Shock News!!!! Scientists Discover Laws Of Physics!!!

Shock News!!!! Scientists Discover Laws Of Physics!!!

Posted on March 30, 2013 in suyts space

This is from the “yes, they really are that stupid” department.

There’s a new paper out which states that we’ve completely overestimated the energy potential of our whirlygigs and pinwheels, otherwise known as wind turbines.

Are global wind power resource estimates overstated?

Abstract

Estimates of the global wind power resource over land range from 56 to 400 TW. Most estimates have implicitly assumed that extraction of wind energy does not alter large-scale winds enough to significantly limit wind power production. Estimates that ignore the effect of wind turbine drag on local winds have assumed that wind power production of 2–4 W m⁻² can be sustained over large areas. New results from a mesoscale model suggest that wind power production is limited to about 1 W m⁻² at wind farm scales larger than about 100 km². We find that the mesoscale model results are quantitatively consistent with results from global models that simulated the climate response to much larger wind power capacities. Wind resource estimates that ignore the effect of wind turbines in slowing large-scale winds may therefore substantially overestimate the wind power resource.

From the accompanying news piece……

Along with Amanda Adams of the University of North Carolina, Keith used a parameterization of the atmospheric effects of wind-turbine arrays developed for use in a mesoscale model, in this case the Weather Research and Forecasting Advanced Research model (WRF-ARW). By running simulations for turbine arrays 2.7, 30 or 270 × 10³ km² in size, the pair found that wind-power production would saturate at around 0.5 to 1 W m²as turbine density increases.

Now, I suppose this is good to have this information, but, this is stuff all of us knew already.  I view this as a damning paper.  If, after years and years of funding and research and use no one has considered this before, then how is it possible to trust their insights?  Continuing…..

As total wind-power generation approaches a few terawatts, there will be “both a climate impact and meaningful constraints on the amount you can extract”. Productivity at a given site will be less than if the other sites had not been there, Keith explained. “You’ll begin to edge towards saturation.”

Once you stop assuming that each wind-power site is independent of the others, calculating global wind capacity becomes very hard. “It’s an optimization problem, assessing where to put them [wind-power sites] optimally, and nobody’s done that research yet,” said Keith.

Good heavens!!!  No one has thought about this, yet?  Well, when we say no one, we mean none of the imbecilic advocates for this idiocy.  Those of us skeptical that wind energy is some sort of panacea have noted this before.

There’s a plethora of basic physical laws which address this.  To simplify what is being said here, is that if you extract the kinetic energy of wind and turn it to electricity, that energy isn’t going to be available down wind later.  This is why you don’t put a wind turbine directly behind another wind turbine.

While the earth isn’t exactly a closed system, the law of conservation of energy applies here.  The inputs which cause wind will remain relatively constant irrespective of our energy extraction from the wind.  So, there’s only so much energy from wind available for exploitation.  The more you take out, the less there is available.  This isn’t a hard concept.

The authors also note there’s some other realistic boundaries.

“But if you had to do something more realistic, where you select where you’re going to put wind turbines based on being relatively close to human energy demand, and you had to find relatively good wind resources and not have a big environmental impact, then you’re down to a much smaller number.”

No kidding.  Hank did a guest post touching on this months ago.  While there is an average amount of global energy available, it isn’t uniform.  The areas where wind energy extraction is best are very limited.  In fact, it’s likely we’ve already saturated those areas.  You can phrase it anyway you wish, economically feasible, cost-effective, return on investment…… the best spots (and they aren’t great) are already taken.  Plus, the more pinwheels you put up the less and less energy is available.  THIS ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE!!!

Wind energy is a pipe dream sold to a bunch of pinheads who think some utopian society is attainable.  The problems with wind energy are insurmountable at this time.  There’s a litany of reasons why it’s stupid and wasteful to pursue this madness.  The largest one is the fact that we can’t store AC electricity.  And, in spite of what the authors stated in a caveat, it isn’t scalable.