Britain running out of Wind

[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.....

[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.

[scooterscot]

More like "The telegraph is running out of news"

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

[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.

[d000hg]

This isn't so intuitive:

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.

[istvan]

Wind will never disappear, at least not hot air. Think politics...

[centurian]

Didn't some scottish boffin recently report that while scottish independence was economically viable, there wasn't all that much in it - and there was certainly a lot of hot air going around.

In particular, he pointed out that while there were still some oil reserves, the so-called wind reserves of Scotland were a complete falacy. All these wind farms being built are loss making - and are subsided by the state.

[TimberWolf]

Cool, good to know I've not totally lost any 'scientific intuition' I once had.

This isn't so intuitive:

On the other hand, to estimate the typical power, we shouldn’t take the
mean wind speed and cube it; rather, we should find the mean cube of the
windspeed. The average of the cube is bigger than the cube of the average.

[d000hg]

Cool, good to know I've not totally lost any 'scientific intuition' I once had.

[TimberWolf]

How come? K.E. * 'amount of wind travelled'?

Yep.

[d000hg]

Wind power goes with the cube of wind speed too

How come? K.E. * 'amount of wind travelled'?

[TimberWolf]

In 40 years Britain's wind reserves will have been depleted.


Wind farms: Britain is 'running out of wind' - Telegraph

Wind power goes with the cube of wind speed too. So halving the wind speed means 1/8 the power. Though power also goes with the square of the rotor radius, so that can just be increased in length by (windspeed fraction) ^ -1.5

I thought May was windy. And cold. People are walking around in winter clothes and it's almost June ffs. I think the temperature maxed out at 12 degrees C a few days ago. It's almost June for flips sake. Cold, wet windy. Not a bad climate in summer actually, were it not for the winter temperatures dropping to -18 degrees C </end rant>.

[suityou01]

In 40 years Britain's wind reserves will have been depleted.


Wind farms: Britain is 'running out of wind' - Telegraph

My A-Frame for my tomatoes got blown over yesterday. I think we have plenty of wind. If we get low I promise to do my bit.

[BlasterBates]

In 40 years Britain's wind reserves will have been depleted.


Wind farms: Britain is 'running out of wind' - Telegraph