2010-11-25

Social mood turns on the greens

Last year there was the Climategate scandal, and this year cap & trade died in the U.S. midterm election. There have been questions about how wind power affects local weather patterns and now the media is paying attention.

Are wind farms changing the weather?
"The ground heats up quickly, like a pan on a stove, the wind blows like a headless fly and not a single drop of rain falls," he said in August, during the rainy season. He pointed at the spinning blades of the wind turbines over the horizon. "This started happening after they came."

It is not just a herdsman's superstition or his distaste for modern technology. Siqinbateer's claim is backed up by government statistics.

Li Qinghai, an engineer with the Water Statistics Bureau in Xilingol League, said the precipitation data collected by the bureau showed that adjacent to big wind farms there was an obvious decline in annual rainfall since 2005 - in some areas by as much as 80 per cent. "The issue is often overlooked as much of Inner Mongolia is suffering an unprecedented drought," he said. "But after spending more than two decades studying the rise and fall of water levels in the region, I have a strong feeling that the wind turbines are playing a disruptive, if not destructive, role in this, because the droughts in these areas developed much faster than in the turbine-free regions."

Li said he wanted to study the issue more deeply, but nobody would fund the research. Given the nationwide hype of wind-power development, the topic is considered politically incorrect.
I don't expect the debate between oil, natural gas and coal, versus solar, wind and biofuels, to end. Instead, the terms of the debate will shift as people focus on costs over benefits.

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