Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["David Inglis" <mhcsa@verizon.net>]

Harvey,
I was taught that obstructions slow wind an on ground a distance of 10 times
the height of the obstruction, be it a wall, greenmanure, hedge or wind
farm. So a turbine of 500' would slow the ground wind speed some 5000' from
the site, less than a mile. Beyond that there is no discernable effect.
Incidentally I was also taught that a shelter bed of <100' had no less an
effect in this regard than a forest of immense scale. Anyway the reason for
the wind in the first place is a temperature or pressure gradient which
would still exist if we thwart the efforts of the ecosystem to equalize out.
I believe that ground based rotary turbines are only the crude beginning to
wind based energy systems anyway and even then should be compared to the
alternative. There may be other perfectly good reasons to object to wind
energy but this would not be one of them.
The principle benefit of scarce energy supply and their associated high cost
I see is the incentive to maintain standards of living with greatly reduced
energy needs not alternative supplies. This is where the US and the
developing world has a huge advantage; the US because of their current
profligate waste and the developing world because they could skip the fossil
fuel based stage of development and the costs of maintaining its centralized
distribution.
David


> Scale the
> process up sufficiently, and we are reducing wind energies over a wide
> geographic area. At what point (scale) do we start affecting weather
> patterns? Anybody know of any research/thought that's been given to that
> one?
> 
> ~Harvey in northern VA
> www.themodernhomestead.us
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