If windfarms reduce overall wind speed around them and if there are enough of them built, wouldn't this measurably reduce the wind speed in the environment?
And if the wind speed of the environment is measurably reduced, wouldn't this affect the environment itself?
What are the negative effects of this on birds, climate, insect population, etc...? Do positive effects significantly outweigh negatives?
The amount we can extract is tiny compared to the volume of energy put into the air every day by the sun. At a certain scale it could definitely become an issue and change the local environment and reduce wind speeds, we have seen that with some of the biggest solar farms where the air temperature is changed and the shade increases vegetation and wildlife so presumably wind speed reductions will have some effect. But compared to the CO2e it saves from being emitted its absolutely worth it currently.
> But compared to the CO2e it saves from being emitted its absolutely worth it currently.
Funny. That’s a huge part of the argument made to justify that burning fossil fuels is OK. The problem with letting small problems linger while you scale is that suddenly you have a huge problem you can’t do anything meaningfully about because suddenly it’s a critical part of your economy.
"It reduces CO2 emissions" is being used to justify burning fossil fuels? And is "a huge part" of the argument? I think you explained yourself wrong.
No, it’s being used to say that ignoring the problems with Wind farms scaling to a huge scale (and fossil fuels is massive and wind has made less than a noticeable dent) means that you’ve solved one set of problems for another and hopes the second set isn’t as bad. I didn’t say the only alternative is to go back to fossil fuels. I personally think that nuclear has much better and cleaner scaling properties with fewer issues than wind and solar (for example it still remains generally true that the only countries that have meaningfully reduced CO2 emissions are those that have offset it using nuclear while solar and wind have a very poor record) .
> wind has made less than a noticeable dent
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/how-mu...
Almost 30% is not nothing.
If the only similarity is ignoring some problem somewhere then those two are massively different and it's not "funny" in the way you're implying.
Please look at a chart of per-MWhr generation costs. Wind and solar are a fraction of the cost of nuclear (with solar plunging by the day, almost) and nuclear is only getting more expensive as time goes on despite being a decade or two away from being a 100 year old technology.
In the US nuclear plants are being phased out and wind/solar projects are replacing them at a ratio of roughly 6:1...with huge savings for grid operators and customers. It's so cheap, even with storage system costs it's still cheaper.
That's where utilities are focused: expanding energy storage and better transmission grid infrastructure. Those, and renewable energy, increase grid reliability.
Yes kinda, although even very large wind farms are small compared to:
1) the total height of the atmosphere and
2) other natural obstructions like cliffs and hills
What happens in surface level winds (which is where windmills operate) are actually controlled by the upper level winds. Obstructing surface level winds has local effects (these are also called "terrain effects" since this is usually caused by geography).
Theoretically, if you were to cover the earth in windmills, this would have a serious effect on surface level winds, where they would generally be blocked by a nearby windmill. This would be especially noticeable at sea where you otherwise don't get terrain effects. The vast majority of the atmosphere (everything above a few hundred feet) would continue to be unaffected, though, and would continue to be driven by ground and sea surface temperatures and the Coriolis effect, mostly.
In terms of negative effects of wind farms on birds... reduced wind speed is truly the least of their concerns.
Wind farms do have meteorological impacts (e.g. onshore ones slightly dry the soil behind them). It is measurable but insignificant.
There was a study a few years back that saw radical reduction in bird strikes simply by painting a single blade a contrasting color.
I believe bird strikes went down when they made the windmills much bigger, and the angular velocity of the blades much lower. Not building them on open truss towers encouraging birds building nests under them also helped.
That's what I was wondering -- couldn't this have some long-term effects on the climate of the area? In its current form, there is probably very little impact. But I imagine as wind farms become more common and dot the country-side... what does this do?