Offshore Wind Farm

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Offshore Wind Farm

I am most impressed by the following experiment:

Pick a nearby tree easily visible from your window. Mine is a pine tree with just a top-knot of branches. The slightest murmur of air, and the top-knot sways against the background of trees that surround it.

As you walk through the living-room, glance at the tree. If it is not swaying, that is, if there no discernible motion, immediately turn off every mains-powered electrical appliance in your home. The refrigerator, the oven and stove, the lights, the VCR/DVD, the alarm clocks, the computers (You have an Uninterruptible Power Source? OK. Leave that on, but unplug it from the wall and listen to the banshee wail).

Then sit on the couch, unable to read a book (no lights, remember!) and wait for the tree to move. Then turn everything back on and resume cooking whatever has congealed on the stove.

A couple of things. One, I know that you won’t perform this experiment; it is far too scary. Two, I know that if the wind dies down HERE that it is still blowing THERE, but now contemplate the engineering and technical structure required to load-balance supply and demand – we have enough blackouts with supposedly predictable power sources (nuclear, water, coal etc) and how much worse will it be when that darned cyclone blows itself out?

Our ability to predict weather, which is as bad as our ability to predict climate, tells me that our ability to predict anything based on weather is non-existent.

And having studied Prob&Stats a long time ago, I know about averages and expectations, but I don’t want an average temperature when my little lamb chop needs to sizzle on the stove-top Right Now!

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