ladyfortuna: a commercial plane flying high overhead and you don't really notice it at first? Take that, make it ~20% louder, then make it go in a 1...2...3... rhythm. "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh". All. Damn. Day. Long.

I hate that sound so much. Most days they aren't loud but when they are I have to have a fan on or something to drown out the noise. The jet that wouldn't leave.

cman: If there is one green technology that I am interested in, it would be GeoThermal power production. True unlimited power that does not need wind (wind mills), or a sunny day (Solar power), or a stream of water (hydroelectric).

I have always wondered how close we are to such a reality

Until you cool the earth by doing it.

It would be easier to say that humans are the cause of excess greenhouse gases.

Once again, Bender is right. Kill all humans.

Uchiha_Cycliste: Keizer_Ghidorah
So, no matter what type of energy we try to use, we're going to destroy the planet regardless.

we *could* get everyone to ride a bike to work, but no. that would fix too many problems. it's not the profit driven american way.

Have fun riding those 30 to 50 miles over hills.

Seriously, nothing we do seems to help. Hydroelectric? Cutting off water flow to other places, disrupting wildlife. Wind? Mass bird kills, heat buildup. Solar? We'd need a facility that covered the entire Southwestern US to provide any appreciable power. Nuclear? People are terrified of radiation, environmentalists won't let us dispose of the waste. Until we discover the magic of warp drives or cold fusion, we're boned.

prjindigo: Watts Up With That website

Willard Anthony Watts (Anthony Watts) is a blogger, weathercaster and non-scientist, paid AGW denier who runs the website wattsupwiththat.com. He does not have a university qualification and has no climate credentials other than being a radio weather announcer. His website is parodied and debunked at the website wottsupwiththat.com Watts is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, which itself is funded by polluting industries

How about no.

cman: If there is one green technology that I am interested in, it would be GeoThermal power production. True unlimited power that does not need wind (wind mills), or a sunny day (Solar power), or a stream of water (hydroelectric).

I have always wondered how close we are to such a reality

GEO THERMAL IS COOLING THE CORE!! GEO THERMAL IS COOLING THE CORE!!

lets just agree that no matter what, we're toast- There's too damn many of us.

Like a fungus or "It's the smell"

edmo: Ah, the proverbial two edged sword.

The nutjobs who complain about wasteful green energy spending can now attack wind farms as harmful to the planet. The problem is they'll have to admit global warming is more than a theory - it's real. But since they know global warming is a crock, they know this study is more liberal bullshiat. But the wind farms will still be there.

I'm sure it sucks to be unable to compromise.

all the good names are gone: You obviously underestimate the cognitive dissonance of republicans. They will have no problem blaming wind farms and other green tech for global warming while vehemently opposing any data saying greenhouse gasses are to blame, or warming even exists for that matter.



Sorry but many environmentalist groups have long been wind power's most vocal opponents, from Oregon to California, to Colorado. And conservative Texas leads the nation in wind power production.

Put your bitter partisan hatred aside for just this once. Not only is it not productive, it is downright false.

Suppose a right wing nutbag comes into discussion about economic policy and goes on a rant about how "All democrats are Marxists who want to destroy capitalism, and hope for the destruction of the U.S. economy!!" Not only is it not true, but it makes right wingers in general sound silly. Yeah, well, guess what you sound like.

/liberal environmentalist lacto-ovo-vegetarian
/has a much smaller carbon footprint than you

the change in temperature doesnt seem like much but it can kill off any earthworms near wind farms. wind turbines do have an impact on the environment whether people choose to acknowledge it or not

b2theory: What's strange is that the exact opposite thing should happen. When energy is removed from the air the net effect should be cooling. I want to say there were some large scale simulations done in the last couple years.

Someone failed high school physics...

You have energy in the form of momentum, which you are transferring from the wind to the turbine blades. This transfer is less than 100% efficient, so some some energy is lost as heat - heat that warms up the turbine blades and the air.

But that's a moot point, because that is not the effect the article is talking about. The article is about how the turbulence caused by the wind farms is mixing higher altitude warm air with lower altitude cool air at night, causing a net increase of local surface temperatures.


Keizer_Ghidorah: Seriously, nothing we do seems to help. Hydroelectric? Cutting off water flow to other places, disrupting wildlife. Wind? Mass bird kills, heat buildup. Solar? We'd need a facility that covered the entire Southwestern US to provide any appreciable power. Nuclear? People are terrified of radiation, environmentalists won't let us dispose of the waste.

Clearly the solution is to do nothing, then!

Hydroelectric's problem is all the good sites have already been tapped. There is some hope for pumped storage, though...

Wind does not cause "heat buildup" (protip: don't just read the headline off Fark) and the number of birds killed by wind turbines is dwarfed by the birds killed by buildings and cats. If you really care about birds, complain about those things.

The US peaks at some ~800 gigawatts of power consumption during the summer. At a conservative 8 watts/sq.ft. you'd need 100 billion square feet or 3600 square miles - just under 1/30th of Arizona - to meet that demand. Nobody seems willing to put out an estimate for total roof area in the US but I'm willing to bet it far exceeds that. There's no reason it all has to be in one place, after all.

Nuclear doesn't HAVE to have waste problems, from a technical aspect. The biggest factor of the problem is that profit motive gets in the way; nuke plants are expensive to build and maintain. All the problems with nuclear plants can be traced back to how plants that should have been decommissioned or overhauled decades ago are still going with original equipment.

We mustn't let the lack of a perfect solution paralyze us into inaction.
=Smidge=

111 in 2003 to 2358 in 2011
111/2003:2358/2011
0.05541:1.17255
1:18

I therefore conclude that the winmills are in fact the size of a replica stonehenge.

I'd hereby like to submit my idea to fellow farkers, that we can have a cushion in our car's seat that can absorb methane and transport it to storage in the vehicle for use as fuel. In states like Texas, this may eliminate the need for Oil, especially in the summer chilli cook off periods.

Marcintosh: cman: If there is one green technology that I am interested in, it would be GeoThermal power production. True unlimited power that does not need wind (wind mills), or a sunny day (Solar power), or a stream of water (hydroelectric).

I have always wondered how close we are to such a reality

GEO THERMAL IS COOLING THE CORE!! GEO THERMAL IS COOLING THE CORE!!

lets just agree that no matter what, we're toast- There's too damn many of us.

Like a fungus virus or "It's the smell"

/ftfy iirc, and I completely agree.
//Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
///make the right choice ;)

Marcintosh: There's too damn many of us.

THIS!

juhis: the change in temperature doesnt seem like much but it can kill off any earthworms near wind farms.

The change in temperature would be on the order of a fraction of a degree. At worst. The air temperature difference between the ground and a couple hundred feet up is most of the time going to be next to nothing, when it's not nothing.

cman: If there is one green technology that I am interested in, it would be GeoThermal power production. True unlimited power that does not need wind (wind mills), or a sunny day (Solar power), or a stream of water (hydroelectric).

I have always wondered how close we are to such a realitybhcompy: cman: If there is one green technology that I am interested in, it would be GeoThermal power production. True unlimited power that does not need wind (wind mills), or a sunny day (Solar power), or a stream of water (hydroelectric).

I have always wondered how close we are to such a reality

Until you cool the earth by doing it.

Frankly, that's a well that won't run dry in even geological time scales.

Yea, he wrote a book?
They caused it by mixing up the air layers?
Wouldn't tall buildings, hills, very tall trees do this?
I'm waiting for the solar panel issue to come up.
They can get very warm because of their dark color so a large area or field of them can warm up the air.

Gyrfalcon: JRoo: How are we going to keep our neon signs advertising where McDonald's is lit all night long?

HOW???

10,000 hamsters.

Hobo Jr.: It would be easier to say that humans are the cause of excess greenhouse gases.

Once again, Bender is right. Kill all humans.

so Hitler was right

edmo: Ah, the proverbial two edged sword.

The nutjobs who complain about wasteful green energy spending can now attack wind farms as harmful to the planet. The problem is they'll have to admit global warming is more than a theory - it's real. But since they know global warming is a crock, they know this study is more liberal bullshiat. But the wind farms will still be there.

I'm sure it sucks to be unable to compromise.

It's early and I can't decide if this post is hilariously ironic, or not.

Trees heat the earth through friction as well. We should probably chop them all down to save the environment.

AdamK: Hobo Jr.: It would be easier to say that humans are the cause of excess greenhouse gases.

Once again, Bender is right. Kill all humans.

so Hitler was right

No, he only wanted to kill low carbon emitters. You have to take the bender approach, half measures will not work.

b2theory: What's strange is that the exact opposite thing should happen. When energy is removed from the air the net effect should be cooling. I want to say there were some large scale simulations done in the last couple years.

The entire system would be cooler, but the local system could certainly heat up. Effectively the wind farm is acting as a Dam for the heat convection current. Heat is building up on one side of the Dam just as water would.

So a smaller local system has no impact on the larger scale?

So a melting mountain glacier has no impact on anything else because it's local? Or the salinity of this small tract of ocean has no effect on the salinity of the rest of the sea, because it's local?

Oh wait, you guys really aren't scientists.

A small addition

b0rscht: J. Frank Parnell: edMinton: If all the humans died tomorrow would the earth continue to warm?

The temp was going up and down long before we arrived, so sure, why not.

Yes, in fact, for the next 100 years or so as the thermal inertia of the system continues to adjust to the increased CO2. See the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, towards the end where they have the model simulations. Look for the simulation where we completely stop burning fossil fuels.

You mean the model they're trying to apply to something as chaotic and unpredictable as our entire climate? Yup that shouldn't be taken with a pinch of salt at all.

SevenizGud: Surprising contributor to global warming:



Nothing.

FTFY. When are you going to stop trying to pass off 10 years of data as if it were a hundred years?

The Weekly World News had one article every ish about someone who tried to eat healthy, excercise, or quit smoking, in which someone ended up dead.

This is like that.

Thank the weather gods. I was afraid windmills couldn't be taxed for their contribution to angering the weather gods.

Apparently, hadcrut3vgl/last1709 is up to 0.5 over the last 100 years.

Oh. My. God.

Well that blows.

*Oh my God, I have no idea what those axis mean or how to interpret those completely inscrutable labels.

DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke: 1. Local warming is not global warming

contributing to

CONTRIBUTING TO

CON FARKING TRIBUTING TO YOU FARKING DOLT!

b0rscht: J. Frank Parnell: edMinton: If all the humans died tomorrow would the earth continue to warm?

The temp was going up and down long before we arrived, so sure, why not.

Yes, in fact, for the next 100 years or so as the thermal inertia of the system continues to adjust to the increased CO2. See the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, towards the end where they have the model simulations. Look for the simulation where we completely stop burning fossil fuels.

There isn't an IPCC model simulation for a zero emission scenario. The closest is a stabilised concentrations scenario. This entails producing just the right amount of emissions to maintain a constant concentration as various carbon sinks scrub a fraction from the atmosphere each year.

There's a brief description of a zero emissions simulation here. Essentially GHG concentrations begin reducing immediately, reducing the forcing and offsetting expected warming due to thermal inertia, producing zero net temperature change over the next few hundred years.

archichris: Whar'sMuhWhiskey: Marcintosh: There's too damn many of us.

THIS!

My kids and their kids laugh at you. Feel free to off yourself, just do us all a favor and make sure the title to your real estate is free of encumbrances will you?

You really don't think human overpopulation is a problem? Do you have any idea how many resources we humans consume? It is a shiatload

dillengest: b0rscht: J. Frank Parnell: edMinton: If all the humans died tomorrow would the earth continue to warm?

The temp was going up and down long before we arrived, so sure, why not.

Yes, in fact, for the next 100 years or so as the thermal inertia of the system continues to adjust to the increased CO2. See the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, towards the end where they have the model simulations. Look for the simulation where we completely stop burning fossil fuels.

There isn't an IPCC model simulation for a zero emission scenario. The closest is a stabilised concentrations scenario. This entails producing just the right amount of emissions to maintain a constant concentration as various carbon sinks scrub a fraction from the atmosphere each year.

There's a brief description of a zero emissions simulation here. Essentially GHG concentrations begin reducing immediately, reducing the forcing and offsetting expected warming due to thermal inertia, producing zero net temperature change over the next few hundred years.

'reducing the forcing' would be better stated as 'producing a negative forcing'.