this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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You’re getting shit on for asking questions, but these articles seem to bring out the worst in armchair engineers.
It’s worth remembering that wind is the result of solar flux adding energy to our atmosphere. From a practical perspective, we can’t deplete the energy as it gets added constantly no matter what we do. Putting big turbines in the wind does alter local flow profiles but, again from a practical perspective, the mass fraction of air flow modified is minuscule. Further, part if the design of wind farms includes making sure that the turbines stay out of each other’s wake, sort of like keeping solar panels on a solar farm from being in the shadow of another panel.
To bring solar into it again, the concern about stopping the wind is like the concern for overheating the planet by putting up to many solar panels. You see, solar panels have a higher albedo (absorption) of solar radiation than the planet, on average. It’s like pavement vs a gravel road - the pavement is going to heat up more. If you run the numbers, though, the effect is negligible, more like adding 1 dark rock out of every 1000 to the gravel road.
We use, worldwide, something like 1/10,000th of the solar energy that falls on earth. It’s often worthwhile to ask questions like yours, even if only to offer a vehicle for explaining why and how engineers and scientists have had the same questions and found the answers.
Stay curious, friend.