Ah, they’re 2000’s-style wish-you-were-dead rays.
I’d think that if wind power became widespread, it couldn’t help but effect the weather. Wind power basically pulls energy out of the atmosphere, and that energy must come from somewhere. TANSTAAFL.
I imagine that the main effect would be slower wind speeds on average. This might result in slower-moving weather fronts (ie, storms that stay in your area longer, heat waves that last longer) but as far as I know, theoretical meteorology hasn’t really analyzed this scenario yet.
Now THATS thinking outside the box! Little bird cages around all the birdies!
Pure genius.
I would agree with “surprisingly devastating” because I would naively expect windpower to be the perfect solution. Whacking birds sucks, but surely some device to scare them away can be developed.
Large-scale wind patterns are the result of pressure gradients associated with fronts, not their cause. Wind, and weather patterns in general, are due to solar energy and the variations in their effect on the surface, combined with the earth’s rotation itself.
Wind farms are local phenomena, generally placed in areas of relatively strong and steady wind, but extracting only a small fraction of the total power available. You’re doubtless right that analytical meteorology is not up to the task of determining their full effect, dependent as it is on turbulence and chaos theory, but that does not mean a talk show host can honestly say what the one in the OP said.
If, however, you consider aesthetics to be an environmental issue, then the appearance of long rows of wind turbines on a ridgeline near you can be considered one. They aren’t entirely silent, either, so you can consider noise pollution an environmental issue. Then there’s the need for access roads to each one for installation and maintenance; those have environmental effects of their own. But nothing’s perfect.
Considering the number of people killed annually by tornados caused by those damned Brazilian butterflies, I’m horrified by the potential carnage caused by a single wind farm.
Not to mention the transmission lines needed to move the energy.
As Q.D. McGraw said, “Holt on there!” Some of you are ignoring some facts of nature that existed long before windfarms.
Any tall structure is dangerous to birds. For aircraft safety, they all have lights on them. Birds and bugs that naturally navigate by the moon are deceived into flying in spirals, eventually crashing into antenna towers and their guy wires. Bug-eating birds and bats are lured in by the crowd of bugs. Raptors are lured in by the crowd of bug-eaters. Even stationary towers, then, are a place of death for flying creatures every night.
Windmills would be the place of death for birds even if they didn’t turn at all, simply by being tall and lighted.
Now, let’s take a look at those wire mesh guards, each the size of a soccer pitch. The grill on your home window fan gathers fuzzy lint and dust, and it must be cleaned occasionally. Multiply that by 100K. On top of that, the critters you are hoping to save will nest in the damned thing. Countless wasps, hornets, and spiders will call it home. Thousands of birds will live there, too. Is there a K-Mart anywhere in America that doesn’t have a few families of birds nesting in its sign?
All that wildlife housing would have to be cleaned out several times a year, just to keep some airflow through the grillwork.
Now, compare that to the naked windmill. Though some birds will collide with the moving foils, most will fly on through without any harm. Just as birds have somehow learned to not fly into fast-moving cars, most of them will somehow learn to survive an encounter with a windfarm.
I think location is the most important thing when considering building a windfarm. Not all areas are good candidates for windmills, but there has to be plenty of areas where there is enough wind and no real enviromental issues. The power can be sent to where it is needed, just as it is now.
This last Thanksgiving holiday, a friend and I traveled from San Antonio to Fort Davis in West Texas to check out the Marfa Ghost Lights and the Fort Davis Observatory. Once we got about 50-60 miles from home, the land on both sides of IH-10 is pretty much just prairie, and farther out becomes part of the Sonoran desert. Other than a couple of small towns, there is nothing else in the 500 miles or so but dirt and scrub. Of course, there is wildlife there, but the land is not suitable for farming or ranching. Other than the modern open highway (80mph speed limit - woohoo!), this land looks about the same as it did a hundred years ago, and other than the highway probably becoming wider, it will look about the same a hundred years from now.
Way out in the middle of all this nothing is a windfarm. Just a couple of miles off the highway, there are flat plateaus with large white windmills on them, slowly turning in the wind that sweeps through this area. For about thirty miles along the highway, you can see these plateaus covered with windmills. There is nothing else out there. Dirt, scrub, wind. There are few people out there, so I doubt very many live close enough to hear any noise. There is no ground wildlife on top of the plateaus to be bothered, and I wouldn’t think there is enough bird traffic that there is any problem.
Maybe it is the bareness that is West Texas that makes it stand out, but the windfarm has a graceful beauty to it and is quite awe inspiring. It is quite impressive.
It is also small, by Texas standards, even though it takes 30 or more miles of driving to get past it. There is literally hundreds and hundreds of square miles of land just like this that could be put to use as windfarms with a very minimal impact on local people and wildlife. We already get some of our power from this windfarm and can check a box on our power bill to pay a bit more and request the power company use more windpower and less coal burning power.
I am no expert, and I don’t know all the factors about such a scheme, but I would think that we should be erecting more and more windfarms like this one in an area that will never have any other use to anyone. While it may not currently be the most economical way to produce electricity, between the improvements that will be made as the wind energy technology improves, and the cost of electricity by fossil fuel continues to go up, wind energy seems to me to be a very good thing for our future energy needs. There has to be similar areas in other western states that could also by untilized the same way.
The Sound of Molinology?
The primary impact of windmills on the environment is the footprint they take up for the relatively modest amount of energy they produce compared to a nuclear fission or fossil fuel plant. One can also point to additional maintenance, noise pollution, landscape eyesore, et cetera as arguments against, but these are generally readily alleviated issues. Wind power is one of the least invasive and polluting forms of energy production available. Unfortunately, they’re also limited in terms of geography for optimal performance, and as such cannot be considered a sustainable replacement for other methods of energy production, but as a supplement with a low environmental impact, they’re nearly ideal.
Stranger
So uh, not to be insensitive or whatever, but shouldn’t most things have figured out to avoid GIANT FAST-MOVING THINGS?
One would thing so; “Yo, Billy, watch out!” but the term “bird brain” didn’t come from nothin’. It’s more like, “Oboy! BUGS!” WHAM.
There have been proposals for some of these to be built about 15-20 miles from my home. It has stirred up quite a hornets’ nest. It appears that most think that wind power is a good idea until someone wants to build one of those windmills on or near their property. Some of the pictures that I’ve seen are just surreal looking. Think about it for a second. How many of you really want to see a 300’+ windmill towering over your property?
Maybe not over my property, but there’s a drive I take about once a year with a few of them on the way. They are really cool looking.
Depends if it is between me and the satellite arc. 
And:
3) This guy is selling solar panels.