Would you believe if I say Wind Mills can have adverse effects on climate..??

I personally believe that whenever human being tries to intervene in any of natural process is due for major disaster. May it be then drilling earth for natural resources, obstacle to wind, building construction in sea? 

Today, many of us understand the effect of carbon emissions on climate and believe solution of that could be something like Wind energy, solar energy etc. which we believe generate energy without any climate change impact. All in all, the whole world is desperately trying to seek the substitute energy resources to avoid end of the world. 

In this process, did we all ever notice that how much extra precautionary we need to be here before choosing any particular energy source? Yes, we need to think very carefully about these things on long term basis. Recently, I come across one of the research from MIT where Dr. Prin (TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science) and Wang (Principal Research Analysts) who have made strong argument that Wind energy is not completely safe and can have adverse effect on climate in long run when U.S. Department of Energy is planning to account 20% of nation’s electricity supply by wind power in 2030. Although, AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) estimates currently only 2% of electricity is generated from wind turbines. 

Currently, 6% of the world’s total energy comes from nuclear reactors; while fossil fuels, a major contributor to global warming, provide approximately 85 percent, according to IEA (International Energy Agency). At the same time, in above pictures we can see that others* (includes Geothermal, Wind & Solar energy) is only 0.7% of total energy which is very much minimal.  Although, this proportion is expected to grow in coming years as people are betting heavily on Wind energy as it’s cheaper as well than other such resources. 

Prinn cautioned against interpreting the study as an argument against wind power, urging that it be used to guide future research that explores the downsides of large-scale wind power before significant resources are invested to build vast wind farms. “We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”

But a new MIT analysis about wind power says that millions of wind turbines would need to be installed across vast stretches of land and ocean to generate wind power to reach expected global scale. Such a massive deployment could indeed impact the climate as well as wind, they found, though not necessarily with the desired outcome.

In their land analysis, they simulated the effects of wind farms by using data about how objects similar to turbines, such as buildings, hills and clumps of trees, affect surface “roughness,” or friction that can disturb wind flow. After adding this data to the model, the researchers observed that the surface air temperature over the wind farm regions increased by about one degree Celsius, which averages out to an increase of .15 degrees Celsius over the entire global surface.

The wind turbines on land reduced wind speed, particularly on the downwind side of the wind farms, which reduced the strength of the turbulent motion and horizontal heat transport processes that move heat away from the Earth’s surface. This resulted in less heat being transported to the upper parts of the atmosphere, as well as to other regions farther away from the wind farms.

In addition to changes in temperatures and surface heat fluxes, they also observed changes in large-scale precipitation, particularly at the mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Although these changes exceeded 10 percent in some areas, the global total changes were not very large, according to Prinn and Wang. 

Although Prinn and Wang believe their results for the land-based wind farms are robust, Wang called their analysis a “proof-of-concept” study that requires additional theoretical and modeling work, as well as field experiments for complete verification. 

Now looking at this picture, are we all 100% sure that Wind resource is really safe enough and will not cause any problem to climate even if they grow in numbers like other resources..?? I seriously doubt..!

References:
Prinn & Wang (2010). Potential climatic impacts and reliability of very large-scale wind farm. Journal of the European Geosciences Union , 10, 2053-2061.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/2053/2010/acp-10-2053-2010.html
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2010/key_stats_2010.pdf

                      

Once Again Technology: Medicine or Poison..??

As I am doing an MBA and part of that curriculum, we have a guest lecture on every Thursday afternoon. Last week, we had similar lecture where I got chance to meet this lecturer who is marketing and commercial director of one of the printing organization in UK. Thus, he made us come across one of the real time and very interesting case study of business where I felt like that somebody has stood up right up and asked me do you think you can find answer for everything then try to answer this one..??

Background of person: He works in Printing Industry where his organization just prints the books for top class publishing houses; which also includes distribution of these books to retailers or customers.They have several firm and big clients like Bloomsbury Publishing (Harry Potter Publisher), Penguin Publishing

Question: If you become a board of member of one of such printing company and company asks you to draw the strategy for next 10-20 years. What you will do? (Except selling)

I understood the concern and did try to answer it somewhat but honestly speaking even I am not satisfied with my own answer. So, I have decided to put forward the same question in front of you. I will be pleased if you have anything to share or answer on this.

For this, I had a deep look on their current strategy where I found they actually have only one competitor in current market but they have hell lot of problems coming over in future given as follows: 

1. Digital printing technology (they have adapted this one now)

2. EBooks conversion from Physical books

3. Increasing love fever towards IPADS.

4. Continuous innovation in technology which are removing

5. Top class book maker somebody like Oxford Dictionary also stopped printing of books and asking people to subscribe online or have it in electronic format. Following the trend.

6. Social awareness towards nature adding fuel to it by saying stops the use of paper.

7. Adaption to climate changes policies and regulations

And so many..such problems has suddenly piled up against this SME scale businesses. Did anybody bother thinking any future for these people? Is government is the final answer for this question? The company, I am talking about is having more than 700 employees working hard to make produce best seller novels, best literature and all kind of books. Many of them earn all the joy and hand-to-mouth for their families from this organization only.

But as I mentioned earlier interestingly here in this case this company do see the possible threat upcoming for them but they don’t know how to answer them or may be don’t know what shall they consider because of these uncertainties or changes like if IPAD fever will increase or people will prefer having physical book to read for more reading satisfaction.  Frankly saying nobody knows which way the time and people will shift and hence what should be the risk strategy now or how long should they execute this current business? In short, how long they should keep producing books and does this upcoming new technology medicine or poison for their company?  Big Questions to answer..aren’t they..?

Perhaps, all I can say now is that only time can give the best answer for these questions.