Golly gee, stranger, that’s why I asked the flippin’ question!
I’m not talking about wind patterns, per se. Rather, I’m talking about the effect that taking energy out of the winds will have.
In 2002, according to the CIA World Book, the world generated about 15.29 trillion kWh of electricity (or roughly 1.508 × 10[sup]17[/sup] joules per day, assuming an even daily distribution of generation). I’m just suggesting that taking that much energy out of the atmosphere is going to have some sort of material effect on the environment.
I still say that about power lines and wind generation or no we will still have them unless someone figures out how to get Tesla’s ideas into practical use (although perhaps bolts of electricity arcing around the countryside is no improvement either).
I kinda like how wind farms look though. I would not mind one near me.
As others have noted, the problems for a locality of a windfarm are quite severe. Hence the move towards offshore structres, such as this. Obviously there’s still all the environmental concerns.
Whether the generation conincides with high demands depends, obviously, on both local climate and on the usage on the grid concerned. The UK has no huge reliance on air conditioning, meaning that summer remains a low period. And I would be surprised if winter was not the peak for generating power from turbines.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that to be so snippy. It’s just that I’ve noticed the term being used recently with great flippancy (no doubt in part having been reinforced in popular memory by the recent dreadful Ashton Kutcher movie) in a way that is exactly arse-backwards. Our inability to predict the behavior of a system doesn’t make in inherently unstable, but the common perception of the term “butterfly effect” conjures up that conception, even though it is far from Edward Lorenz’ intention.
Stranger
I’d bet the atmosphere produces more than enough energy to spare. According to this site (found on Google, I can’t vouch for its reliability) a hurricane releases as much energy in a day as it would take to power the U.S. for six months. Not that we could possibly harness all that energy, but my point is, it’s not like the atmosphere is going to run out of juice. (Especially since the energy of storms ultimately comes from the Sun, heating different parts of the atmosphere by different amounts. So, unlike fossil fuels, atmospheric energy is continually replenished.)
Why go to windpower? What’s wrong with coal?
I like coal.
Nothing wrong with coal, indeed, the US gets the majority of its power from coal plants. But like all fossil fuels, coal is a limited resource and burning it releases pollutants, so it’s worth it to investigate alternatives. Plus there is some merit in simple diversification.
Mean solar flux is 1300 W/m^2, and with a radius of 6400 km, the Earth receives about 1.7 x 10^17 W, or 1.4 x 10^22 joules per day.
Cloud cover greatly reduces the amount absorbed, and people say the time- and location- averaged solar input is only about 300 W/m^2 – but that still works out to 4 x 10^21 joules per day.
The percentage of energy we could possibly take out of the atmosphere is very, very small.
Just a nitpick, but A Sound of Thunder was published over ten years before Lorenz posited his theory, and even then he didn’t call it “The Butterfly Effect” – he used the flapping of a bird’s wings for his hypothetical. He probably changed it to a butterfly because of the accidental appearance of models of Lorenz attractors, some time later.
What we need is a secondary energy supply like hydrogen. If our society burns hydrogen and we use other power sources to create the hydrogen, then suddenly the biggest problem with wind, which is that it’s not always available when you need it, goes away.
If we can abstract away the energy consumption infrastructure from the source with an intermediary like hydrogen or something else, then we can create the intermediate fuel with any combination of methods that make most sense at the time. If oil gets really expensive, you build more coal, nuclear, wind, and solar plants. If one of those becomes uneconomical, you can pull it offline and replace it with something else.
Based on Strangers dissertation and Larrys clarification, can I suggest a different name for the theory to which people are alluding when they say “The Butterfly Effect”?
The Homer Effect. Based on Treehouse of Terror V, Time and Punsihment. Homer creates a time travelling toaster and manages to interfere with nature in the past which has bizarre implications on the present. This seems to convey what people are suggesting when they reference “The Butterfly Effect”.
The latest issue of Popular Science describes a interesting project which involves flying windmills in the jet stream (Windmills in the Sky, August 2005), tethered to a ground station on a 15,000 to 45,000 foot cable. The windmills take off like helicopters, using electricity from the ground, and when at the correct altitude the rotors tilt to draw energy from the wind.
Sounds cool, in a “one small step” kinda way toward a space elevator.
Also known as the NIMBY syndrome, which is one reason why the USA hasn’t built a new oil refinery in 25 years.
Unfortunately the NIMBY syndrome can develop into a full blown BANANA issue.
For the teeming novices-
NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard
BANANA = Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
cut and paste is my friend
I’ve often wondered why there aren’t wind turbines down the median strips of every interstate in the United States. We have a lot of interstates, so that would mean a lot of turbines. Environmentally, this land is a writeoff anyway (except for birds, and I’m sure there’s some easy technological fix for that). Plus, the modest humming noise of turbines would not be an issue, and you would actually have some wind being generated by passing vehicles.
I don’t see the peak-demand problem as being much of an issue. I’m not proposing batteries here – maybe the turbines could be used to split out hydrogen. There must some viable form of energy capture that could smooth out the peaks and troughs in production.
The truth is, there are plenty of blighted areas where you could put turbines. How about covering the top of every Wal-Mart or big-box store, for example?
Because there are cars traveling down those interstates, driven by humans. And so cars regularly veer off the road, and into the medians, hitting signs, guardrails, and even oncoming traffic, sometimes.
Adding wind turbines in the medians would just be more things to be hit. Thus increasing the death/injury rate. Plus the high tower may fall over, on top of other vehicles on the road – more injuries/deaths.
And the turbines themself would probably be damaged by crashing to the ground. So you’re taking rather valuable turbines, and putting them out in a dangerous, high-traffic location where they are more likely to be damaged. Plus bad effects to the electrical system when an accident happens. And leaving live high voltage electrical wires knocking around loose at the accident site.
No, it’s much safer (to both drivers & the turbines) to locate them elsewhere.
Besides, many interstates, especially in cities, are placed below grade, lower than the surrounding land & buildings. So that would be a poor location for winds, anyway.
To me it seems like these are routine engineering problems. Put berms in the medians, for example, and put the electric cables underground. And it’s not like there is nothing in the medians now for cars to hit. Around here, plenty of the medians have trees. I agree that the medians are probably suboptimal in terms of the winds, but on the other hand, it’s just so much wasted space now.
To the point raised by the OP, wind turbines can be awfully obtrusive. My point is that we should consider putting them where the land is already degraded.
The main reason is that wind turbines are only really economical where there is a high average wind. That’s why there is a big wind farm near Pincher Creek, Alberta. The Crowsnest Pass acts as a big venturi and creates a fairly constant, fairly high wind through that region all the way through Lethbridge. Lots of wind energy means high duty cycles for the turbines, which means they are economical.
The wind has to be at a certain speed before the turbine will even turn. And if the wind is too high, they have to shut down for protection. So you need just the right kind of wind. Places like that are not that common, which is why so many wind farms are being built out in the ocean.