Britain running out of Wind

[stek]

I said this before - it was in K-PAX, Kevin Spacey said it would happen. Also the tides would stop with all the wave things. And don't give me that 'it was only a movie crap' cos it was a book too.

[scooterscot]

More like "The telegraph is running out of news"

Honestly 'running out of wind' - cannot believe I spent time reading that story.

[TimberWolf]

Isn't that just saying to find the average wind power, take the average of the power not the power of the average wind? If so, that is pretty obvious albeit a very easy mistake to make.

Yes, obvious in that sense. Not so obvious is that the average wind speed alone is of limited use for calculating average, or even total, wind power available at a site, unless the wind speed stays fairly close to the average, which seems unlikely. Designers probably do use average wind speeds I expect, and then make corrections.

[pjclarke]

Fascinating

Not particularly interested in the article, which is the usual Telegraph lazy ring-round-for-quotes-we-can-misrepresent stuff, however the last line, from respected solar physicist Mike Lockwood is interesting ...

Prof Lockwood said solar activity was especially low during this period, adding that current levels of sun-spot activity were continuing to decline. “We reached a high point of solar activity in 1985,” he said.

“Since then, it has been declining. We are now halfway back to the levels seen during the Maunder Minimum. The probability is that that decline will continue for the next 40 years.

Does Blaster agree? He seems to be citing a Telegraph article that directly contradicts the theme of the many 'it's the sun' posts seen around here in recent times. How can a sun in decline cause the Earth to warm by almost half a degree C?



Enquiring minds want to know.....