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Posted by dpb on August 7, 2006, 9:47 am
mm wrote:
>
> >
> >mm wrote:
> >> ... will a windmill in my backyard cut down on the pleasant breeze?
> >
> >A 6-8' diameter imperfectly efficient fan is going to noticeably affect
> >the amount of wind except for a very short distance directly downwind
> >how???
>
> I'm asking you guys. All I know is one doesn't get something for
> nothing. Assume there is more than one windmill, that the maximum
> number for maximum electric generation are there. I don't know if
> that means everyone has one in his back yard or not.
Of course one doesn't get something for nothing, but consider the size
of the rotor in the environment you're speaking of--it's such a
miniscule fraction of the atmosphere that is being disturbed that other
than very localized effects, the amount of breeze you're going to feel
isn't going to be modified significantly by one or a few turbines
scattered around.
There's a theoretical upper limit of roughly 60% turbine efficiency
_irregardless_ of turbine design and in for propeller-type designs
roughly 30% is an effective upper limit. Real turbines actually
operate more nearly at or below 20%. So, you're talking of a reduction
of a maximum of something like 20% of the energy (square root of the
velocity difference since the energy is proportional to square of
speed) and that only in a very localized location.
In summary, for the small-scale turbines of the orignial question, I
think the answer has to be essentially "no".
...
> >> Frankly even if they were 80, I don't think they would be as ugly as
> >> on farms where I want to see a beautiful vista. ...
> >
> >You don't want to see a working farm,
>
> I'm more talking about from a distance, and not especially talking
> about where the work is done, but the fields of wheat and corn, etc.
>
> > you're asking somebody else to
> >make a scenic idyll for your benefit.
>
> No, I'm not asking anything. What I said was that something ELSE
> would not be as ugly, as windmills ruing a beautiful vista.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... :) To the land owner the
associated royalty check might be _very_ pretty! :)
And, I was really intending the "you" in the general sense not
necessarily specifically you as an individual only. It's the "not in
my back yard" syndrome on an individual basis that effects all on a
larger scale.
> Aren't you saying that a working farm is ugly? Does that mean that
> you are asking them to stop working it?
Actually, I was addressing it from the viewpoint of _being_ a farmer
and the recognition that agriculture in general is being subjected more
and more to increasing encroachment on by "city folk" who want rural
living but then discover that the farm next door that has been there
for 100 years maybe does disconcerting things like milking cows in the
morning that disturbs their beauty rest so they file suit to stop it.
Sorta' the same thing as the folks who buy the house in the new
subdivision next to the airport and then complain about the noise
planes make taking off and landing.
> What I was referring to, and you will find this to be true, that some
> people who can see farms from where they live (and I can't), object to
> windmills because they are ugly ITO, in their opinion. It remains to
> be seen if they can influnence legislatures to regulate windmills
> based on their affect on the view. Rememeber, we already have iirc
> easements for light (and one other thing that escapes me). It's not
> entirely out of the question that some statute already supports, or a
> new statute could be passed to give foks, a right to a view without
> windmills.
While I can and do understand the viewpoint and there are a couple of
places where windfarms have been proposed in my home state that I
support efforts to prevent them from being in that _particular_ site
purely for the aesthetic reasons, it is also true that if it is allowed
to be it could completely stifle development. In particular, it seems
to me that the tendency of many of those who are doing the objecting
want (and expect) the benefits, they just want it at somebody else's
expense, not theirs. It is that attitude that I read as at least an
undercurrent that may not have been intended.
>
>
> >There are probably more
> >photographs and paintings of a windmill on the horizon w/ the setting
> >sun than any other iconic representation of the west/midwest.
>
> Those designs are considered charming, at least by those who make
> pictures of them and who hang them on the wall. Do you really think
> the industrial Star-trek windmills sold now are pretty in the way that
> old ones are thought to be?
Well, in their own way, they can be. As noted above, there are several
large windfarms within hailing distance here and more proposed and
being built all the time. There are a lot of people stopping and
taking pictures along the highway and there's always an out-of-state
car stopped at the visitors' kiosk every time I'm by there. Here's a
link
http://www.fplenergy.com/portfolio/contents/gray_county.shtml
...
> so it seems likely to me that new windmills are more efficient and
> better in other ways than old ones also. The TV news story did say
> that only 38 have been installed so far.
They can only be talking of microtowers, then. There are 170 in the
Gray County windfarm alone generating 112 MWe since 2001.
But, certainly, modern wind-generation technology is better than the
old windcharger system my grandfather put up in 1915. So is coal-fired
generation technology, for that matter, by probably nearly the same
ratio.
...
> Do you think the news is bribed to put these stories on the air?
Where did this come from? But, in some instances, "bribed" is probably
too strong but there is no doubt in my mind that many of the stories
are aired for a particular purpose, yes.
Like the one I saw on (I think) CBS the other evening about some gal in
upstate NYawk all upset about a proposed transmission line. Having
seen it, I now have no doubt the leaning of the person who wrote and
reported the story and hence, of the network producers who aired it in
the form it was shown.
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