One potential downside: if all the wind is used to spin turbines, will there be any left over to dry the dew?

Jerome a Paris, of the European Tribune blog, is a banker involved in financing wind power projects, so buyer beware. That said.....

Here's an index of some of his pieces -

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/6/5/172819/2079

I didn't see anything that talked about an upper limit on energy from wind power.

He wrote this for his critics -

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/5/14/102030/678

A correction to maintain nerdular nerdence: a watt is a unit of power, meaning energy consumed per unit time (Joules per second). So 15 terawatts is not an 'annual' figure, but an instantaneous one. Worldwide humanity consumes 15 trillion joules of energy every second.

The idea that we're going to remove significant amounts of energy from the atmosphere by utilizing wind power is a bit far-fetched. Solar irradiance averages 1367 W/m^2, which is 7e17 watts. Even if we're extremely optimistic and imagine 100% wind-power generation, that's about 1/50,000th of the amount of energy being inputted into the atmosphere. Plus, in thermodynamic terms it's probably a wash, since it's not like we're sequestering that energy somewhere - it's going right back into the atmosphere as waste heat. So, no, not likely to fuck things up greatly. The only potential problem it'll cause is chopping some birds in half.

if we build hundreds of thousands of them we could generate almost a quarter of all energy we use, replacing coal, before 2030. including heat and transportation. IIRC that comes out to about 50% of current electricity.

there's an expansion of electricity application in that for passenger and freight transportation and a cut in total energy use through residential, industrial, and transport efficiency.

There's a possibility of localized noise pollution, but seriously, it's as clean as it's going to get. (I mean to say that the noise is an insignificant factor, btw.) We'll use wind power eventually. The only question is whether or not we implement it in a timely fashion. Our limitations are political, not technological.

The idea that we're going to remove significant amounts of energy from the atmosphere by utilizing wind power is a bit far-fetched.

It sure is, which is why I didn't claim anything of the sort. What large-scale wind power will do is create changes in localized ground-level wind patterns, which has the potential for some sort of unpredictable effect. Not in every case but certainly in some.

If the dissipated heat of city can change local weather patterns (and it does) a wind farm of a size large enough to create the power for a similarly-sized city is going to have some effect. Wind farms don't take energy out of the atmosphere as a whole, they remove it from a specific locale. Pretending that there's going to be no effect is as misguided as pretending that coal plants don't cause pollution.

It may be a more optimal solution with many fewer byproducts than coal, oil, or nuclear, but wind farms are still going to have some effect on the atmosphere locally at least, and you can't predict what downstream effect they might have.

The only potential problem it'll cause is chopping some birds in half.

No really -- is there a better demonstration of nerdular nerdence than arrogance of potential consequences?

some disaster scenario where the drag is so great it stops the clouds

And again, I never claimed that that would be the case.

The wind park effect is precisely what I'm talking about. And as the size of wind farms grow to increase power generation from wind turbines, the effects are going to be larger as well.

Small changes in ground level atmospherics can have much larger effects. Natural or artificial windbreaks at the edges of fields, for instance, can reduce the amount of topsoil lost to wind erosion. Topsoil carried aloft by wind leaves behind sterile soils and can itself cause changes in weather, not to mention act as a pollutant in downwind areas.

Here in the Northwest, we're taking down hydroelectric dams that were once viewed as a fantastic source of clean energy. And they were, compared to oil and coal, but they killed off a lot of the salmon and that's had sort of a snowball effect on other species.

I'm all for increasing the amount of power generated from wind sources, but please, let's go into it with eyes open, not pretending that we're going to get something for nothing, and at least conscious that whatever change we make may have some unforeseen secondary effect. That's the whole point of chaos theory and the butterfly effect. Didn't Jeff Goldblum teach you anything?

I recently read an interesting article in New Scientist about harnessing the wind via kites instead of turbines. The benefits are:
--ability to be up much, much higher, where the wind is stronger and constant;
--simpler mechanisms, less wear and tear;
--less impact on birds, bats, etc.

I'm about to get an online subscription (replacing a carbon-heavy print one). When I do, I'll start linking to the articles if possible. New Scientist is a really fascinating mag with genuine, no-hype science for the lay-reader.

And you know what I mean by "lay-reader."

According to the Danish page hapa linked, the theoretical maximum that can be removed is 59% of the energy of the wind (which reduction is not the 'wind park effect', that's the reduction in efficiency from a turbine being situated behind another turbine). Possibly this level of reduction in erosive forces would have some catastrophic results. Do you have a reasonable conjecture what?

Re: Labiche, yes, it's arrogant to imply no potential serious consequences. But the precautionary principle can't be completely groundless. We should have some sound basis for thinking things could go wrong. Else we'd never have, say, Large Hadron Colliders and the like. So - if you've got some ideas, here's where to throw 'em.

But the precautionary principle can't be completely groundless.

Is it completely groundless? I would assume that any technology that brings energy to 10B people would have an impact*.

Sure, the impact may be a bit off on the horizon, but surely, we'll handle the horizon competently when we get to it. :-)

I recall all the earnest '60s flower children that turned out to be right in the long run with their alarmism, although we did have some fun on their account for a while. 350 you say?

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* I think we should do productive things. I just have this nagging suspicion that AEI would contribute to any risk analysis and discourse when there's a dollar and America greatness involved.