Re:Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest, and It's Getting Cheaper
by mcv on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:05AM
(#15175893)
> If there were no wind tomorrow, we can agree that this would be bad.
I think Houston would disagree.
There's an enormous amount of energy in wind. There's not a chance that we can hope to capture more than the tiniest fraction of it. And if we could, we'd certainly love to drain some energy from tropical storms.
It's good to think about such risks, though. There are people who thought burning carbon couldn't possibly have any meaningful impact, and quite clearly it can.
I've seen a proposal for clean energy, 1 km tall solar towers that create energy out of the difference between warm air close to the ground and cold air high up in the atmosphere, that felt to me like it might have some impact of weather patterns. I doubt it actually does, but it can't hurt to do the math.
I suppose if the energy source with the least possible side effects would be solar panels in the desert. Without them, the sun is just going to heat the sand and the air and make the place even drier. And you need only a tiny bit of the solar energy from the desert to power the entire world. Less than what's regularly lost to desertification, deforestation, or the land we pave with asphalt and concrete. Before we get worried about any potential negative impact there, we should first worry about all the very real negative impact we're having all across the world.
I think Houston would disagree.
There's an enormous amount of energy in wind. There's not a chance that we can hope to capture more than the tiniest fraction of it. And if we could, we'd certainly love to drain some energy from tropical storms.
It's good to think about such risks, though. There are people who thought burning carbon couldn't possibly have any meaningful impact, and quite clearly it can.
I've seen a proposal for clean energy, 1 km tall solar towers that create energy out of the difference between warm air close to the ground and cold air high up in the atmosphere, that felt to me like it might have some impact of weather patterns. I doubt it actually does, but it can't hurt to do the math.
I suppose if the energy source with the least possible side effects would be solar panels in the desert. Without them, the sun is just going to heat the sand and the air and make the place even drier. And you need only a tiny bit of the solar energy from the desert to power the entire world. Less than what's regularly lost to desertification, deforestation, or the land we pave with asphalt and concrete. Before we get worried about any potential negative impact there, we should first worry about all the very real negative impact we're having all across the world.