Off-shore wind farms to rescue New Orleans and low lying coastal areas?

[Horse with no Name]

" If they surround the coast with off-shore wind farms and wave-power generators then not only will they get sustainable electricity but the next time the wind and waves will be diminished by the energy being removed from the storm in much the same way that a hurricane quickly dissipates when it makes landfall."
Andy, Reading, England

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4229878.stm

[TheFarseer]

1. wouldn't it just

destroy the wind farms? Nothing wrong with wind farms, I just wouldn't expect it to stop a hurricane.

[leveymg]

2. Only if the turbines were 50,000 feet high.

A hurricane is a huge cyclonic storm cloud that rises up into the stratosphere, gathering energy from warm water below as it is moved by high-altitude prevailing winds.

It would ride right over (wrecking) any sort of wind farms and wave power apparatus.

Some things are still bigger than people.

[pitohui]

3. andy, you funny

this is from someone far away from hurricane country who has no idea the size of these storms, which have far more power than any thermonuclear weapon

all the sci-fi stuff, like seeding hurricane betsy, hasn't been a fart in a windstorm when it comes to turning storms

i have never heard one bit of evidence that human technology can turn aside even a small tornado

much less a cat 4 or 5 hurricane

as far as hurricanes "quickly" dissipating over land, it's your definition of "quickly" i suppose, jackson mississippi is still cleaning up the mess from katrina, meridian looked a little rough too

hell, ivan pushed a town in western north carolina down a mountainside

a wind farm ain't gonna do anything except provide more flying debris

[punpirate]

4. Andy doesn't have much of a...

... physics background, I'm afraid. Wind turbines are, at best, a couple of hundred feet high, while the storms are tens of thousands of feet high and, as we saw with Katrina, hundreds of miles wide. Most of the energy in the storm is inaccessible to surface equipment.

The other consideration is that the theoretical maximum energy which can be extracted from the wind is 59%, and even sophisticated machines capture perhaps half that amount.

The effects on the storm of even thousands of machines would be imperceptible.

[mopinko]

5. wave power

is a personal interest of mine, because my dad was an amateur inventor who wanted to do this back in the 60's. building a turbine that can withstand ocean waves is the problem with the idea. people have been working on this, and are making progress. the physics of the idea, however, are sound. dissipating energy would help, just like the barrier islands and wetlands that were destroy did.

[tinrobot]

6. It's not the wind, it's waves

The landfill they'd use for supporting the turbines on the wind farms would lessen the impact of the storm surge.

Not a bad idea, but restoring the wetlands is a better idea.

[DinahMoeHum]

7. Sorry, but it still means development of wetlands, and we don't need that.

n/t

[mopinko]

8. don't see an either or situation here

restoring wetlands and barrier island could even be enhanced if it is done correctly. the foundation of this could serve as protection while things regrow.