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Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Banks

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:11 pm
by Laughingman

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:18 pm
by mz16
Dont know anything on the topic, but how does a wind farm hurt wind?

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:33 pm
by adamj2281
Yeah, 6 miles off, no issue.

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:35 pm
by Laughingman
Wind turbines or any tall structure such as buildings, trees, bridges etc... will cause friction which in turn will result in gusty winds with less average force. It would be similar to kiting behind a tree line.

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met13 ... l.free.gif

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:41 pm
by adamj2281
Yeah, but in terms of scale, and given 6 miles of open flat surface between the towers and closest point on shore, I don't see it creating a major issue at all.

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:17 pm
by Laughingman
I think that really all depends on the pressure gradient and how quickly the air flow can reorganize after being disrupted. Also, once the air flow is disrupted it looses velocity, which will reduce the effect of the coriolis force which will change the direction possibly causing a clean NE to turn gusty and NW by the time it hits land.

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:27 pm
by eree
yeah, six miles, you can barely see them on this distance.
don't be hypocritical. when kiters need access to some beach it is always ecological to support the kiteboarding.
and if the windfarms in on the way of some kiteboarding spot it is always a waste of money and crime against the nature...

and showing some rubiks cube diagrams is not convincing much

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:46 pm
by Laughingman
eree wrote:yeah, six miles, you can barely see them on this distance.
I'm not sure how, if you can see them or not, makes it better or worse. We are talking about the effect friction has on the wind, this has nothing to do with whether or not you can see them.
.
don't be hypocritical. when kiters need access to some beach it is always ecological to support the kiteboarding.
I fail to see how talking about the effect wind turbines may have on the wind is hypocritical
and I don't understand the rest of this sentence.
and if the windfarms in on the way of some kiteboarding spot it is always a waste of money and crime against the nature...
I also don't understand this fragmented sentence.
and showing some rubiks cube diagrams is not convincing much
The diagram clearly illustrates the effect friction has on the wind, the top model shows what happens when there is no friction, the bottom model shows what happens when there is friction... it is not a diagram of a Rubik's Cube.

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:22 pm
by chemosavi
When kiteboarders start worrying about wind farms wrecking their precious spot they need to get a job in a coal mine somewhere and start a meth addiction.

As in, something ain't meshing down in the engine room.

They have quite a few in the Netherlands and you don't hear them complaining about them ruining their kiting. Bit of an oxymoron, in other words. Better to have a noxious coal burning powerplant somewhere else far away doing the polluting that runs the refineries that make the petroleum for the plastic everything you use to kite with is made of.

Re: Offshore wind farm may wreck NE winds for the Outer Bank

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:28 pm
by SSK
At first I assumed that no way a wind farm could have that big of an effect downwind. However, there seems to be quite a lot of studies on wake and downwind effects. You can download a lot of technical information. These articles cite a large ocean grid off Denmark (9 by 8 grid) the velocity loss at 0-3km was 10%. This recovered by 8-20km to within 2% of the upwind velocity. Also energy loss was estimated at up to 15% at 5KM. So depending on the size of the farms and actual location, I would not dismiss it as not having a real impact. I did not read anything that suggests it could "wreck" it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=VKGF- ... s&f=false

http://www.gl-garradhassan.com/assets/ ... FINAL.pdf

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