Large-scale wind energy slows down winds and reduces turbine efficiencies

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, Tullius said:

Suffice to say that the captains of the ships (not very big, but still sufficient for commercial transport) on it are quite happy with it:

At least they don't need a light getting in the night to toilet. They themselves glow enough.

[Tullius]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

At least they don't need a light getting in the night to toilet. They themselves glow enough.

Even though Cattenom has its fair share of problems, as far as I know they have not yet managed to be that bad.

[StarStreak2109]

Well, you yourself can now decide which is uglier!

Besides, the power is coming out of the outlet in your wall, right?

I find it quite unnerving, that each week, a giant bulk carrier is unloading Australian coal in Germany to be converted into power while we have natural and renewable resources (wind and solar) in abundance. The photo above is from one of Germany's larger strip mines. They are nothing against the scars we put into Australia's soil for instance. So Germany is not only destroying it's own landscape, but we also do it to other countries.

Of course, at a certain point, there are quite enough wind turbines out there and of course you have to consider ecological consequences. But mind you, they are a fraction of the ecological consequences of strip mining and releasing carbon dioxides into the air, which have been bound in the earth for millions of years, never mind whether they come from burning coal or oil.

I for myself can only say:

• If we want to keep our planet green (and right now we only have this one), we need to change our way of life now! This does not start with the power plants supporting our way of life, it starts with our every day life. We can actively control, how much energy each and every one of us consumes. This starts with the appliances we use and ends with the way how we spend our holidays!
• Power must come from some source. If we want to reduce our carbon dioxide footprint, we'd better get rid of burning coal and oil sooner than later! That means either going nuclear (which has its own problems) or going renewable. If I have to choose, I'd rather live in the shadow of dozens of wind turbines than a nuclear power plant!
• Technology will progress and with that, we will see fewer and fewer wind turbines with increasing power. Offshore wind farms are other ways to replace fossile fuels. And who knows what is just around that corner in the future?!

Regarding CO2, there's this interesting study, which gives some food for thought for our every day life style!

Observed Arctic sea-ice loss directly follows anthropogenic CO2 emission

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/747

Abstract:

Quote

Arctic sea ice is retreating rapidly, raising prospects of a future ice-free Arctic Ocean during summer. Because climate-model simulations of the sea-ice loss differ substantially, we used a robust linear relationship between monthly-mean September sea-ice area and cumulative carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to infer the future evolution of Arctic summer sea ice directly from the observational record. The observed linear relationship implies a sustained loss of 3 ± 0.3 square meters of September sea-ice area per metric ton of CO₂ emission. On the basis of this sensitivity, Arctic sea ice will be lost throughout September for an additional 1000 gigatons of CO₂ emissions. Most models show a lower sensitivity, which is possibly linked to an underestimation of the modeled increase in incoming longwave radiation and of the modeled transient climate response.

Just my two cents.

[micr0wave]

Someone explain how extracting energy via windmills warms up the surrounding.

I can't extract energy from something and that something is warmer (contains more energy) afterwards.

[Elthy]

Maybe by slowing down the wind and thus reducing cooling by evaporation...

[Green Baron]

Small changes have been measured directly under and downwind of the rotors, cooling by day, warming by night. The hypothesis is that the rotors mix the ground layer vertically.

The rest (like the link in the op) is mainly based on models and simulations. Models can always be adjusted to serve a purpose ...

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Green Baron

[78stonewobble]

3 hours ago, JayPee said:

We could decide, collectively, as a society, to simply use fewer resources.  Many of us live well above any reasonably measured minimum standard of living.

For instance, what if we decided, for the good of all of us, not to waste valuable watt-hours simulating the horrific, explosive deaths of fictional little green idiots in a comical series of poorly-planned simulated rocketry experiments.

No and I'm not gonna tell the x number of billions of other people in the world, who hasn't had it as good as us, they can never have that, to the cheapness that is coal.... We did...

[cantab]

4 hours ago, JayPee said:

We could decide, collectively, as a society, to simply use fewer resources.

Something related does actually work to an extent. Major users of electricity that can accept power outages can agree with the electricity grids to be first to be disconnected, to help the grid match generation and consumption. This goes some way towards dealing with the "when the wind doesn't blow" problem. The other answer to inconsistent renewables is larger grid scale, though that has its own challenges.

[tater]

Yeah, water cooling is typical.

Dry cooling is not impractical for small reactors, however. Conventional power production also uses water, too. We have a huge coal plant.

[PB666]

On 11/15/2016 at 7:30 AM, Darnok said:

Looks like clean energy is not so clean and not so safe for environment after all...

http://phys.org/news/2016-11-large-scale-energy-turbine-efficiencies.html

BTW mountains and trees do the same thing, just they don't generate power.

Everest is blocking alot of wind, I propose we chop it down.

When you drill oil and gas out of the ground, it makes the ground shallower, or stripmine a coal mountain you increase wind speed, so everything balances out.

And of course all those CO2 emissions that generate warmer air over the altantic and increase the risk for higher intensity hurricanes. You compare all the DeltaE from turbines with a single unit change in category hurricane, the turbine DeltaE is trivial.

Get a clue.

[Ten Key]

I thought this was an interesting read. Might have some implications for power buffering for intermittent generation systems like wind and solar.

https://www.ornl.gov/news/nano-spike-catalysts-convert-carbon-dioxide-directly-ethanol 

[wumpus]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, water cooling is typical.

Dry cooling is not impractical for small reactors, however. Conventional power production also uses water, too. We have a huge coal plant.

Dry cooling (presumably closed loop water cooling) will work worst when you need it the most.  Not sure what the highest temperature that exists in the ocean (and thus would be the design limit for SBN cooling), but I suspect it wouldn't be easy to get down to that in a New Mexican heat wave.

On the other hand, the US Navy only has 77 SBNs in the fleet.  Even if you used them all for power, I imagine you could find 77 places burning coal and having better water supplies.