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Investments in and development of wind power in the US are very unevenly distributed. That is shown in four animated maps at Vox in their article, the stunningly lopsided growth of wind power in the US, in 4 maps. They explore why a huge swath of the country has almost no wind turbines at all.
[...] The major driver to invest in wind in many states is renewable portfolio standards, which mandate a minimum amount of electricity to come from renewable sources, like hydroelectric, wind, solar, and geothermal power plants. While federal incentives like the production tax credit, which benefits wind energy installations, apply across the country, state-level programs make a major difference on the ground.
“The states that have stronger RPSs are the places where you see renewables being deployed more actively,” said Ian Baring-Gould, a technology deployment manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “In places that don’t have RPSs, the utilities don’t have as much motivation to develop renewables.”
Take a wild guess which states don’t have RPSs
Wind speeds are not even around the country, so turbine distribution is not expected to be either. However, there is a long way to go before the turbine distribution reaches parity with the potential.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:06AM (8 children)
Doubtful, you'd need a crapton of them over a very small area, and they'd have to be pretty much everywhere in order to have any hope of making a difference. Even the super huge tornadoes are only a few miles in diameter, with most of them being at most a few hundred feet. In order to dissipate that much energy over that short of a distance, you'd have to be sucking an astonishing amount of energy out of the system via the turbines.
If it's possible at all, the materials necessary haven't been invented.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:17AM
You are probably right. But you know non-linear math, chaotic system, etc.? Pile on enough small factors, the sum effect can be exponential, not linear.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday May 07 2018, @12:32AM
A tornado does end up being very small compared to the rest of the atmosphere.
Does the energy for the tornado come only from the immediate locality and its storm and winds, or does removing energy from other parts of the system cause a tornado to eventually have less energy or fail to form?
Kind of like lightning rods drip-drain the free electrons difference out of the sky and prevent (not specifically attract) lightning?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 07 2018, @12:58AM (3 children)
Your basic premise that tornadoes aren't very large is correct. But, I think you exaggerate with the "few miles". A storm front developed into multiple tornadoes several years ago, north of me. At least six tornadoes followed more or less parallel paths across three counties. Their combined footprint was just about a mile wide. Luckily, that footprint stayed out in the forest, so all that was destroyed were Weyerhauser trees, and very few homes suffered some damage.
It would take a helluva monster tornado to produce a footprint even 1 mile in width.
Not saying it can't happen, but it's not something we see all the time.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 07 2018, @01:35AM (2 children)
So, that means that only the super huge ones get bigger than that. Right?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 07 2018, @05:22PM (1 child)
My units of measurement must be off. Which is bigger, helluva monster or super huge?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 07 2018, @07:00PM
Plaid.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 07 2018, @01:07AM (1 child)
You don't have to catch the tornado itself. Just slow the contributory winds.
People are no longer discounting the effects of large wind farms, and if some of those taller towers migrate to land the effect will be larger.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16073-2 [nature.com]
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/fyi-do-wind-farms-make-it-less-windy [popsci.com]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/myth-debunked-wind-farms-dont-alter-climate-180949701/ [smithsonianmag.com]
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13570 [pnas.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 07 2018, @05:26PM
Ok, so given enough butterflies...
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh