Comment by dividefuel
4 hours ago
Dumb question: is there a limit to how much energy we can capture? I'm imagining a wind gust blowing east to west across a city filled wind turbines. By the time the gust reaches the west end of the city, has most of its energy been captured or otherwise dissipated?
Contrasting that with solar, where any surface area receiving direct sunlight doesn't prevent other adjacent areas from also capturing solar.
Wind power scales with the turbine area squared, and the wind velocity cubed. That means there's massive incentive to make bigger and taller turbines (windspeeds are higher the further away from the ground you are).
For that reason, there is very little reason to build small wind turbines, even if there wasn't a down-stream loss of power from putting too many close together.