A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry

nytimes.com

14 points·Futurebot··6 comments

> The turbine is capable of producing as much thrust as the four engines of a Boeing 747 jet, according to G.E.

Windmills do not work that way.

forgive me if this is a dumb question, but at some point of proliferation, won't wind turbines have an impact on wind flow?

They create more local turbulence, but don't have a big overall impact on wind flow.

They do, however, redistribute moisture and heat which can contribute to temperature changes.

Yes. If they didn’t, we would place them in dense grids, separated by only as large a distance to prevent them from colliding with each other when they turn in response to changes in wind direction.

Also, there’s the small matter of conservation of energy. Wind turbines turn kinetic energy from moving air into electricity. That means the moving air must lose kinetic energy. It won’t lose mass, so it has to lose velocity.

Sample of a paper discussing this: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13570

It seems, if we did reduce global wind speeds with all the new friction of turbines, their would be less transfer of air between poles and tropical areas. Thus, the northland wouldn't warm as much as it currently is. Then a cooler Arctic would mean more driving force for winds. A negative feedback loop.

I don’t think wind turbines are high enough (yet) to affect wind speeds at height much.

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