Update: Wind Turbines Cause Local and Global Warming
Wind turbines increase air temperature by friction and circulation, thus canceling their purported benefits
Part 1: Introduction
The negative environmental impacts associated with wind power are starting to be more widely understood, including but not restricted to the deaths of mammals and other creatures, and other negative effects on ecosystems.
In addition to the myriad of issues associated with this intermittent energy delivery source, we face an avalanche of wind turbine waste in the coming years without efficient recycling schemes.
Unfortunately, governments and corporations worldwide have committed to wind power via multi-billion dollar investments and by feeding at the Trough of Green Subsidies.
Robert Bryce recently pubished an article revealing that despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar, renewables are not keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons
This trend continues to occur because intermittant wind and solar have 50 % or less capacity factors (uptime) and are diffuse energy delivery systems.
Part 2: Studies Show that Wind Turbines Heat up the Air and Negatively Impact Local and Global Climates
Yes folks, large-scale wind farms can increase or decrease local wind speed, increase ground temperatures (up to 0.5 degrees C), and increase water evaporation, thus impacting the local climate and ecosystems and beyond. These effects can cancel out any so called benefits derived from creating electricity via wind power vs. fossil fuels according to one study. The long term effects of wind power on the local ecosystems, insects, flora and fauna are generally negative, from the ground and into the air (ex. birds). Adaptation of wind power worldwide will likely have a definitive cancellation effect on global warming initiatives due to air heating and circulation.
One Harvard study discusses a +0.24 C increase in local temperatures and the neutralization of wind power “benefits” if widely adopted in the USA:
Climatic Impacts of Wind Power
Lee M. Miller, David W. Keith, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Wind power reduces point emissions but causes climatic impacts such as warmer temperatures
Warming effect strongest at night when temperatures increase with height
Nighttime warming effect observed at 28 operational US wind farms
In another seminal study, a wind farm in Texas was shown to increase temperatures by up to +0.5 C:
Diurnal and seasonal variations of wind farm impacts on land surface temperature over western Texas
Zhou, L., Tian, Y., Baidya Roy, S. et al. Diurnal and seasonal variations of wind farm impacts on land surface temperature over western Texas. Clim Dyn 41, 307–326 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1485-y
There are 60 citations to this study for those interested in digging further
Scientific American has published
Wind Power Found to Affect Local Climate
Wind farms can alter the nearby rainfall and temperature, suggesting a need for more comprehensive studies of future energy systems
Part 3: Germany’s Energiewende Fiasco and the Warming and Evaporative Effects of Wind Turbines on the Environment
The fallout from Angela Merkel and Germany’s Energiewende continues beyond the closing of it’s nuclear power plants, and includes the propagation of wind turbines
Here I present a recent German article describing the negative warming and evaporative effects produced by wind turbines in Germany:
Expert Professor Gerd Ganteför Calls For More Studies On The Regional Climate Impact By Wind Turbines
By P Gosselin on 31. May 2023
Ganteför has been an outspoken expert critic of Germany’s energy policy and the alarmist aspects of climate science.
Countless wind turbines…Northern Germany drought may in part be caused by efforts to prevent drought (climate change)!
More wind parks means less wind, which means less precipitation, which in turn means more drought and warmer temperatures.
German online Reichschuster.de here reports on Gerd Ganteför, a German professor of experimental physics who taught at the University of Konstanz and Johns Hopkins University Baltimore (USA), among others. He has authored some 150 technical articles on renewable energies or climate change.
Ganteför has been an outspoken expert critic of Germany’s energy policy and the alarmist aspects of climate science.
Recently the renowned expert once again asked uncomfortable questions about possible connections between wind parks and their impact on regional climate. The answers Ganteför gave to the German daily “Nordkurier” have raised some eyebrows.
In summary, the physicist warns: “We don’t currently know what all can happen if we continue to put up countless wind turbines.”
The interview was prompted by a 2012 NASA study that suggested large wind farms in particular lead to an increase in the ambient temperature and are thus partly responsible for the warming of the climate.
Though Ganteför, has some doubts about this phenomenon, he nevertheless believes the “connection between wind turbines and global warming is possible – albeit for a reason not examined in the study,” reports Reichschuster.de “The authors were able to show that wind turbines swirl the cool layers of air that are directly above the ground and the somewhat warmer layers above them, and that this leads to an increase in temperature near the ground.”
Proven in other scientific publications
Ganteför, however, focusses on another aspect: evaporation, which has been proven in other publications.
The mechanism goes as follows: “Large wind turbines logically slow down the wind by sapping the energy out of it. Less wind means less evaporation and thus less precipitation. And if it gets drier, it could just happen that it gets warmer.”
A study of this kind by Deutsche Windguard was reported on by reitschuster.de in July 2022.
Overdoing wind energy
Moist air from the North Atlantic plays a major role on Europe’s climate, and eventually makes its way over the sea to Germany. But that air gets slowed down by the relatively large wind farms in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, says Ganteför. The possible consequence: “If you overdo it with too many wind turbines”, the region “will become drier” and “this possible scenario needs to be meticulously played out and studied by climatologists.”
“We don’t know at the moment what all can happen if we continue to put up countless wind turbines,” warns Ganteför.
New studies warn
Germany has so far installed over 30,000 wind turbines, which is about 1 every 11 sq. km. Plans are calling for doubling or even tripling the current wind power capacity. But this may be detrimental as new studies show that wind farms are altering local climates, and thus may be having an effect on global climate and contributing to regional droughts. We reported on this here earlier this month.
Another Recommended Read:
German Failure on the Road to a Renewable Future
In 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the country was turning away from nuclear energy in favor of a renewable future. Since then, however, progress has been limited. Berlin has wasted billions of euros and resistance is mounting.
Von Frank Dohmen, Alexander Jung, Stefan Schultz und Gerald Traufetter
13.05.2019, 17.30 Uhr
How did the left let any of those articles be published ? Where was their censorship apparatus ?
We must implore our fellow citizens to become educated on this dirty green energy and how it will lower our standard of living, ruin the environment, and make us less free.
Interesting info. Thanks.