Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 03 2015, @11:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the eat-more-beans! dept.

Gregory Meyer reports at CNBC that electricity generated by US wind farms fell 6 per cent in the first half of the year even as the nation expanded wind generation capacity by 9 per cent. The reason was some of the softest air currents in 40 years, cutting power sales from wind farms to utilities and the situation is likely to intensify into the first quarter of 2016 as the El Niño weather phenomenon holds back wind speeds around much of the US. "We never anticipated a drop-off in the wind resource as we have witnessed over the past six months," says David Crane.

Wind generated 4.4 per cent of US electricity last year, up from 0.4 per cent a decade earlier. But this year US wind plants' "capacity factor" has averaged just a third of their total generating capacity, down from 38 per cent in 2014. The EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) notes that slightly slower wind speeds can reduce output by a disproportionately large amount. "Capacity factors for wind turbines are largely determined by wind resources," according to their report "Because the output from a turbine varies nonlinearly with wind speed, small decreases in wind speeds can result in much larger changes in output and, in turn, capacity factors." In January of 2015, wind speeds remained 20 to 45 percent below normal on areas of the west coast, but it was especially bad in California, Oregon, and Washington, where those levels dropped to 50 percent below normal during the month of January.

Some also speculate the the increase in the number of wind farms may be having an effect. Since wind turbines extract kinetic energy from the air around them, and since less energy makes for weaker winds, turbines make it less windy. Technically speaking, the climate zone right behind a turbine (or behind all the turbines on a wind farm) experiences what's called a "wind speed vacuum," or a "momentum deficit." In other words, the air slows down and upwind turbines in a densely packed farm may weaken the breeze before it reaches the downwind ones. A study in 2013 also found that large wind farms could be expected to influence local and regional atmospheric circulations. "If wind farms were constructed on a truly massive scale," adds Daniel Engbar, "their cumulative momentum deficit could conceivably alter wind speeds on a global scale."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 04 2015, @07:59AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 04 2015, @07:59AM (#232166) Journal

    Prove me wrong.

    Got no need to prove you wrong, jmorris. I just want to go my way. And you seem to be against private entrepreneurship! It would be much better if you could explain how the spinny-turbine things are depleting our global reserves of wind. Just a while ago I did hear about a massive wind-spill from one of these "farms". Thousands of innocent people were subject to blowing air, and the entire area was unsafe for a matter of multiple minutes. Just thank god it was not a nuclear plant, or a coal fired plant, or a Texas fertilizer plant! Or Union-Carbide overseas.

    Given all your objections, I can see no plausible course of action other than continuing to subsidize (via tax loopholes and limited liability) the petrochemical corporations that do such a good job of protecting us from the horrors of things like wind-spills. And Hydroelectric emissions. And Photovoltaic efficiencies of scale. Last thing I want is power from the sun, unless it is mediated through millions of years and legacy corporations.

    (Don't make me bring out the shill accusation! It gets old! And it is so obviously true! Only thing we are missing is how much they are paying you, and how the rest of us can get in on the action. I too can post that renewable energy will never succeed, given enough monetary incentive! Oh, OH, Lordy: Free Markets at work. Thanks to the Cock Brothers. They do not pay me to spell their name correctly.)

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 04 2015, @09:22AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday September 04 2015, @09:22AM (#232180)

    Whoosh! That was the sound of my sarcasm going right over yer head.

    I'm calling out you greens over the fact you preen about green, safe, renewable, blah, blah and then as soon as one goes into actual production you are they very same ones who begin to bitch and whine when the side effects become known. The links in the article ain't to big oil they are to warmers and other junk science outfits. PopSci, NBC News and other similar political outfits on the left.

    There is literally no energy source possible that will satisfy the greens because the whole point is to force the end of Western Civilization because it is based on a high energy lifestyle. If somebody developed and gave away the patent on a miracle 'zero point energy' source the greens would be suicidal at the thought of the profligate energy use it would engender.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Friday September 04 2015, @09:31AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 04 2015, @09:31AM (#232183) Journal

      Ah ha! jmorris! Double whoosh on you! Of course I realized what you were saying, but I also realized that you were completely wrong and the declining costs of capitalization will result in the squeezing of the amount that capitalists can squeeze both from consumers and workers. We do not need "zero-point", we have a huge fusion reactor in the sky, so maybe we should, like, use that? So, you are NOT going to tell us what BP pays for shills these days? You know, withholding information like that is one reason the free market does not prevail.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 04 2015, @12:28PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 04 2015, @12:28PM (#232210) Journal

      There is literally no energy source possible that will satisfy the greens because the whole point is to force the end of Western Civilization because it is based on a high energy lifestyle.

      I have never heard that. I have never heard anyone among "the greens" state their goal is to "force the end of Western Civilization." They do talk about choosing some technologies rather than others, but then, isn't that what all humans do? They do talk about considering more factors in decision-making than what's reflected in a balance sheet, but then, isn't that what all humans do (at least, ones that aren't sociopaths)? If you could make a million dollars at the cost of eating your children, wouldn't you at least consider not taking the million dollars?

      There are many flavors of capitalism and productive work, but a prominent one among gonzo capitalists is quite rooted in 18th century thinking, "Let's burn as much as we can, consume as much as we can, dig as much as we can, waste as much as we can." Me, I hew to the ethic of my Scottish forebears of parsimony, of "doing as much as you can with as little as you can." It's about finding clever ways of saving time, labor, and material inputs. To me it feels not just more efficient, but a more challenging puzzle and intellectually engaging than guzzling at a trough.

      Now that the billions of people who have been utterly exploited to enable the former approach are pushing back, have reached their limit, then we quite need to consider other approaches, among whom is the latter.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.