Can large wind farms tweak weather downwind? (Page 2 of 2) The
short take: After a variety of calculations, they find that
large assemblages of 2.5 megawatt land-based turbines in the
right regions would meet more than 40 times the world's current
electricity needs. And that's with turbines running at no more
than 20 percent efficiency. They looked at the US specifically
and estimated that wind energy could meet up to 16 times the
current US demand for electricity.Skip to next paragraph
Subscribe Today to the Monitor At first blush, the thought of
vast collections of wind farms affecting weather patterns seems
a bit far-fetched. But scientists have long studied the effects
that changes in the roughness of Earth's surface can have on
low-level wind patterns. And large, regional collections of wind
turbines would rough up the surface. In effect, it's like
planting very tall trees (roughly 300 feet high). But what about
the weather? An early study of the impact that large collections
of wind farms might have cam