UK Weather

Only you would think that taking energy from the wind would make air hotter.

Apparently I'm not the only one....

..."When wind turbines are used to harvest energy, they change the air flow in the atmosphere near Earth’s surface. That change, in turn, reduces wind speeds, which affect the exchange of heat and moisture between the air and the ground. And the turbines’ influence is not limited to their immediate area: The effects can be detected hundreds of kilometers away."...

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.1.20181004a/full/

Ooops another one...

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4553

This phenomena may be influenced by local weather patterns either intensifying or reducing the effects....also the geography could play a role...anybody who has worked in a fenced-in back yard in the summer sun, can attest to the effect of blocked wind flow...

Gonna' be a hot one today....the problem with London is not the heat, it's the lack of A/C units...

You have to realize that was an AP’s opinion that may have been spanked by reason in the past.

And one who believes there is free stuff, you know,… like the wind.

But with the First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

you are taking wind energy and turning into electricity. There is a price as well as a consequence for that.

...."you are taking wind energy and turning (it) into electricity"....and ultimately HEAT...

And you draw off more wind that creates more heat and electricity instead of dispersing it…, but that’s my layman’s view…

I thought I could get a picture of it, but my travels through Iowa, on top of the gear case and generators it looks like huge radiators coolers on top of the wind mills…

Exactly, the wind is converted to heat and electricity, which becomes heat...Wind turbines are basically heat generators, and blocking the wind that would remove that heat just makes it worse...it's a wonder they don't all burst into flames....

These cooling radiators on top of the housing, look huge. I found a picture…

I have questioned inside my little brain if there will be unintended consequences to going to "green" energy production. On a large scale, if we modify the wind, absorb more sun, change wave patterns, etc., what consequence awaits us that we will have to figure out how to mitigate?

Maybe there is so much excess of these things that this will not be the case. But, I would not be surprised if I learned otherwise.

It may not make the wind hotter, but by reducing the wind speed, it makes people, who are cooled by evaporation, hotter. It's hard to say how great the effect would be.

I agree,… nice example…

bit it’s probably a lot more in depth and complicated then that… no act is without its consequences… you know… like the famous cliché, the flap of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon can cause a tornado in Texas…

In an asphalt jungle, you need all the air you can get...

Reducing wind speed also reduces the cooling caused by evaporation of ground moisture and transpiration from plant leaves.

Only someone who would post anonymously would think that removing energy from the environment would have no effect on anything.

Here’s some consequences from the heat wave…

I read that as a loosely made statement as a cause and not the absolute ‘sole cause’.

Nothing now-a-days is that simple, especially when dealing with the weather.

GA!

There are clearly multiple contributing factors, including the number of inhabitants, and the heat and other emissions they themselves produce.

Straying from the topic a bit, yet still inline, with the push for technological is one thing, but push for the sense to be ‘woke’ is another.

John Deere is was always on the edge on this debate, before the catch word. But now they are really getting into it with their push for electric farm equipment.

I came across this article, and reposting it. One can only imagine the strain it can put on the electrical grid. Now it is opinionated, but anyone that has farmed for a living, actually farmed, and not the my grampa had a farm that you occasionally visited would understand. This article isn’t complete, I felt it started to sway into politically issues and I left that out. this was a John Deere test plot… I would be best if I had the farmers as a reference.

“A midwest farmer with over 10,000 acres of corn and is spread out over 3 counties. His operation is a "partnership farm" with John Deere. They use the larger farm operations as demonstration projects for the promotion and development of new equipment. He recently received a phone call from his John Deere representative, and they want the farm to go to electric tractors and combines in 2023. He currently has 5 diesel combines that cost $900,000 each that are traded in every 3 years. Also, over 10 really BIG tractors.

JD wants him to go all-electric soon.

He said: "Ok, I have some questions. How do I charge these combines when they are 3 counties away from the shop in the middle of a cornfield, in the middle of nowhere?"

"How do I run them 24 hours a day for 10 or 12 days straight when the harvest is ready, and the weather is coming in?"

"How do I get a 50,000+ lb. combine that takes up the width of an entire road back to the shop 20 miles away when the battery goes dead?"

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.

When the corn is ready to harvest, it has to have the proper sugar and moisture content. If it is too wet, it has to be put in giant dryers that burn natural or propane gas, and lots of it. Harvest time is critical because if it degrades in sugar content or quality, it can drop the value of his crop by half a million dollars or more.

It is analyzed at the time of sale.

It is standard procedure to run these machines 10 to 12 days straight, 24 hours a day at peak harvest time.

When they need fuel, a tanker truck delivers it, and the machines keep going. John Deere's only answer is "we're working on it."

Everything we do has consequences. A trade-off with every action is a reaction. Oil to gas, roads, plastics to exhaust. We live in an oil-based economy, there's no getting around it.

“

Well far be it from me to tell them how to do their job, but they could go with modular battery packs that are charged on the farm and delivered to site with a special vehicle that could change out the battery pack in the field....

We can make some ingenious machines...

....but that would involve some very pricey infrastructure upgrades, and total redesign of the tractors....but the whole point seems moot anyway because the greens want fertilizers outlawed, without fertilizers farming would take a 100 year step backwards and everybody (well except the rich of course) would starve to death...

Like JD said… they’re working on it.

Wind farms

Winds represent critical elements of the meteorological system. Winds transfer heat and move clouds. If we remove kinetic energy from the wind systems, it will cause slow but long-term changes in the weather system. I would not recommend large-scale wind farms.

https://climate.samunet.hu/indexen.htm

We live in a time when we cannot pay too much attention to the defects of turbine wind systems, or yes, then we should permanently eliminate them, but we are not that good at making certain decisions. For the moment we could increase the minimum distance between the wind turbines and make it internationally obligatory. It won't be much but it is always a breath of wind in the right direction..

Causes and effects are interlinked. One cannot have one without the other.

If rotation is slowed, then planetary orbit speed is slowed, and the Earth creeps ever closer to the Sun....

Dear god no. It would help if you had a refresher on celestial mechanics. The rotation period of the Earth is one day. This is not the same thing as the orbital period of about three hundred sixty-five days.

I know that I am again being very literal. Please get your terminology and thoughts straight before posting.

Well of course it's true that the rotational velocity has nothing to do with the orbital speed, but the loss of precession forces could throw the orbit trajectory catawampus and bring the Earth to a closer proximity to the Sun during it's orbital journey...maybe

Now you're hoping to violate Newton's laws of motion. Changing the rotational momentum and energy of an object by the use of torque will not change the translational momentum and energy of that object. Precession forces are torques that cause rotational movement.

So you're saying it's just Summer Solstice that's causing the high heat....?

Some people misses the point of discussions, and that’s ok, it adds to the discussion.

Maybe your next post should be earths Magnetic Poles flipping.

One mole hill at a time...

If you need to borrow any of my tools, just say so… I find them helpful, to calm the savage beasts.

But what about speeding rotation up?

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/5903038/earth-shortest-day-spinning-fast/

I have thought about the consequences of extracting so much gas and oil from the Earth, perhaps the Earth is shrinking, and will start spinning faster...the days will get shorter, but so will the nights....This could effect weather patterns...

Maybe, but since you live by the sea, the reduction of wind may not be notices… it interesting that man made items do effect the environment, though not noticeable.

such as China’s 3 Gorges Dam.

According to NASA’s estimations, the dam merely delays the rotation of the Earth by 0.06 microseconds. That’s not even noticeable, is it?

Well I think nuclear is the way to go, no emissions, actually available when you need it, small footprint, doesn't ruin the view, safer, with fewer deaths than wind, lasts longer...The combined cycle gas turbine which uses the excess heat produced would be better than a wind turbine, cheaper, more reliable, smaller footprint etc....

The UK has just approved construction of a new nuclear power plant on the site of an existing one. It's taken the politicians 10 years to reach the decision to build it.

Yes I hear Germany is rethinking it's decision to close it's 3 nuclear power plants as well...maybe common sense is staging a comeback...nah, it's all political pressure, they first opted to go with coal...it's nice they have so many choices, it's sad they can't make up their minds...

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/12/23205691/germany-energy-crisis-nuclear-power-coal-climate-change-russia-ukraine

...in addition to the dissipation of <...10,415 megawatts...> from the wind that wasn't captured that will be dissipated elsewhere.

Those are huge electric fans that are probably blowing plenty of hot air which may effectively be raising the temperature as well in Europe!

Plenty of "hot air" is what she's referring, I supposed..

In case you didn't know, this is about a UK radio comedy show called "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" where (fictitious) Mrs. Trellis writes in occasionally with crazy comments.

Good one!

In a sort of related way, the UK news today reported that the power generated this week from solar farms was down on previous weeks because the efficiency of the solar cells decreases as their temperature increases.

It is also possible that reason for a much lower solar cell output efficiency is due to the smoke from the surrounding fires in the area..

It seems to me that wind turbines are removing energy from the wind , transporting that energy (as electricity) to locations significantly removed from the turbine farms, using that energy at these new locations and then releasing the byproduct of electrical usage (usually another form of the energy, or heat) into the local atmosphere. The result would be local (away from the turbine farms) heating yet probably covering the whole usage area.

This means (to me, at least) that the wind cooling at the turbine farms is diminished and the heating of the usage areas is increased resulting in an overall raising of the the UK's ambient temperature. How much, I don't know but my vote is a solid yes, wind farms raise the temperature in measurable geographic regions.

The result would be local (away from the turbine farms) heating yet probably covering the whole usage area.

no, It’s also removing the energy from the wind and turning it to heat as well as electricity at the wind farms.

Please read the next paragraph after your quote.

I don't think the wind downstream of the turbine is hotter, my guess is it's cooler. I tried to look at the thermodynamics of it but didn't come to a serious conclusion.

I suspect that you are right. Removing energy from any gas means reduced molecular motion, which does indeed lower the temperature. There is clearly heat produced at the generator, and that will raise the temperature of the air passing by the generator housing, but that heat will rapidly spread out into the air downstream as the turbulent air mixes.

There will also be frictional heating as the blades pass through the air, but that too will be quickly mixed with the airstream, and the indisputable fact the windmill is able to send energy elsewhere shows that it must have removed that energy from the air, so on average, the air must have been cooled.

But the air has lost kinetic energy. If that is less than the energy the turbine receives, the difference is the thermal energy, so the air cools. And vice versa. That's my dilemma. But I suspect the temperature change either way is quite small.

It's my understanding that in gasses, kinetic energy IS the thermal energy of the gas, so removing kinetic energy MUST remove thermal energy, therefore lowering its temperature. I too suspect the ∆T is quite small.

The ∆T of 2297 turbines may not be so small.

I don't think that's quite right. The thermal energy of the gas is the kinetic energy of the molecules, even when the gas as a whole is stationary. The kinetic energy of the air moving en masse is (I think) something different.

If a given mass of air is moving with respect to an observer (or a windmill), then those molecules that have velocity components in the direction of that movement must, on average, have those components greater than the corresponding velocity components of those molecules that, on average, are moving in the opposite direction. The total kinetic energy is dependent on the sum of those velocities (including velocity components in all other directions), squared.

We can certainly give a name to the energy that is over and above the energy value that would exist if the sum of all those velocities was zero. I don't know what that name is, at the moment.

Another point of view is that the measured temperature of the air depends on the relative motion of the observer with respect to the air. An aircraft can not just stick a thermometer/sensor out into the air to get an accurate reading of the outside air temperature.

Again, removing energy from the air must cool it, BUT, in this case that is referring to the air that just passed a blade of the turbine. That cooler air will quickly interact and mix with other nearby air masses, and eventually with more distant air masses. The end result may well be a warming of the air at ground level, especially at night. Read SE's post #2, link #2.

I wonder if this is figured into the carbon footprint…