Do wind turbines slow down the wind?

[esbo]

I have been thinking about a great idea to make use of a largely untapped source of energy to get free

energy and thus reduce global warming.

 

 

Here is how it goes.

 

A lot of household heating systems are gravity fed, ie they have a boiler at the bottom which heats water, that hot water

rises and passed through pipes and through radiators cooling along the way until it is eventually fed back into

the bottom of the boiler where it is re-heated to begin the journey round again.

 

Now (drum roll) here is my brilliant idea.........

 

 

What you do is place mini turbines inside the pipe and so they produce electricity from the waterflow through the pipes!!!

 

 

What do you think? Brilliant eh?

[esbo]

I am calling my idea 'wind farm in a pipe'

 

The boiler is the earth surface, the radiators the upper atmosphere and the pipe are the windy areas of the planet.

 

Obviously there is a chance the boiler will over heat and explode!!

Edited May 2, 2012 by esbo

[questionposter]

I have been thinking about a great idea to make use of a largely untapped source of energy to get free

energy and thus reduce global warming.

 

 

Here is how it goes.

 

A lot of household heating systems are gravity fed, ie they have a boiler at the bottom which heats water, that hot water

rises and passed through pipes and through radiators cooling along the way until it is eventually fed back into

the bottom of the boiler where it is re-heated to begin the journey round again.

 

Now (drum roll) here is my brilliant idea.........

 

 

What you do is place mini turbines inside the pipe and so they produce electricity from the waterflow through the pipes!!!

 

 

What do you think? Brilliant eh?

 

But you would need to constantly put outside energy into heating the water in the first place that you could be using to power things instead of boiling water. If you use all of the energy from water turning into steam to power the heater, you have no extra energy. Gravity still upholds the conservation of energy in the form of potential energy.

Edited May 2, 2012 by questionposter

[esbo]

But you would need to constantly put outside energy into heating the water in the first place that you could be using to power things instead of boiling water. If you use all of the energy from water turning into steam to power the heater, you have no extra energy. Gravity still upholds the conservation of energy in the form of potential energy.

 

The point is that as you are restricting flow through the pipes the boiler will get hotter and hotter.

The boiler is the earth's surface being heated by the sun, you can't turn it down to stop it over heating

because of the restricted flow of air/water.

[questionposter]

The point is that as you are restricting flow through the pipes the boiler will get hotter and hotter.

The boiler is the earth's surface being heated by the sun, you can't turn it down to stop it over heating

because of the restricted flow of air/water.

 

There's more efficient ways to heat water, which is coal and wind and pre-formed waterfalls.

Edited May 2, 2012 by questionposter

[CaptainPanic]

The concept already exists. Micro Combined Heat and Power are heating systems that generate electricity and use the waste heat to heat your home. They are already on the market, available for everyone.

 

But the turbines are not placed in the pipes. You first run the gas turbine or Otto engine (both regular internal combustion engines), and you only use the waste heat to heat the house.

Edited May 2, 2012 by CaptainPanic
fixing the entire post... it was a bit messy

[esbo]

Do wind turbines (as found on wind farms) slow down the wind that passed through them?

Edited May 2, 2012 by esbo

[iNow]

That would depend on their aerodynamic qualities, rotational speed, size, and all manner of other things... including the movement dynamics of the surrounding environment.

 

Your question lacks one yes/no answer in the way you want it... at least until you give many more specific details about the situation and system under consideration.

Edited May 2, 2012 by iNow

[esbo]

That would depend on their aerodynamic qualities, rotational speed, size, and all manner of other things... including the movement dynamics of the surrounding environment.

 

Your question lacks one yes/no answer in the way you want it... at least until you give many more specific details about the situation and system under consideration.

 

Fine, you can vote for the not enough evince option then.

[md65536]

I am calling my idea 'wind farm in a pipe'

 

The boiler is the earth surface, the radiators the upper atmosphere and the pipe are the windy areas of the planet.

 

Obviously there is a chance the boiler will over heat and explode!!

 

Sounds like you want to get energy from the stack effect or chimney effect.

The idea's been considered and/or implemented:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2002/aug/19/energy.renewableenergy

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/2625-feet-solar-power-supertower-to-rise-over-arizona-video/7954

(Those are some random links, the first is a bit old, there are probably better references).

 

Your description above is more vague and sounds like you're proposing the idea of heating the earth's surface using some kind of energy source, which will cause convection currents, and that you could put wind turbines in the windy areas to harness energy from it. That idea's also been implemented before.

 

Upon further consideration I detect humour in your posts and feel that the following emoticon is an appropriate response:

 

The point is that as you are restricting flow through the pipes the boiler will get hotter and hotter.

The boiler is the earth's surface being heated by the sun, you can't turn it down to stop it over heating

because of the restricted flow of air/water.

Hrm, it almost sounds as if you're suggesting, in a really convoluted way, that Wind farms cause global warming.

[esbo]

Sounds like you want to get energy from the stack effect or chimney effect.

The idea's been considered and/or implemented:

http://www.guardian....renewableenergy

http://www.smartplan...zona-video/7954

(Those are some random links, the first is a bit old, there are probably better references).

 

Your description above is more vague and sounds like you're proposing the idea of heating the earth's surface using some kind of energy source, which will cause convection currents, and that you could put wind turbines in the windy areas to harness energy from it. That idea's also been implemented before.

 

Upon further consideration I detect humour in your posts and feel that the following emoticon is an appropriate response:

 

 

Hrm, it almost sounds as if you're suggesting, in a really convoluted way, that Wind farms cause global warming.

 

 

Well more accurately it is the sun that provides the heat and the wind farms prevent that heat escaping as fast as it

would without the windfarms

 

Thus cause a rise in the observed temperature detected by monitoring the temperature on the surface of he earth.

[doG]

Well more accurately it is the sun that provides the heat and the wind farms prevent that heat escaping as fast as it

would without the windfarms

Ummmmmmm.....No. Wind farms do not impede upper atmosphere radiation. They simply convert surface energy from one form to another.

[md65536]

Well more accurately it is the sun that provides the heat and the wind farms prevent that heat escaping as fast as it

would without the windfarms

 

Thus cause a rise in the observed temperature detected by monitoring the temperature on the surface of he earth.

 

http://physics.ucsd....eets-physicist/: "the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that's via (infrared) radiation."

 

Reducing convection doesn't directly remove a means of removing heat from Earth. If there's any truth to what you're saying, it's a lot more complicated than you're suggesting. Even if there is some effect, "how much?" is important. You would need to provide quantitative details to back up your claims. Wind turbines slow the wind, but do windfarms slow the wind more than say forests? Forests slow the wind, and they haven't caused the Earth to boil and explode.

Edited May 2, 2012 by md65536

[esbo]

http://physics.ucsd....eets-physicist/: "the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that's via (infrared) radiation."

 

Reducing convection doesn't directly remove a means of removing heat from Earth. If there's any truth to what you're saying, it's a lot more complicated than you're suggesting. Even if there is some effect, "how much?" is important. You would need to provide quantitative details to back up your claims. Wind turbines slow the wind, but do windfarms slow the wind more than say forests? Forests slow the wind, and they haven't caused the Earth to boil and explode.

 

But the higher up the air is the easier it is for it to radiate it's heat out into space, remember as you go higher there is less

green house gas to keep the heat in., thus it can cool far more rapidly than air on the surface.

 

There is a big difference between wind-farms and trees and that is trees are not designed to extract wind energy.

[md65536]

But the higher up the air is the easier it is for it to radiate it's heat out into space, remember as you go higher there is less

green house gas to keep the heat in., thus it can cool far more rapidly than air on the surface.

How much?

[J.C.MacSwell]

Fine, you can vote for the not enough evince option then.

 

I voted yes, since that would be correct when they were operating as designed.

[esbo]

How much?

 

It's logarithmic effect

 

 

 

 

[md65536]

It's logarithmic effect

You didn't provide references for the images.

 

http://wattsupwithth...dtrans_img1.png

http://wattsupwithth...dtrans_img2.png

 

 

wattsupwiththat is garbage. Also I don't see anything about windspeed changes due to windfarms, reduction in convection, or low-altitude radiation vs. high-altitude radiation or anything like that in the graphs.

Edited May 2, 2012 by md65536

[esbo]

Perhaps the interesting about the graph is that we are already at 400 ppm

and the downward forcing is about 258.

Now if we were to double the CO2 to 800 ppm the downward forcing woudl be about 263

that is an increase of just 5/258 or 2%

 

We seem to going to a hell of a lot of bother to prevent a just 2% increase in downward forcing.

http://zfacts.com/p/226.html

 

 

 

now in the last 100 year the ppm has increase by 100, producing less a than a degree rise in temperature,

are we really bothered by another

 

It perhaps interesting that the rise in temperature is a good match to the rise in the number of windmills

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Wind_power

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

 

Edited May 2, 2012 by esbo

[doG]

It perhaps interesting that the rise in temperature is a good match to the rise in the number of windmills

While we're being silly then I'll mention that it's kind of an interesting match to the number of Bald Eagle nests occupied in Maine too...

 

 

I bet a clever researcher like yourself could probably find more graphs that look like this. Do you think they're all related somehow?

[The Observer]

Shouldn't you be citing sources for those figures? I think it is against the forum rules to lift quotes and graphs from other websites without citing sources.

[Klaynos]

!

Moderator Note

esbo, creating a new topic to make a point from another thread for ANY reason is not acceptable, if you have an argument make it here, you will be expected to follow the forum rules and the speculation rules. If you do not have an argument expect the membership to call you on it. You need to address the points raised by the other members in this thread.

I have merged the two threads. If you do this again I will just close the offending topic. Please review our rules and the speculation rules.

Do not reply to this modnote.

[esbo]

Shouldn't you be citing sources for those figures? I think it is against the forum rules to lift quotes and graphs from other websites without citing sources.

 

sources added