No free lunch for renewables: More wind power would warm US
“There is no free lunch” – we need systems that use natures processes while not disturbing them too much. There never is any zero impact, no matter what one does. We must stop looking at technologies and look at system impacts at last. Methane has been a part of nature for billions of years. It is part of the planet like water is. And like water we can use its cycles without disturbing them too much.
While wind energy is widely celebrated as environmentally friendly, the researchers concluded that a dramatic, all-out expansion in the number of turbines could warm the country even more than climate change from burning coal and other fossil fuels, because of the way the spinning blades disturb the layers of warm and cold air in the atmosphere.
