Skye Gibbs

GEOS109
3/18/19
The Wind: Not So Much Zeus’s Fault As It Is Helios’

Part 1: “I thought the wind was created by the earth spinning really fast”
Winds are created by the sun heating the earth. From “Energy, Environment, and
Climate”, the 1 percent of solar energy that becomes the kinetic energy of wind amounts to 2
PW, more than 100 times humankind’s energy consumption. However, since it’s distributed
unevenly across the globe, the potential energy is reduced. A good portion of the sun’s energy
lands on the equator year-round, with the tilt of the globe.
Wind is one of the results of convection cells: Warm air rising from the equator, creating
a low pressure zone, with cool air rushing in to replace it so it can warm up and rise, and more
cool air can rush in, &c. In combination with the coriolis effect, an effect where the spinning of
the globe affects the path of an object in motion by producing a slight curve, and a few other
things, we get ‘Atmospheric Mechanical Motion’.

Fig 1: Atmospheric Mechanical Motion, In Class Powerpoint

 Hadley cells are cells near the tropics, where warm air rises to the troposphere,
the first layer of the atmosphere, and move toward the poles. Easterlies are cells of cold
air moving from the poles and westerlies are warm air moving from the subtropical
high, forming a cell of its own. The trade winds move from opposite hemispheres,
picking up moisture and humidity as they go and, when they collide, cause heavy
rainfall. These winds are the most consistent, and they are found primarily between
30°N and 30°S, which is where deserts tend to be.
We primarily get wind energy from the typical turbines that most people
recognize. They are designed to let air through, but not so much that we’re wasting
more potential energy than we already have to. There is an equation named the ‘Betz
Limit’, that explains how the amount of wind power that a turbine can actually extract is
equal to or less than 59%, because of the fact that wind turbines, as they exist, have 3
blades because it’s cheaper and almost as efficient as if there were infinitely more
blades. 3 blades is a compromise. The blades are shaped like airplane wings, and rely on
lift and drag from low and high pressure zones created by the curves in the blades to
generate power. With longer blades, more power can be extracted, but shorter blades
are more efficient in high-speed air environments, to allow the turbine to run at full
capacity most, if not all, of the time.
Wind turbines are designed to allow as much air to flow through them as
possible, because if the turbines stop wind, we can’t extract as much energy.
Conversely, if there’s simply too much wind, the turbines actually start to lose efficiency.
For several models, 50mph winds are too strong for the turbines; they will actually shut
down to prevent damage to the internal systems.
Part 2: The City That Never Sleeps, But Not Because Of Wind

3% of New York’s energy comes from wind power. They mostly rely on hydropower in
terms of renewable energy. In 1 year, the state of New York will use approximately
1,856,584,000 (one billion, eight hundred fifty six million, five hundred eighty four thousand)
kilowatt hours.
If we were to cover the entire state in wind turbines, we could put 24,100 generators
over all 96000 km^2. New York has a very small variance, from 4.5 to 6.5 m/s wind speeds. With
our graph containing the data of a basic GE 2.5-120 wind turbine, we can see that those wind
speeds can generate from 250 to 1000 kilowatts per meter per second.
After converting from kw/m/s to kwh/km/day, we can see that the total amount of
kilowatt hours produced over the entire state of New York in one day is 68,814,000 KwH/Day. 1
year will generate 25,117,110,000 KwH. Considering how much the state uses, a deficit of
23,260,526,000 is pretty intense.
Using the (Total E divided by rate) equation, and using an average rate for the top 2
areas, we can find that we’d need to cover approximately 31,000 km^2 of New York to power
the state for a year, about ⅓ of the state. That’s roughly 8000 turbines. That’s less than the
total area of the three highest-producing areas of the state (in the 5.5 - 6.5 region). It’s slightly
more space consuming than solar, perhaps, but it’s still an option.

Sources:
Ias, Pmf. “Types of Winds: Permanent, Secondary & Local Winds | PMF IAS.” Go to PMF IAS., 31
July 2018, www.pmfias.com/winds-hadley-ferrel-polar-walker-cell-trade-winds-westerlies-polar-
easterlies-loo-foehn-fohn-chinook-mistral-sirocco/#trade-winds.

“Wind Power.” Energy, Environment, and Climate, by Richard Wolfson, W.W. Norton &
Company, 2018, pp. 268–276.