Study: Wind farms contribute to global warming

[Durian Fiend]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkD

Coming to Hawaii soon: Offshore wind farms.

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Not soon, if ever, though it does get around the land scarcity problem.

I feel fairly confident that we will never see a nuclear power plant in Hawaii.

[kalakoa]

going "off grid" is you need battery backup"

Depends on your lifestyle choices.

if Helco go 100% renewable is battery going the real backup?

Utility-scale has other options -- but not relevant against the NIMBYs and "protectors".

we will never see a nuclear power plant in Hawaii

Focused solar array with molten salt storage, but see above.

[MarkP]

As someone who makes all my own power all the time I find the concept of complaining about how the power company treats you....amusing. Also I find a big offshore wind turbine on the horizon to be almost infinitely more aesthetically pleasing than a jacked up truck. Life is what it is. We can simply minimize harm and do what we have to do to live life without ruining the planet or we can go back to living in caves and watching the majority of our children die.

I'm crazy though. I think the telescopes on Mauna Kea look good.

[TomK]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

Flawed science.
Wind turbines are designed to shut down with wind speeds over about 40-50 mph

You might want to read the article before you make flawed assumptions:

Here’s how it would work: As the outer bands of a hurricane approach the massive set of wind farms, the turbines spin, taking energy out of the winds... If the outer-band winds are diminished, the storm’s power decreases; wind speeds slow and the surge lessens. As the hurricane continues to cross the wind farms, the turbines continue cutting down the energy, so the hurricane loses strength as it advances. Very high winds never build to strike the turbines.

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1) This involves a massive wind farm that needs to be placed in a hurricane's path. How do you do that?;

2) Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa have been shown that they don't stop tropical cyclones crossing the island and that they remain at roughly the same strength even passing south of Oahu, despite local residents saying you have to be smoking something to believe that (but at the same time providing evidence that showed they were wrong);

3) Where do you initially place the wind turbines and how is the power transported to the islands?;

4) If you place them on the island, not a bad idea, then their hurricane-preventing effect will be too late.

Like a lot of ideas, the physics supports the idea but we aren't advanced enough to make it happen - and the world is ruled by rich politicians, not science.

[glassnumbers]

make a massive mobile wind farm on a huge floating platform so it can move into hurricanes as needed and suck up all their energy!

Aloha

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

1) This involves a massive wind farm that needs to be placed in a hurricane's path. How do you do that?

Exactly. I’ve read several articles about wind farms affecting the wind speeds of hurricanes, and it’s all quite hypothetical. At this point it requires as much unproven science as proven science, probably on par with something like a space elevator:

1) The size of the wind farm required to affect a hurricane is 10 times the size of the largest ever built to date.
2) The towers would have to be clustered in a specific area, not spread out, so might at best protect a single city like New Orleans. Maybe. Maybe not.
3) Offshore wind farms must be built in shallow water, like the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea, so the base of the towers are a few feet under water, not 500 or 1000 feet or more. Extremely tall towers are expensive as they are impractical to build and maintain.
4) There is no shallow water offshore in Hawaii
5) There’s no real proof an offshore wind farm can slow a hurricane, so people would believe they work as long as the limited protected area wasn’t hit by one. This could be decades, allowing enough time for the formation a religion or mythology around their mysterious powers.

The only reason I posted my original link about wind farms & hurricanes (upside) was as a logical fallacy to the link about the downside of wind farms. All alternative energy generation has some downside, which just distracts us from the question, “yes, but is it substantially better than fossil fuels in the long run?” Which is also a distraction from the most important question, “is the world getting warmer, and how do we do something about it.”

As Rob has said many times, government representatives like to get Puna residents together in a room so the concerned citizens will start arguing with each other, then the officials can go home early and do nothing. That works on a state and national level with the right issue as well.

"No one is such a LIAR as the indignant man." Beyond Good & Evil, 1886 - Friedrich Nietzsche

[glinda]

make a massive mobile wind farm on a huge floating platform so it can move into hurricanes as needed and suck up all their energy!

No need. Once we have the TMT we can point it at any incoming hurricane and zap the sucker. Of course we'll be a lot safer once the geothermal plant is back online, cause as ol' '69 pointed out even on a good day 'em suckers take a lot of power, but omg when they fire up the death ray!

Then we'll see who calls our Mauna a frickin' speed bump!

[TomK]

"No need. Once we have the TMT we can point it at any incoming hurricane and zap the sucker. Of course we'll be a lot safer once the geothermal plant is back online, cause as ol' '69 pointed out even on a good day 'em suckers take a lot of power, but omg when they fire up the death ray!

Then we'll see who calls our Mauna a frickin' speed bump!"

"ol' '69" also said the TMT would be used to launch satellites and spy on Iran. I wonder how the conflict will be handled when a future hurricane approaches the islands. Does the TMT zap it or continue with its space and spying programs?

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

Flawed science.
Wind turbines are designed to shut down with wind speeds over about 40-50 mph

You might want to read the article before you make flawed assumptions:

Here’s how it would work: As the outer bands of a hurricane approach the massive set of wind farms, the turbines spin, taking energy out of the winds... If the outer-band winds are diminished, the storm’s power decreases; wind speeds slow and the surge lessens. As the hurricane continues to cross the wind farms, the turbines continue cutting down the energy, so the hurricane loses strength as it advances. Very high winds never build to strike the turbines.

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You're swallowing this???

Speaking Truth to Lies / Facts to Ignorance

[Guest]

Salamat open d . Imo people misreading and misinterpreting "take".