/NJ
Questionable.
Turbines generally extract energy from the fluid passing through them, cooling it.
just proved researchers and experts don ‘t know jack.....
Sounds like a 6th grade science project.
Unless the first law of thermodynamics has been repealed (conservation of energy), even if there may be some localized increase in temperature where the wind turbines are, there would have to be some equivalent amount of cooling downstream.
If anything the net effect should be some very slight cooling, since some of the kinetic energy of the wind is transformed into electric energy by the wind turbines. Eventually though even the electric energy generated by the wind will be reconverted to heat as the electricity generated runs fridges and ovens and laptops and...
Bottom line there should be no global temperature effect by the operation of wind turbines.
As if we can actually change the temperature of the planet with a bunch of fans!
The arrogance of man is breath taking..... the ignorance is painful.
Actually, if I think about it, it does make sense. Cold air come out of an air conditioner if you are in front of it, but when you are outside you feel hot air coming out. At least that is how I see it
Definitely true for compressible fluids like air, that's why they install air dryers on compressed air lines feeding tools like impact wrenches lest they literally freeze up.
Not so sure that it works for incompressible fluids like water (the tailraces below the turbines at Boulder dam would fill with ice bergs!). I think the power extracted shows up as reduced kinetic energy (static and dynamic head are reduced in proportion to the extracted power).
Regards,
GtG
I think in this case that “Warming the Earth” really means “Warming the Dirt”
“If pro is the opposite of con, what’s the opposite of progress?” — Will Rogers
Thanks Kaslin.
So if you think about it, under normal conditions the atmosphere probably cools more rapidly than the land underneath it - radiative cooling off into space. So a wind blowing across the land would be cooler than the ground, and thus extract heat from the ground.
Now we have huge turbine farms. They are extracting kinetic energy, slowing the airflow down. This means less air mass per unit time blowing over the ground, less energy transfer. The ground retains more of its daytime heat.
Well, that's a working theory anyway. Could probably be tested fairly easily with anemometers and thermometers.
They distort the jetstream is my latest theory.. talk about man-made or man-assisted global varming. wow. Ted kennedy knew if they built wind farms off cape cod , we were all toast.
good thing the Pacific NW has backup.. ;-]
—
meanwhile
BPA orders NW wind farms to curtail production
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/04/30/state/n131505D31.DTL
Portland, Ore. (AP) — The Bonneville Power Administration twice ordered Pacific Northwest wind farms to cut production in recent days because it has a surplus of power from hydroelectric dams.
The agency, which manages much of the power grid in the Northwest, confirmed it issued the orders during the early morning hours of Sunday and Monday, when demand is low.
The action rekindles a dispute from last year, when the agency curtailed wind turbines because the water from a large mountain snowpack left the region with more hydropower than the electrical grid could handle.
I agree there may be some local increase in temperature, but the kinetic energy that the wind lost in the turbines would have eventually been lost downstream, thus decreasing the temperature somewhere downstream.
My point is that there is no net energy input into the earth as a whole due to the wind farms, therefore no “global” warming or cooling as a result.
Heat causes wind.
Wind allows the heat to dissipate
Walls of Wind Generators slow down the wind, allowing additional heat build up.
It is so simple a concept that the “So called” Intelligentsia can’t grasp that simple concept.
Additionally, it kills birds who can’t see the propellers coming at them at 100 + mph.
Additionally, metal fatigues (always/eventually) and these things are monstrous and fail. In the process a broken propeller, takes out one or more of the others Million Dollar generators next to them.
It must be great to be “Smart” or (Think) you are “Smart”.
Hmm, slower moving, cooler air probably increases local relative humidity, picks up less moisture from the surface... Less atmospheric moisture means more sunlight striking the ground, more surface warming... Or maybe not. Maybe higher relative humidity is still enough to form water droplets and block/absorb sunlight. Complex system. Don't ever let climate "scientists" tell you they have it all figured out either. ;-)
Anyway, yeah I believe it is probably locally warmer there, cooler someplace else. But global warming? Ha. Localized phenomena around the wind farms.
I wonder what the effect is over water.
Bottom line - Not worth losing sleep over, like all the other global warming crap.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.