The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On

There is a whole lot of sky, my dude. I don’t think it’s plausible that we could capture even 1% of the kinetic energy of wind currents if we wanted to.

But also, wind is ultimately solar energy: the sun heats up parts of the planet at a time, the temperature differences cause pressure differences, and pressure flows from high to low. If we could somehow capture most of that kinetic energy, the result would be that areas which heat up stay warmer, and areas which don’t heat up as much stay cooler.

But we’re talking about gravity-bound gases, here. If we tried to capture too much, the gases would just find an easier route to equalize, such as going above our turbine network.

Is it really stealing any more wind than say, a tall building though?

You’re getting shit on for asking questions, but these articles seem to bring out the worst in armchair engineers.

It’s worth remembering that wind is the result of solar flux adding energy to our atmosphere. From a practical perspective, we can’t deplete the energy as it gets added constantly no matter what we do. Putting big turbines in the wind does alter local flow profiles but, again from a practical perspective, the mass fraction of air flow modified is minuscule. Further, part if the design of wind farms includes making sure that the turbines stay out of each other’s wake, sort of like keeping solar panels on a solar farm from being in the shadow of another panel.

To bring solar into it again, the concern about stopping the wind is like the concern for overheating the planet by putting up to many solar panels. You see, solar panels have a higher albedo (absorption) of solar radiation than the planet, on average. It’s like pavement vs a gravel road - the pavement is going to heat up more. If you run the numbers, though, the effect is negligible, more like adding 1 dark rock out of every 1000 to the gravel road.

We use, worldwide, something like 1/10,000th of the solar energy that falls on earth. It’s often worthwhile to ask questions like yours, even if only to offer a vehicle for explaining why and how engineers and scientists have had the same questions and found the answers.

Stay curious, friend.

What happens when we're harvesting say, 1% of all the kinetic energy of the atmosphere. Or 10%. Surely that will have major weather and climate effects.

What else should we be doing to prevent wind power from turning into the next generation's climate disaster?

Stop making assumptions, don't jump to conclusions. Do the science, gather data, apply math.

Until then, we can at least appreciate global warming means an increase in atmospheric energy or wind speed and availability. We should rather be worried about storms damaging turbines.

Why are you trying to blame "scientists for not speaking up loud enough" and not the ruling class and politicians who have time and time again worked against the interest of people and the stability of Earth's climate in the name of quarterly profits and claiming lower taxes.

And then you're suggesting that the climate impact of wind turbines is going to cause more changes versus what we're already doing.

Do you not think trees? Buildings? Cars? Other mega structures? Are not already changing the way wind is moving? Look at the physical profile of a wind turbine, how much space does it take up at once? Now compare that to the face of a building. How many tens, hundreds of blades could fit in that space? Compare that to Earths entire atmosphere. And you're out here suggesting somehow we'd be at 10% coverage? Even 1% is completely outlandish.

You claim to be pro wind and then just offer absolutely absurd arguments against it. And you're acting like we're doing enough with our current climate crisis to run into another disaster in the future. Wishful thinking, honestly we'll be lucky if we can get far enough to have the issues you're imagining.

There is no one solution, that's how we got ourselves into this mess.

Diversify energy production and reduce energy use, make more efficient houses, cars, machines, work places, more energy efficient living.

Renewables is plural for a reason. We need to combine multiple sources just as we have done with fossil fuels. Solar, geothermal, ocean currents, etc all compliment wind nicely.

The real challenge is energy storage. Fossil fuels are effectively batteries until we expend them.

Wow. It’s great that you thought of that!! Thankfully, scientists almost as smart as you have already created a model that specifically keeps us from stealing all the wind. It’s somewhere around 60% and under and we’ll be fine.

In the simplest models the bulk of wind is mostly caused by two major factors. The sun heating parts of the earth's atmosphere creating high pressure zones and the Earth's rotation displacing air.

The only observable effects we'd see in the conceivable future are that scaling wind energy utilization would decrease the effectivity of other technologies that rely on wind vs such as sails or wind turbines, as wind turbines locally disrupt airflow patterns.

The larger environmental cost of them like many green energy solutions would be the materials used in their manufacturing and the energy spent to haul them to their site of deployment.

In the 19th century internal combustion engines commonly ran on grain alcohol, but it was too expensive and too hard to mass produce so they went to petroleum based fuels. Electric cars have existed since the invention of the electric motor, but they've always been held back by battery technology. An electric car that uses hydrogen fuel cells in conjunction with batteries would be more environmentally neutral while improving usability, but the cost of fuel cells and logistics of hydrogen fuel makes it infeasible.

Advancement in our way of life has always been driven by profit. If it's not profitable, forget it. Advancement may even be held back by companies that see it as a threat to profit. Environmental impact has historically been a background concern. It's not until the damage has become an actual threat has it moved to a forefront consideration. And solutions are mostly driven by government, not the responsible profiteers.

Tech is now pushing toward sustainable solutions, but it's still profit driven. Business is looking to capitalize on new markets that have been opened up by government subsidy and popular opinion. It should have been there from the start, but the desire was never there. The attitude of government and big business in the first half of the 20th century was destructive. They felt the Earth was a resource to be plundered without regard for anything but profit.

We have to turn around over a century of damaging industry and way of life. It's got a lot of inertia and it's going to be hard to do. I think the human race is going to have to reap what it has sown and it could get pretty bad. We'll have to get through it and change our way of life so it doesn't happen again. If we become caretakers instead of destroyers the Earth can survive this era of human impact and heal much like it has for natural calamities in the distant past.