3 ms·
I thought of this too. One way to approach it, is what % of the total wind in the world would it take to power 100% of our energy needs? If it is something li
by brianwawok 7y ago
I thought of this too.
One way to approach it, is what % of the total wind in the world would it take to power 100% of our energy needs? If it is something like 50%, it seems like it would be very possible for large scale wind to eventually do something to our wind patterns. If it is something like 1% or .01%, it seems pretty unlikely to do much. (part of this assumes you would never power 100% of your energy needs with wind due to variability).
- throwawaysea 7y agoI agree that if we were to supply significant portions of our energy need with wind power, we would be taking that amount of energy out of the global climate system and therefore alter temperature/air pressure/wind in some combination (that is, alter currents). We could also look at it as a percentage of available energy in global wind (see http://www.wse.ie/how-much-wind-energy-is-there http://www.wse.ie/how-much-wind-energy-is-there for a take on this). That said, I don't think we can necessarily assume that 1% or 0.01% would have a small effect. Small perturbations can have large impacts in complex systems. It is possible impacts could be significant in localized ways as well (for instance low change in global average temperature but greater incidence of hurricanes).