• Pheonixdown@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    3 days ago

    Let’s take windmill like in the example, it has 3 blades, each maybe at most 5 degrees wide (out of the 360 for a circle). So that covers 15 total degrees or 1/24th the wind area, so at absolute best, it’s about 4% of the wind power in that area being stopped. But the blades don’t actually capture 100% of the wind power, a good amount will deflect off, those blades are not 5 degrees wide, they’re less and they aren’t straight blades, so again they capture less. Further the blade only captures a small vertical section of its own footprint, so it captures dramatically less wind power. Lastly blades are spaced with a good amount of clearance from each other leading to even less wind power captured. In aggregate, even by entirely layman measure, these likely have an immeasurable impact on another wind farm.

    I’d bet if you built a mile high, mile wide wind capture device that captured 100% of wind power going to it, and then put a 2nd one 1 mile directly behind that, you could just maybe get a few % measurable impact.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      3 days ago

      To add to this, it is literally impossible to capture 100% of wind power, even in theory, because that would mean bringing the air to a full stop, halting flow. The air must retain some of its energy to continue moving through the system. The theoretical maximum is a little under 60% according to Betz’s Law. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz’s_law

    • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      So, quite literally ‘no noticeable impact’ and entirely ‘free energy’. And these ‘anti-wind’ viewpoints are still continued anti-renewable propaganda. Like the thousands of dead birds from hitting windmills…

    • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      Ok but they are saying they want that few% I don’t think anyone is arguing it’s a big number but it is a number none the less. That’s the number they need back.