Wind Farms Impacting Weather

Reported October 2005

DURHAM, N.C. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- You've seen the prices at the pump go up and now home heating costs are on the rise. And scientists are looking to the wind for a much needed alternative to fuel.

They're the things that fuel our lives, but what fuels them is running low. Scientists may have found an answer with wind farms. Somnath Baidya Roy, Ph.D., from the department of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University in Durham, N.C., says, "It's very clear to everybody that we have to move away from conventional fossil fuels like coal and oil and look at alternatives."

With a new power source comes an impact to our environment. Roy says, "Large wind farms can significantly affect local meteorology." He studied these massive machines and believes wind farms can actually impact our weather because wind turns the blades of the turbine around a rotor, which helps generate electricity the blades create a lot of turbulence in the wake.

Roy says, "It's something like the wake from the propeller of a boat. Now this added turbulences mixes air up and down and creates a warming and drying effect near the ground." He says the affects can be felt for miles and could have an impact on air conditioning costs and more money may have to be spent on irrigation of nearby crops.

He believes the solution is simple -- create better rotors. "We found that low-turbulence rotors are more economically efficient, they tend to generate more electricity than conventional rotors," he says.

Wind farms tend to impact the weather more at night, which is when the wind is usually stronger and the most energy is generated.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Somnath Baidya Roy
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-5581
http://www.duke.edu/~sbroy

For more information about atmospheres, please contact:

American Geophysical Union
2000 Florida Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20009-1277
(202) 462-6900
(800) 966-2481
http://www.agu.org/

For more information about engineering and technology, please contact:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202
Washington, D.C. 20036-5104
(202) 785-0017
http://www.ieee.org
ieeeusa@ieee.org



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