Climate Change is Fighting Back Against Wind Energy

Climate Change is predicted to have a massive impact on the world, from more fierce hurricanes to decreased snowfall. Additionally, the effects of climate change are predicted to complicate our ability to use windpower.  According to a recent study in the journal Nature Geoscience, could significantly weaken winds that blow across much of the world. Kristopher Karnauskas, a climate scientist at Colorado University Boulder and primary investigator, "Our results don’t show the wind power goes to zero. It’s a reduction of 10 percent over [most] regions."

Image Credit: SIA Group

To calculate their statistics, Karnauskas and his team used several different climate scenarios from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They then combined them with a used formula in the industry to determine how much energy a turbine can produce. The study used 10 different IPCC models, each of which predicts with an large amount of CO₂ going into the atmosphere. This data predicted that weather patterns would cause an eight to 10 percent decrease in the wind by 2050 and a 14 to 18 percent drop by 2100.

These changes may seem small to most people, but a minor drop in available wind can lead to massive amounts of energy lost. Geoff Spending, a professor of aerospace and mechanical energy at the University of Southern California believes that the overall energy generated from wind facilities would "drop significantly." That's because the energy generated from a wind farm is wind speed multiplied by three. So, Spending calculates that a 10 percent decrease would lead to a 30 percent decrease in wind energy generated. This new study is crucial because the United States Department of Energy is providing $20 million for research and development of offshore massive wind farms.

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Works Cited:

https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-could-take-the-air-out-of-wind-farms/
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/wind-farms-in-northern-hemisphere-at-risk-from-climate-change/article/509818