8 ms·
I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I bring this up when we talk about wind energy and I've never had a satisfying answer. Maybe that's due to not k
by menacingly 9y ago
I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I bring this up when we talk about wind energy and I've never had a satisfying answer. Maybe that's due to not knowing what I'm talking about.
Since the wind does other stuff beyond just feeling breezy, it stands to reason that there exists some level of wattage we could pull out of it that would have undesirable effects.
If there were no wind tomorrow, we can agree that this would be bad. Are there lower levels of energy depletion where the effects would be subtler and harder to anticipate? Would pulling 0.5% of the wind's energy result in shifts in weather patterns, even if it's localized?
I mean, since we're collectively so good at breaking things, maybe it's worth assuming we will fill some hypothetical area with as many contraptions to take energy from the wind as we can, and that these contraptions will get increasingly effective.
EDIT: There are some great replies to this, and the minds of HN are always an awesome resource to tap. I guess I can't shake the vague spooky feeling I get from interfering with a massive system that feeds into itself in unpredictable ways, but it sounds like ruthless expansion of some massive drain on the wind system is unlikely/impossible.
- throwaway613834 9y agoI understand the amount we might ever extract pales in comparison to the amount that would upset any natural phenomena.
- juiyout 9y agoIs it true that we once had the same rationale with coal?
- URSpider94 9y agoI would say that with coal, we never even considered the impact - carbon dioxide, much less the greenhouse effect, were unknown when we started burning coal in earnest. With wind power, smart people have at least sat down and done the math.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- DennisP 9y agoI've seen studies of this before, and googling "wind energy climate effects" pulls some up. I think the upshot was that there would be some climate effects but it would take a truly massive expansion of wind energy to amount to much, and would still be much less damaging than fossil fuels.
- std_throwaway 9y agoWind must blow in order to extract energy from it. Therefore, we will never slow down wind to zero with windmills. Also we already have mountains changing weather patterns. Sure, the weather patterns will change at some point as windmills grow to mountain size but in this case we will notice it way before it goes out of hand. In an emergency situation we can bring the windmills down at free fall speed with some thermate and gasoline.
- menacingly 9y agoYeah, it must blow to get there, but it by definition has less "blow" on the other side. I think I'm getting that the scale of this is negligible, but it is certainly less
- jws 9y agoThe way I look at it, if you consider the air mass from ground level up to the top of the atmosphere, the bottom will always have a roughly zero speed since it is down in the terrain and the weeds. A carpet of windmills a hundred meters tall could at best move that zero speed edge a little higher. The kilometers of air above will be relatively unaffected. To illustrate, consider https://embed.windy.com/embed2.html?lat=41.327&lon=-88.033&zoom=8&level=100m&overlay=wind&marker=true&type=map&metricWind=kt https://embed.windy.com/embed2.html?lat=41.327&lon=-88.033&z... which if I've got that URL right will show you winds at a windmill farm in Illinois USA (nope, it misses slightly for some reason, odd, it is right when I copy it). Look in the lower right of the screen and find the slider with an airplane at the top and a mountain at the bottom. You can use this to change altitudes and explore the wind speed above ground level. Lots more windspeed up there even if the density goes down. Consider the 5500 meters up, about half the air pressure, but twice the wind speed today, so that works out to twice the energy per square foot (on edge).
- andlier 9y agoEven if we covered the earth in windmills, we'd still only affect the lowest 100-200m of the atmosphere. And windmills can only extract 50% of the winds energy. I'm thinking a forest full of trees might even reduce the windspeed more than a field of mills.
- Namrog84 9y agoI don't know how practical they are but I've seen that inflatable flying windmill wind turbine thing that is meant to be 500-1000ft or higher? So doesn't that make the 100-200m a bit low on what altitude we can extract from?
- menacingly 9y agoAnd I assume that the two systems (upper and lower atmosphere) aren't so isolated from one another that they don't interact
- Qwertious 9y agoThe inflatable flying windmill thing isn't particularly efficient, the future high-atmosphere wind energy source is much more likely to be kite-based wind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMTchVXedkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMTchVXedkk
- vlehto 9y agoI'm pretty sure that 50% number is for single mill. For a farm there should be no such limit.
- Jackim 9y agoHere's a study that evaluated exactly what you're looking for, if I understand correctly: http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/4/816/htm http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/4/816/htm In summary, if the entire Earth was powered by wind, it would result in a net loss in the lowest 1 km of the atmosphere of ~0.007%.
- menacingly 9y agoLooks like some far more competent folks have pretty thoroughly looked into it. I'll sleep better knowing I'm not the wind's sole protector
- beobab 9y agoAlthough that would be a cool job description.
- wojt_eu 9y agoIf we increase our energy consumption 100-fold this estimation of net loss in wind would approach 1% which sounds bad. I guess we might need wind protector after all.
- namarie 9y agoThat's a pretty big "if".
- CuriousSkeptic 9y agoIs it? Given current energy consumption growth it's just 100-150 years away Edit: From covering the entire surface of the earth, which is the bigger if. (Should have read the context)
- madcaptenor 9y agoI'd really hope wind has a bus factor of more than one though.
- alphydan 9y agoThe question has been asked in the past and modelled with some level of detail. For example: Estimating maximum global land surface wind power extractability and associated climatic consequences [0]. At a higher level the question is easy: Sun shines, warms the air more in the tropics, creates a gradient, and wind flows. What if we capture all this energy? But the details of the calculation are subtle. The cited paper says: It could have dire climatic consequences! But it may be over-estimating how many locations are really suitable for wind turbines. Many things limit the efficiency (i.e. cost effectiveness) of a wind farm (turbulence, minimum average wind speed, maximum speeds, access to the site, distance from cities, etc). One important point is that most of the energy exchange happens at high altitude (where the turbines can't reach). [0] https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/1/2011/esd-2-1-2011.pdf https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/1/2011/esd-2-1-2011.pdf
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MicroBerto 9y agoThe star-studded and scientifically profound movie Southland Tales touches upon this, but with respect to tidal energy. It's quite a fascinating story that you may enjoy, given your questions.
- clairity 9y agoit's good to think through, but first order intuition on this (for me) goes something like: 1. the wind gets it's power (directly and indirectly) from the sun and we"re just too miniscule to affect that in any meaningful way. 2.on top of that, we return most of the acquired energy back to the atmosphere in the form of heat. 3. and we haven't built anything close to large and extensive enough in one place to create even micro-environmental effects. we're just too miniscule to matter so it's a problem that might affect the planet in 1000 years when there are trillions(?) of people on earth but not worth worrying too much about now. by then, we might have become the brains of a superorganism or something and then it's time to worry =)
- ams6110 9y ago> we're just too miniscule to affect that in any meaningful way Though this same argument is dismissed by those who support the idea that we're changing the weather by CO2 emissions.
- function_seven 9y agoIn terms of wind energy, rotating mills are not going to have any measurable impact on wind energy or patterns. But with CFCs, we clearly aren’t minuscule. We saw a hole in the ozone layer that opened when we used them, and is closing now that we’ve stopped. For some things, we’re too minuscule, for others we’re not.
- flukus 9y ago> Though this same argument is dismissed by those who support the idea that we're changing the weather by CO2 emissions. Our direct effect is minuscule, it just so happens that our efforts magnify the not so minuscule effect the sun has.
- maxerickson 9y agoWho argues that human greenhouse gas emissions are minuscule?
- fasquoika 9y ago
- mythrwy 9y agoBased on that line of reasoning you ought to be really nervous about solar panels :)
- mhluongo 9y agoGlad I'm not the only one who's thought about this :)
- ambicapter 9y agoThe effect of wind turbines on birds and other wildlife is probably far more important, and also routinely gets ignored imo.
- zeamaize 9y agoThat's a conservative straw man. Skyscrapers have much more impact and no one notices.
- adrianN 9y agoI'm pretty sure some people notice. I'm also reasonably sure that if we produce a substantial amount of our energy needs from wind, turbines will far outnumber any skyscrapers.
- ghshephard 9y ago"Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually ... compared with the estimated 6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers and the 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats, " https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-wind-turbines-kill-around-300000-birds-annually-house-cats-around-3000000000.html https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/north-america-wi...
- phillc73 9y agoThe problem is not wind turbines or radio towers. The problem is cats.
- briandear 9y agoThat data isn’t true. Multiple studies put that number into the millions. http://www.nature.com/news/the-trouble-with-turbines-an-ill-wind-1.10849 http://www.nature.com/news/the-trouble-with-turbines-an-ill-...
- ghshephard 9y ago
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoClimate change will also increase wind levels tremendously (more energy => more wind)
- wbillingsley 9y agoThe amount of deforestation that we've engaged in, reducing "surface roughness" on a large quantity of the Earth's surface, that's a lot of wind energy we've stopped from being extracted. We can draw an enormous amount before we'd even get close to break-even on our influence on the wind.
- onion2k 9y agoThe amount of forest biomass on Earth is going up rather than down. https://theconversation.com/despite-decades-of-deforestation-the-earth-is-getting-greener-38226 https://theconversation.com/despite-decades-of-deforestation...
- graphitezepp 9y agoQuick "I have no idea how plants work" question, would a more carbon rich atmosphere promote faster growth?
- onion2k 9y agoIn specific controlled environments, yes. In the real world not so much. https://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-is-not-good-for-plants.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-i...
- jtuente 9y ago> In specific controlled environments I think you mean, with sufficient soil nutrients, yes. That's not a controlled environment, that's a environmental requirement.
- bluGill 9y agoThat depends on the plant. Some plants are CO2 limited, and would grow better. Thus out competing other plants that are limited by something else. This is not necessarily good though, such plants tend to be ones we already consider weeds with little useful value. Of course in the dry deserts everything is water limited. There are also temperature and altitude (air pressure) limits that affect various other regions/climates.
- mcv 9y ago> If there were no wind tomorrow, we can agree that this would be bad. I think Houston would disagree. There's an enormous amount of energy in wind. There's not a chance that we can hope to capture more than the tiniest fraction of it. And if we could, we'd certainly love to drain some energy from tropical storms. It's good to think about such risks, though. There are people who thought burning carbon couldn't possibly have any meaningful impact, and quite clearly it can. I've seen a proposal for clean energy, 1 km tall solar towers that create energy out of the difference between warm air close to the ground and cold air high up in the atmosphere, that felt to me like it might have some impact of weather patterns. I doubt it actually does, but it can't hurt to do the math. I suppose if the energy source with the least possible side effects would be solar panels in the desert. Without them, the sun is just going to heat the sand and the air and make the place even drier. And you need only a tiny bit of the solar energy from the desert to power the entire world. Less than what's regularly lost to desertification, deforestation, or the land we pave with asphalt and concrete. Before we get worried about any potential negative impact there, we should first worry about all the very real negative impact we're having all across the world.
- Lagged2Death 9y agoWith traditional (coal, gas, nuclear) electrical power generation, one unit of energy is delivered to your wall socket by dumping about two units of heat directly into the environment somewhere else.