Choosing how to start something is often the most challenging part since the rest is usually about moving with the flow (turbomachinery pun intended). So, now that we got that out of the way let’s talk about our next topic after we do a quick flashback on the previous episodes of this Clean Energy series.
In the first post in this series, we discussed clean energy as a whole. After describing what it is and what it is not, we pointed out some of the energy sources we would analyze in subsequent articles.
The second post in this series took us on an extraterrestrial journey for two reasons: we looked at solar energy and we also went on a tangent about the rovers operating on planet Mars. I got so many “Likes” on these little droids that I figured I would keep going with them (that or I found a cool article that I’ll be sharing here) for this current post on one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world: Wind Energy. What’s the link between Mars equipment and wind? See this recent discovery – https://www.space.com/41023-mars-wind-power-landers-experiment.html
Side note: ever wondered what would happen if the sun just blinked out? Check it out here – https://what-if.xkcd.com/49/
The wind we are looking at in today’s post is somewhere in between bovine flatulence and hurricanes in terms of intensity. Wind as we know it is created by air (or any fluid) moving from a zone of high pressure to one of low pressure. This high-to-low concentration migration might sound tricky, but it is easy to understand if you think of cars on a highway. It is more likely that cars stuck in a slow lane on the highway would move on to a lane with less traffic rather than the other way around.
Pressure varies with things like irregularities on the Earth surface, AKA altitude (“in case loss of cabin pressure occurs, oxygen masks will drop […]”), but also with temperature. This means that two people at the same altitude but in areas of different temperatures would experience different pressures. For example, think of standing at the North Pole vs. standing on a Caribbean beach vs. standing on a paddleboard in the Great Lakes. This example of standing at different places demonstrates the uneven heating of the Earth from the sun due to its shape (not flat), its rotation and its tilt, as we introduced in the previous post. But which location is under the most pressure? Colder temperature equals higher pressure. Let me explain with another analogy, (even though this example has nothing to do with pressure, it will help the information stick). When people get stressed, we say they are under pressure. We can imagine somebody above the Arctic Circle is more stressed (cold, where to find food, shelter, etc.) than somebody enjoying a Mai Tai on the beach at an all-inclusive resort in Aruba. So here is your mnemonics; colder equals higher pressure.
Now that we have seen what wind was and the theory behind how it forms, we can start thinking about how to utilize this energy. Today we will talk about the aerodynamic aspect of wind turbines while in a future post we will be focusing on the assessment of such technology as wind power; pros, cons, where, what, etc.
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