Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Could wind power knock down hurricane strength?
wwltv.com
Posted on May 1, 2014 at 10:40 PM
Dennis Woltering / Eyewitness News
It almost sounds too good to be true: Install tens of thousands of wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico and you not only get clean electricity, you also knock out the catastrophic punch of hurricanes.
?You can dissipate hurricanes so much that you can reduce wind speeds, peak wind speeds by more than half, and the storm surge by almost 80 percent in the case of New Orleans and hurricane Katrina.?
That is according to Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University. Jacobson, a Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, co-authored the study with scientists from Cornell University and the University of California-Davis.
?We ran simulations without turbines present, and then with turbines present,? Jacobson says.
Their computer models focused on Hurricanes Sandy, Isaac and Katrina.
A satellite image of Katrina without wind turbines shows the storm?s impact from space.
?As it hits land it starts to dissipate, it's causing damage over land,? Jacobson says. Then he says they modified the computer model, adding 78,000 wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico.
?We added tens of thousands of turbines in this triangular region up here,? he says, pointing to a northeastern corner of the gulf. ?And you can see initially that these turbines are reducing the wind speeds significantly.?
...
One of the world?s largest makers of wind turbines, Siemens, says each offshore turbine can cost $2.1-million per megawatt. Thousands of them would cost tens of billions of dollars.
But Jacobson says it is an investment that pays for itself.
?You get all that money back by electricity sales over 25-30 years, and you reduce storm surge and wind speed associated with a hurricane.?
Read more...
http://www.wwltv.com/news/Woltering-turbines-257507011.html
wwltv.com
Posted on May 1, 2014 at 10:40 PM
Dennis Woltering / Eyewitness News
It almost sounds too good to be true: Install tens of thousands of wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico and you not only get clean electricity, you also knock out the catastrophic punch of hurricanes.
?You can dissipate hurricanes so much that you can reduce wind speeds, peak wind speeds by more than half, and the storm surge by almost 80 percent in the case of New Orleans and hurricane Katrina.?
That is according to Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University. Jacobson, a Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, co-authored the study with scientists from Cornell University and the University of California-Davis.
?We ran simulations without turbines present, and then with turbines present,? Jacobson says.
Their computer models focused on Hurricanes Sandy, Isaac and Katrina.
A satellite image of Katrina without wind turbines shows the storm?s impact from space.
?As it hits land it starts to dissipate, it's causing damage over land,? Jacobson says. Then he says they modified the computer model, adding 78,000 wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico.
?We added tens of thousands of turbines in this triangular region up here,? he says, pointing to a northeastern corner of the gulf. ?And you can see initially that these turbines are reducing the wind speeds significantly.?
...
One of the world?s largest makers of wind turbines, Siemens, says each offshore turbine can cost $2.1-million per megawatt. Thousands of them would cost tens of billions of dollars.
But Jacobson says it is an investment that pays for itself.
?You get all that money back by electricity sales over 25-30 years, and you reduce storm surge and wind speed associated with a hurricane.?
Read more...
http://www.wwltv.com/news/Woltering-turbines-257507011.html