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Wind power deception easy to detect
Credit: Union-Bulletin | April 26, 2013 | union-bulletin.com ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
The National Weather Service runs a network of Doppler radar stations intended to map storms by detecting moving raindrops.
Serendipitously, windmill blades being mounted well above the ground and containing conductive lightning arresters produce very strong radar echoes. When the blades are turning, the radar echoes are Doppler-shifted and therefore show up on Doppler radar maps as stationary targets, brighter than all but the most severe thunderstorms or tornadoes.
Of course, when the wind isn’t blowing, windmills that aren’t in tourist-attraction areas will quit turning, and hence will disappear from the Doppler radar maps. This makes those weather maps a convenient graphic aid to estimating the amount of electricity being generated by wind farms.
Texas is widely known as the state having, by far, the largest installed wind-generating capacity. Naturally, Texas also has the largest number of Doppler radars. Its maps are available online, so it is possible for any interested person to keep track of how often that immense wind-generating capacity is sitting idle.
Clearly, the good people of Texas have been as badly deceived by exaggerated claims of abundant clean wind energy as we in Washington and Oregon.
Jim Thorn
Dayton
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
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