Earth is Getting Windier -- Which Helps Wind Turbines Generate More Green Energy (wbur.org) 63
"The world is getting windier," reports WBUR, citing a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. And they add that this could actually be a boon to wind farm operators, "since faster wind means more efficient wind turbines."
Researchers analyzed decades of weather data and determined global wind speeds have risen dramatically over the past 10 years... Princeton University scholar Timothy Searchinger, one of the study's authors, says researchers expect wind speed to continue to increase, he says, which has multiple positive effects. Green energy through wind turbines will see these impacts. "When you increase the wind speed by a little bit, you still increase the power quite a lot," he says...
As a result of increasing wind speed, the average wind turbine generated roughly 17% more electricity in 2017 than it did in 2010, the study found...
Now, humans can capitalize on this change for at least the next decade, he says. "When you size wind turbines, you can size them differently to take advantage of that additional power," he says. "That's really the key point, is that if we can predict these changing patterns 10 years in advance, we can size our turbines so that they take advantage of the maximum amount of wind that is reasonable and economical."
Researchers analyzed decades of weather data and determined global wind speeds have risen dramatically over the past 10 years... Princeton University scholar Timothy Searchinger, one of the study's authors, says researchers expect wind speed to continue to increase, he says, which has multiple positive effects. Green energy through wind turbines will see these impacts. "When you increase the wind speed by a little bit, you still increase the power quite a lot," he says...
As a result of increasing wind speed, the average wind turbine generated roughly 17% more electricity in 2017 than it did in 2010, the study found...
Now, humans can capitalize on this change for at least the next decade, he says. "When you size wind turbines, you can size them differently to take advantage of that additional power," he says. "That's really the key point, is that if we can predict these changing patterns 10 years in advance, we can size our turbines so that they take advantage of the maximum amount of wind that is reasonable and economical."
Re: (Score:1)
Study funded by wind farms and "climate change" hoaxes no doubt. Wind is either getting stronger or weaker and they can say whatever they want since their results can't be proven or dis-proven. I would not spend any of my money on wind turbines, a waste of money.
I was actually thinking something similar. Earth is always more something-or-other that we're measuring more than before.
Reminds of my paranoid elderly father talking about how many more hurricanes there are now than when he was young. I had to ask him, "How many weather satellites did they have back in the 40s, Dad?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
More blustery days (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Tut tut, it looks like rain!
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the reason it's windier is because it's ramping up for elections on two continents.
TFS is worthless (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Formative Summary
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, we are all old enough to not add f*****g to every fucking - oops - word after we had RTFM.
Re: (Score:1)
So is what we are attributing to man-made climate change actually caused by the PDO cycle???
Re: (Score:1)
So is what we are attributing to man-made climate change actually caused by the PDO cycle???
Probably, but don't worry, we'll find something else we're doing wrong to blame other problems on in the future and forget all about climate change. We won't have time to worry about climate change when we've got the fancy new, far more dangerous thing to consider.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
30 years of increasing wind power doesn't sound useless. In fact it sounds like a timely boost to a rapidly developing market.
Re:TFS is worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
In 30 years time we will have a vast fleet of windmills and can keep adding them to cover the low part of the cycle. Duh.
You didn't think we would just stop building them did you? It that they wouldn't keep getting more efficient like they have been for decades?
Re: (Score:2)
Just like Moore's Law, turbines will get more and more efficient. Eventually they will be over 10000% efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/605/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: TFS is worthless (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're forgetting that in 30 years, we'll have nuclear fusion!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in my experience in 30 years we will be roughly 30 years away from fusion.
But a ice try, I grant you that!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
When we get to the point of starting to shut down natural gas power stations because they are being replaced by wind and solar power -- and this is perhaps 20 years off -- we can make the decision to start mothballing them, and preserving the investment, rather that scrapping them, so that they can be available for the rare periods (lasting a few weeks at most, every few years) when weather conditions do not provide enough power on the normal diurnal cycle. This would be a duty cycle of something like 1-2%.
Re: (Score:2)
A 10-year-old natural gas plant in California gets the coal plant treatment - Two GE turbines can't start quickly enough, so they can't play well with renewables. [arstechnica.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The cycle is known since about 1997.
Germany is building windmills in big scale since 1987.
I guess that was mostly during the low part of the cycle.
No get of my lawn or get a clue or preferable both.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure,
strange that we never hear about "cutting into half" in Germany.
Seems for Germans Germany is bigger than for non Germans.
So, new windmills need to be 1000 yards away from settlements ... how exactly is that cutting energy from wind into half? For cutting into half we would need to remove half of them.
You are one of the idiots who posts random links he did not even read.
Re: (Score:2)
The summary did not include this point explicitly, true, but it did point out that knowing the cycles can lead to building more and better windmills to capture the benefit from the part of the cycle. Windmills don't have that great of a lifespan. Many wind farms are not going to last more than a couple of decades before they will have to be replaced. Mainly the blades are wearing out rather quickly (mentioned on slashdot in the past [slashdot.org]). This gives opportunity to adapt to changes in wind cycles if only we
Re: TFS is worthless (Score:2)
Re: TFS is worthless (Score:2)
Based on this trend, if we extrapolate into the future, the wind will be a million miles an hour by the end of the century and we'll all be blown away. It's not just a wind change, it's a wind crisis. We need to start a student march, elect someone who will have the courage to stand up to the Big Wind capitalists and start attacking Wind Deniers or we won't have a world left.
Personally, I blame the Boomers.
Re:The Climate is balancing itself (Score:4, Funny)
That makes sense. That is why the Earth grew all those wind turbines in order to keep itself balanced.
Re: (Score:2)
"The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible."
-- IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations)
Of course it is (Score:5, Interesting)
Less old growth means shorter trees, even if there are more trees by number, so that means less to slow winds down locally. And more heat energy in the atmosphere means more energy to push winds around.
Solution, build an arseload of windmills, and replace CO2-emitting power with them, solving both problems :)
Though seriously, we need more old growth.
A serious place trees have come out recently has been in between crop lands, because the big businesses that buy the crops require them to be removed specifically in order to reduce habitat because they blame e.coli breakouts on animals crapping in the fields. But mostly it's because of humans crapping in the fields, because either they don't have time to go to the toilet, or because employers don't provide enough toilets. Those trees are needed to slow down winds and catch airborne soil, which winds up getting blown into creeks and rivers where it causes oversilting.
Re: (Score:2)
No I got it: build taller turbines! That way those pesky trees don't get in the way.
Re: (Score:2)
Easy solution (Score:2)
Though seriously, we need more old growth [trees].
Just wait a bit ...
Re: Of course it is (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
E.coli in the fields can only come from using pig and cow manure as fertilizer.
A single human, or even a hundred would not be able to have a significant impact if they shit on a single field.
Re: (Score:2)
Here in Florida officials are contemplating monitoring fields for pig and deer intrusion. If tracks are found harvesting has to be delayed for 7 days. With hunting on the wane deer are proliferating. My neighbor has a 50 acre field next to my home, he farms 600 acres total. He has a harvesting permit allowing him to kill nuisance deer out of season. Surrounded by 25 sq miles of pine woods he isn't making a dent in them.
His potato crop is sold for potato chips and has to be harvested 90 days from planting. P
So is (Score:4, Funny)
SuperKendall. Put a turbine in front of that guy's mouth and you can mine bitcoins all day!
Only takes a little extra windspeed, too. (Score:5, Informative)
Also: It only takes a little extra windspeed to get a lot of extra power.
Wind power is proportional to the CUBE of the wind speed, so a 26% wind speed increase doubles the available energy.
Wind is ugly. (Score:4, Interesting)
We need solar or nuclear .. I mean FFS I flew across the country and there is so much desert in this country! And no I am not in Mongolia, I am in the US. Why the hell aren't we putting solar panels out there? Are we dumb?
To power the entire of the USA's energy needs, we only need to cover an area smaller than West Virginia with present-day average solar panels. If we built that, our presidents will no longer have to touch balls and perform fellatio on Saudi kings. Think about that, and then you have to ask how much do we really need West Virginia?
OK wait sorry I didn't know your grandma lives there .. turns out we can literally and figuratively fit like four West Virginias just in the Mojave desert .. whose grandma lives in the Mojave desert?.. Nobody's. So now why the hell don't we do that? It doesn't all have to be in the Mojave .. but I am saying we could put a big amount of them there. We also have 2000 square miles of rooftops in the US .. we spread some there.
This is the land coverage to provide energy we need:
https://static1.businessinside... [businessinsider.com]
As for nuclear, yeah we should do that too btw .. stop being a wuss about it.
Re: Wind is ugly. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
As for nuclear, yeah we should do that too btw
Why? It's not cost-effective as renewable energy.
Some studies differ (Score:1)
Great, now we'll all get cancer. (Score:2)
Reference: Trump.
spin spin (Score:1)
How can we monetise the end of the world? (Score:1)
Let's get moving with those Windmills! (Score:1)