Re: Weather forecasts XOR wind power ...

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:10:37 -0700, "Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" said:
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/radar-software-may-fix-weather-forecast-issues-caused-by-wind-farms-1.2735138

Right up there with the mayfly blossom the other week that registered as
a hailstorm on the radar.

> Sorry, but I find this completely predictable.  In fact I strongly suspect a large
> scale wind farm would modify the weather, since you are harvesting the energy in
> weather systems (albeit relatively close to the ground ...)

Almost certainly *not* enough to make a significant difference.  A single
medium-sized thunderstorm can release 10^15 joules of energy, which works
out to about 300 gigawatt-hours.  Assuming a 2 hour lifespan, that's a
power release of about 150 gigawatts.  The biggest wind farms out there
are about 1 gigawatt, and most large farms are closer to 300 megawatts.

Somehow, I doubt that sucking out 0.2% of the energy is going to make
a hill of beans difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_onshore_wind_farms

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