You're listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host. And we've got Charles Meneveau. And, Charles, great to have you on the program, you’re professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins specialty in wind farm, kind of fluid dynamics. And so we'll be talking about wind energy and what we should be doing in the future wanted to give us maybe a little bit more about what, what brought you to this study and what you're working on right now?

Yeah, well, Matt, first of all, I really like what you're doing with your program. So thanks for having me on. And so let me tell you a bit about myself. So I got into this field, because I've always been fascinated with the ability of mathematics to represent very complicated physical processes. So together with sort of ideas and concerns about energy in general, that got me into mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics and turbulence in particular.

So we we study, fluid dynamics and turbulence, and these things happen anywhere, like the air flowing around here, your car, airplanes, water around ships, the atmosphere flowing over our landscape, mixing, smoke coming out of smokestacks, turbulence occurs and in your arteries, and the circulatory system and our lungs. Also exhaling droplets COVID. That's, that's sort of a hot topic these days, of course. So turbulence occurs in a lot of places.

And in particular, it occurs in the turbulent wind when it when we place that when we place wind turbines in and then we can were able to extract mechanical energy out of out of the wind in the turbulent wind. So we work on in my group here at Hopkins, we work on mathematical and computer models of these kinds of flows. And I think we've, you know, we've been able to find interesting things. And so we have things to say about large scale implementation of wind energy.

So, we've made a lot of strides as far as wind farm, wind farms, producing a ton of energy out there. And I understand a number of states are up to say 40%, or maybe more of their energy generated by via wind, as I recall, reading about, say, Kansas, they said had some enormous amount of wind potential. And where are we at in terms of capping the wind potential that we have here in the US and worldwide?

Right, so So in the US, it's getting close to 10%, I believe this year is about 9% of electricity in the US is coming from wind. The I think, Iowa and is as you said, is close to 40 or above 40%, Kansas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas are having a about 30%, I believe, of the electricity coming from wind, Texas is above 20%, I think in absolute numbers that everything's big in Texas.

So it's, there's a lot of wind there. And then internationally, there are countries like Denmark, where on average, also it's close to 50%. And I think there's some months in the winter, January, February, March where they get all of their electricity from from from wind energy, so and then and so it's it's been growing much more than what people realize. And I believe it will continue to grow rather quickly.

So how are we doing here in the state of California's in terms of wind potential wind policy? I know driving around the state, we're seeing more and more wind farms out there and in various places. And so it's it's good to see us moving in the right direction. But where are we at? And and how, how are we going to get to where we need to be?

Well, I don't know. For California, I don't know their specific, precise numbers. I do know that. Of course in California, it's a place where both wind and solar are playing an increasing role. So the specific numbers again, I probably don't remember them for California. But I think both solar and wind are growing rapidly.

One of the interesting things with wind and solar is that they're complementary very often when the when the wind blows, maybe it's cloudy and there's not so much sun and vice versa. So if you add the two together, cumulatively, it is actually a very convenient constellation of renewable sources.

So which, which do you think has longer, who has greater potential and what were the cost? So of solar energy vis-à-vis wind energy currently and and where is it headed?

So the so for for wind right now wind is for onshore wind. So those are turbines that you'll build on land. It is currently cheaper, it's in fact right now, probably the cheapest form of electricity, solar is still a little more expensive. Again, it depends, you know, what scale, whether it's rooftop or large scale facility. So it really depends on the details. But overall, I would say it's still a little higher. But the curve solar has been coming down very, very quickly.

And so I do really believe that the future is one where it's not one or the other. And, you know, everybody in energy will tell you that you need a portfolio of combinations. But in particular, I believe wind and solar go very well together. And, and so I think, ultimately, I believe that probably, they both would probably be equal participants in in, in total renewable energy.

So I have I have some ideas, for example, that, that, you know, we can get to 100% renewable between solar and wind much more quickly than people realize. But I do believe it'll be roughly half and a half.

Okay? And why don't why don't we go to that and tell us how you think we can get to 100%? Solar and wind? And what's the path? What's the timeframe, I would imagine, we're going to have to have a revolution in battery technology in order to store the solar and wind so that we can use it when on days when it's not sunny, or when the winds not blowing.

Right. So I think there's a number of different storage technologies. Again, that's not specifically my area, but they're, you know, batteries, in terms of sort of chemical storage is one, there are also mechanical storage options where you would, for example, you could have under underwater big tanks, concrete tanks that you pump full of water at great depth when you have electricity, and then you and then and then you let the water in from the sea. If they're submerged, you would let the water back in.

When you need the electricity, there's there's a hydrogen, so you could generate hydrogen as a means of of storage, then combine it with fuel cells and so on. So I think in terms of storage, there certainly is a number of options. It's growing in terms of distributed storage with our electrification of the of the transportation system, I think a few years ago, nobody would have thought we already have so much storage, people have their electric vehicles in their garage. That is that is a storage. It's just distributed and a little messy, but it's, it's there and it's growing rather, rather quickly.

So that, but then also in terms of, you know, what, to what to do, when there's just no sun and No, no, no, no wind, that small fraction of the time, but maybe we do turn on the generators and the gas turbines and so on for for small periods of time, I think having having sort of a safety amount of traditional fuel based electricity and our generation is not it's not, that's not the end of the world, right? If we have a little bit of leftover that needs to be supplied from traditional sources, it's that big bulk amount of power that needs to be replaced with renewables.

So what's the time period that you see it kind of most optimistic, you know, medium, and kind of slow? If we if we go slow, go medium go fast? What What are kind of time periods?

Yeah, go fast. I think by 2050, we could be 100%, renewable, medium and slow. Again, there's all sorts of projections and I'd probably be probably dangerous for me to, to, to make too many projections. And And while we're talking about numbers and projections, I should maybe for your listeners, let you know, of course all these are my own opinions and don't represent, you know, Johns Hopkins official policy and all that sort of things. I did want to mention that disclaimer.

Well, you know, you're on a show with a lawyer so naturally, you gotta have your disclaimers in there. But in terms of cost of, of power for onshore wind and versus offshore wind, which which is cheaper, and what do you see as the future of offshore wind?

Obviously, we have that potential here in California and some of it is starting to roll out. I guess. Some of us have concerns about putting things in the ocean and you know, potentially getting in the way of our views, but also, you know, affecting sea life and that type of thing as well.

So So I, I see certainly there's great potential offshore, certainly in California and on the West Coast, it will have to be in deep, deeper water. The West Coast waters are very deep. And so we're talking about probably floating wind, wind farms floating turbines that can be placed at much bigger distances from this from the from the shore. So all this sort of near shore issues don't really arise. So I do see a huge potential for offshore floating, especially on the West Coast.

Well, you're listening to Unite and Heal America and my guest, Charles Meneveau and Johns Hopkins and talking to us about wind and as we can say, the answers blowing in the wind. We'll be right back in just a minute to talk more with Professor and about wind here in California and around the country.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG for you, that's 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

You're listening to Unite and Heal America, my guest today, Charles Meneveau. Professor at Johns Hopkins at in mechanical engineering, just wanted to turn our attention to a question about energy return on investment and whether or not wind kind of compares to fossil fuels and other forms of energy as to whether or not it's a good investment for us. And the economy. In the economy.

Yeah, yeah, Matt. So the the energy return on investment, your ROI, I guess it's a how much energy did it take to build the wind turbines, the wind farm compared to what the total amount of energy it will generate over its lifetime, obviously want that number to be much smaller than than one, if it was one, we wouldn't, would get any net benefit from from an energy perspective. And so that's been studied over the last several years quite a bit.

And they're actually wind, according to a recent paper, while not so reasonable, 10 years old, and renewable energy, wind is about one over 20. In other words, it takes about 1/20 of the energy to build the turbine, then what it will generate over its its lifetime. So this, this includes all the metal processing, the forming the transportation of the blades, to the site, everything, everything included. That is that is quite beneficial.

Actually, in the same paper, they the nuclear is the next best one at about 15. And but then others, solar is about five to six, according to this study, and coal is eight, and so on and so forth. So it takes a lot of energy and, and fuel to for these other sorts of energy. So wind is really quite positive, it's a good investment.

Well, that that would argue that wind is the most efficient and effective way for us to power our, you know, our economy. I guess the question is, why not? Why not put up more wind? And how are we doing that in terms of private wind farms versus public wind farms versus utility wind farms?

Are all three part of the equation? And which which of those do you think is the most effective, effective and efficient way to utilize wind power?

Yeah, I think the the answer to the last several questions, the items is really, we need all of those, right. So so and then depending on, you know, public versus private will depend on the local conditions, the economy, you know, what land or ocean surface is being used and so on. But you mentioned something quite interesting, which is important, which is what does it take to power the economy, and this is a number, something that I did want to perhaps mention to your to your listeners. So the US, the entire energy consumption is three terawatts.

So that's a three with a one attend with 12 zeros. So that's how many watts on average we require. So if you divide that by 300 million people so there's a roughly 300 million people in the US. And again, my numbers are very proximate. And so don't check the details. You get to 10,000. So you take, you take three terror divide by 300 million, you get to 10,000. So let's 10 kilowatts. So you and I everybody in the US is using 10 kilowatts all the time. This includes transportation, airplanes, power at home industry, everything.

And what does that mean 10,10, 10 kilowatts. What does that 10, 10,000 Watts mean? It means that you're lifting 2,000 pounds, three feet off the ground every second. So in other words to power economy, you talked about powering the economy, it takes every citizen, everybody in the US right now. 24/7, you're lifting 2000 pounds, three feet of the ground.

So that's 2000 pounds is like half a car, or male bison or something like so that's, that's what it takes for the economy to function. It's a remarkable number. That's a lot of work that, that's what it takes. So, yeah, so we need, as you said, we need a lot of turbans we need, we need all the solutions together. But again, you know, counting that right now, it's 10% of the electricity. If you multiply that by 10, it will be 100%. And so 10 times more than what we have now is not is not difficult to imagine, you drive through the country, there's some wind farms.

But if it was 10 times more, we wouldn't, we wouldn't necessarily be shocked. And then we'd be done. So for the electricity, and then another factor of three for everything else. And again, remember, I'm saying half of it would be solar, and half wind. So we're really talking about a factor of 15, maybe for wind, and it's doable.

But it seems like it's moving in that direction. In terms of from a public policy standpoint, do you believe that what the Biden administration is currently is doing is helping rollout wind technology faster? And, you know, kind of moving this in the right direction? Or are there other things they should be doing to kind of move this more quickly?

Right, I think the the onshore wind is already cheap enough, it can, you know, it can certainly live without subsidies, and it just, it needs to be allowed to continue to grow. Again, the utilities, they really want to install this and get good wind energy. So that's, that just needs to be allowed to continue, maybe it can be accelerated a little bit. The real, I think the real point where we're more is needed is offshore, as I mentioned, you know, for the for the East Coast, the Turbans are kind of planted on the ground.

And and that's kind of well known technology, they use this in Northern Europe quite a lot for the West Coast. And further away, we really do need floating wind turbines and so that there's more research and work that needs to be done for that. How to synchronize it with the electric grid transport the electricity from offshore, and so on. So there's a lot of research questions that people are working on and and more is needed.

But again, the current policies have been positive for offshore development, and that's being pushed. So it's certainly in the right direction. Of course, one worries a little bit about about more drilling now with what's happening in Eastern Europe and so on. But those are those are hopefully temporary things.

Right, in terms of the offshore wind potential based upon what is known, like on the East Coast, what is what's the ratio of offshore wind potential that we should be looking at versus onshore wind?

I think, again, those specific numbers will probably depend, but it could be it could be much bigger. So you know, it could be three four times as high as as the onshore just because there's much more, you know, there's more space there. And especially if we can make them floating, then they can, you can place them very far away.

You can distribute them. You could imagine, you know, floating wind turbines, generating hydrogen, and then occasionally ships passing by and refueling or taking the hydrogen back, or there's many combinations of things that could be envisioned and there's a lot of very smart people working on a lot of these options. That's very exciting. Well, I'm, I'm a fan of the hydrogen technology because I have a hydrogen car so I, so I'm very interested in creating green hydrogen, which would be hydrogen created from wind or solar. So what you're talking about is that we could have a lot of green hydrogen, which could power our vehicles more effectively, as well as trucks, trains and airplanes.

And all of it could be powered with hydrogen, which quite frankly, I see as a kind of a better fuel source a cleaner fuel source than batteries because As the mining that it takes to, to build the batteries and maintain them as is pretty substantial. And the disposal of those batteries is going to be a bit of a problem when we have a billion electric vehicles.

But yeah, this is this is correct. I agree with that, again, it is important to imagine that this stuff is going to be scaled up to large scales. And then it's important to ask the kind of questions that you're asking, you know, if we take, for example, wind and multiply by 10, or 15, what we have now what does it mean in terms of, you know, environmental impacts, batteries, and so on.

So, we need to think about, you know, we need to think like engineers scale things up and put the numbers there and then optimize. And there's good solutions for these.

Right, in terms of one of the things that you sometimes hear about when technology people who are who are Pooh poohing it a little bit, we'll talk about the death of all the birds that are coming from when technology do you what's your response to that?

I think it's it says, you know, this is an impact that determines have on the environment, and it needs to be regulated and optimized i My understanding is, for example, there are some real concerns for migratory birds that happen to pass by a wind farm, for example. So then the approach is to is to slow down the turbines during those times where we know that the migratory birds are passing by, for example.

So so these things need to meet to be mitigated, the damage needs to be mitigated and optimize the smart regulation and optimization. Of course, you know, to put things in perspective, the climate change, that's, that's avoided using wind turbine says is much, much better option than than fossil fuels, that's going to have a much bigger impact on a negative impact on Earth's future and ours as well to be frank.

Right. And of course, I had read some statistic that house cats kill more birds than, than all the wind turbines combined.

So that is, that's, that's correct. And of course, now you got to multiply though by 15. What we have now thinking thinking ahead, but I should mention that the Audubon Society of America, for example, is a strong supporter of wind energy, they've done the math, they say there's some downsides but overall, for birds, it's it's good.

Okay, well, you're listening to Unite and Heal America. My guest, Charles Meneveau from Johns Hopkins, a professor in Mechanical Engineering. We'll be right back to talk more about wind and how we can help decarbonize our economy.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host and we've got Charles Meneveau, who is a professor at John Hopkins as a guest on the program today and wanted to talk to you, Charles about how does wind energy actually work. And maybe you can describe it to the listeners so that they have a better understanding.

Great, yeah, so so actually, wind energy is solar energy. Some people might not realize this, but it's actually solar energy. So you have where the entire atmosphere of the planet is working a little bit like a heat engine. So heat engine is something where you have a gas or typically it's a gas that's in a piston, for example, we're used to and in our combustion engine, you add heat to it, it expands. And then you have essentially this transformation of heat into mechanical energy when something moves, something big moves.

And so in the case of the earth, you got different parts of the planet are being heated differently, night and day or near the equator way closer to the poles, heated differently, and that expands and contracts the air which makes it move, and then it gets deflected and moves horizontally, the Earth is spinning, so the wind gets deflected, and so on. But ultimately, there is this, the this motion of air is is is what what the source, this is really the source of of wind energy.

And it's moving relatively unperturbed from the ground at heights that are about let's say, let's say a mile above the ground. And then below that, it's what's called the atmospheric or the planetary boundary layer. This is a region of the flow where the flow feels the surface. And so now the wind that's moving in one direction is feeling the ground and different types of surfaces, whether it's a forest or the smooth ocean, or Urban Canopy, is going to interact with the ground differently.

And so that creates turbulence and that turbulence very much like when you mix cream and coffee and your mug and you generate these nice pillows and so on that you can actually see it In the air, you don't see it, but it's still happening. And that mixing mixes the kinetic energy, which is the essentially the movement of air at this, you know, mile high, it makes us towards the surface. And so you have this flux of kinetic energy downward towards the surface.

And it is that, if we now put a turbine in, we extract the power, but if we didn't put turbine and all that energy is going to be dissipated into heat anyway. So, in other words, that turbulence, that turning of the fluid of the air is generating, ultimately it's generating heat through friction, so that little bit of heating of the air due to the friction, and that energy is, so to speak last.

And so when we're trying to do wind energy, we're just deflecting that power that we extract from the turbine, that would have been dissipated anyhow, we take a little bit of it, we borrow a little bit of it, and we transform it into, for example, electricity, and then it goes into a light bulb or your electric motor your vehicle, and ultimately, it ends up in heat anyway. So all we're doing is, you know, deflecting and using a little bit of it along the way.

Well, I'd ask you a couple of questions regarding that. One is, is the use of wind energy through turbans? Is it kind of disturbing the natural flow of of the wind, such that it would have potential adverse effects? And what is the total potential that wind energy has? What percentage? Would are we harnessing now? And what percentage? Would we be harnessing if we got to, you know, 50%, or whatever of our power needs? Right?

So the, the short answer to the first question is yes, indeed, this, you know, this deflection of energy, as we extracted through turbulence from the atmosphere, in fact, does have an effect on the atmospheric boundary layer, there's, there's no free lunch, especially if we're talking about massive amplification of the amount, right, so I'm talking about the fact that 15 of where we are now, it will have a small but perceptible effect on the details of the turbulence and the mean velocity profiles, that we would have, let's say, let's say downstream of a wind farm, there will be some effect on the structure of the of the wind.

And that's it, there is no, there is no free lunch. But there are meals that are healthier for you. So somebody's telling you that there's zero impact is that is not is not is not telling you the truth. So there is a small impact. And I should say, maybe we can talk a little more about that. But essentially, through through engineering, research and physics and computational fluid dynamics, which is the kind of research that we do, we are able to quantify and essentially predict what that effect will be.

And then we can compare it with the effects that burning fossil fuels would have to generate the same amount of energy. So that's where we'd get down to the numbers. And we can compare one with the other and, you know, in a short answer is there will be an effect, but it's going to be much, much smaller than the equivalent effect, you would have burning fossil fuels.

So what is the effect that we're feeling right now, based upon the wind farms that are just currently in place so that we can measure that, but like, so that's, that's, that's, in fact, an area that is quite fascinating these days. So there's, there's something that's called the wick. So that's what the flow that exists behind an object. So we're talking about the wake behind a wind turbine, you might be more familiar with the wake behind airplanes.

So when you hit turbulence, and you'll have what's called wake turbulence, if there's a big airplane in front of you, and you're behind that you might hit the wake of that airplane, that's, that's not a nice thing. And on the on airports, they try to avoid that spacing, the air air takeoffs every so often. So then there's for us, there's wakes behind each of the turbines, and they agglomerate and accumulate, and then you have something that's called the wake behind the entire wind farm, which is a region downstream of the wind farm where the wind is, is blowing a little less, less, less fast.

And so this has become I guess, a you're interested in the legal aspects. So this has become quite an issue and I believe offshore Northern Europe where they build one wind farm in the ocean, and then they build another one, let's say 10 miles downwind of it, and they thought they would have these winds and now it's 5% less windy than they thought it would be because of the week behind the entire wind farm. Right.

So so there are these kinds of effects where the the mean velocity that you get is a little less than what you thought it would it should have been. And then the other effect is that the turbulence is increased a little bit there's it's a little more choppy i My understanding is pilots don't like to fly over over wind farms. It's a it's a little more choppy. Talking about small airplanes, of course, the big airplanes go much further up. So those are the two the two effects.

We see any effects on weather or anything? of substance there?

Yeah, so weather is the sort of thing where I think right now, we're not there yet. If we, you know, if we got all our energy from, from wind there, you know, possibly there could be small effects. There have been, there have in fact been people who have studied this, putting wind farms, gigantic wind farms into climate models and have run simulations over 100 years and say, for example, you know, what was, what was the climate gonna be? In 100 years?

If we had, let's say, all of North America covered with wind farms? Of course, no, with no people? That's not what I'm talking about. But let's assume we did that. What would be the signal, but can you see it on the on the temperature signal, for example, and there's, they came up with some numbers about the temperature difference.

That is, that is, that is about I think, they concluded was about a fifth or so of the temperature difference you would get from burning fossil fuels. But there was a signal in the temperature difference, but it was cyclic. So it went up some months and then went down some other months. And, and during the year, it's sort of averaged out.

Whereas fossil fuels, of course, it's cumulative, right? We do 100 years, we're gonna get this much co2, and then another 100 years, it'll be even more co2, whereas this, this effect is cyclic. But there's a small effect.

Well, it's, it's good to know that the research is being done. And also good to know that the effect is not as dramatic as putting that amount of carbon into our atmosphere. What type of work are you doing with computer simulation, fluid dynamics, to, to work on these issues?

Yeah, so so it turns out that, you know, we're, we're in the middle of this tremendous transformation, right. So this is a massive re reengineering of our infrastructure. And unlike last time, we did at that large scale of let's say, with a highway system, or, or, or, or going from horses to cars, this time, we can actually simulate and, and predict a lot of things with computers, we can sort of build these virtual realities of things like what I just mentioned, with plastering the entire North American continent with wind farms, for example.

And so that, that developing the mathematical models that go into the computer codes that run these simulations, that's what we that's what we do research on, we've been very well supported by the National National Science Foundation, their through dynamics program has has really supported a lot of very fundamental research. And to give you an example of the kind of research that we can do, because we're academics, we're at universities, people often ask me, oh, you're working on wind energy.

So can you help Company A, you know, XYZ to develop a better wind farm to place that so and so location? Well, that's very specific. I'm not necessarily interested in that particular case. Instead, we've been simulating the, for example, the infinite wind farm, what would happen if you had an infinite wind farm that's just infinitely big? How would that work?

That's the kind of questions we can run computer simulations on. And it is the insights we got from those kinds of simulations of kind of academic problems, but that that are now helping us to understand what would happen when we do these massive large scale deployments of wind energy, and the results are real interesting.

Well, certainly that is part of what we need to do, because the last time we rolled out major energy sources with coal and gas, there were no studies, as you said, and, and they weren't thinking about what would happen downstream. And if they had known that they might have taken different public policy made different public policy decisions to prevent the catastrophic effects that we're looking at now.

So kudos to you for the work that you're doing to to make sure that we don't run into a similar problem down the road and say, Oh, geez, if we'd only known that when was going to be this bad, we wouldn't have. We wouldn't have, you know, subsidized or whatever.

So, we're going into break your lesson to Unite and Heal America and we'll be right back in just one minute.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790, this is Matt Matern, your host, I've got Charles Meneveau. Meneveau, sorry, Charles. My French is choppier than my English.

So Charles, just wanted to talk to you again about the research that you're working on right now. And what are the results what research projects are looking at doing in the future to address wind energy and its effects on on the environment and and the economy going forward?

Yeah, so so, one of the topics that we're actually we have a graduate student, with a colleague we're supervising we're working on is, as I was mentioning this issue of floating floating wind farms. So imagine you have a large wind turbine that is floating on some platform. So now you got the waves, you've got this turbine that's bobbing, bobbing sort of forward and backward, it's going to generate a wake, that's also sort of going to Mandor up and down perhaps correlated with the waves.

Now the wind also feels the waves and in fact, sometimes drives the waves. So there's all this coupling now going between the wind, the structure, the turbine itself, and and the wave field. And all of that is going to generate fluctuations, these things are going to oscillate. And the power production that the turbine is is outputting, to the electric grid might also fluctuate based on all these things.

So we're developing better mathematical models to be able to predict how that's actually going to work. And so that this is these are information that we can provide the electrical engineers, we're working on the generators to see how to control things. So that these things can be, you know, put into the electric grid more effectively, effectively.

So what percentage of our power is being generated from offshore wind? I know and they've got I think more of it in Europe now. And how long has it been in practice putting this into practice?

Yeah, so I think to some approximation, the answer in the US is zero. There is there is now there are two but there's really been one working offshore wind farm of Rhode Island it has six turbans, that's the first case of the US offshore wind, wind energy, the sort of the entry into the market.

I understand there's one being built close to completion off the coast of Virginia there's huge projects planned and various stages of planning and design and authorization off Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and there is there is there's a lot of interest in that so but right now the out again, right now the percentage is is very very small.

But the potential is huge again because there's so much surface area there's so much ocean so again I think I'm I'm a believer in these large large wind farms that can stretch for large distances and because again, that's what we're going to need remember we need to lift a bison three feet a second 24/7 everybody so it's a lot we need so yeah, so but right now it's not there in Europe it's I think they're certainly Denmark I think the majority of their wind power is now offshore.

The UK has been building gigantic offshore wind farms so they're the percentages are much higher. But then the US again, potential is huge. There's it's a whole industry now there's something called the Business Network for offshore wind be now we work quite a bit with them also, they they are pushing and advising a lot of companies there's a lot of transportation, logistics, manufacture all the sort of offshore stuff that comes with it. So there's a lot of enthusiasm in that in that in that business.

Well, that's pretty amazing that Denmark is getting most of its wind power from offshore. I didn't realize that any country had advanced that far in the offshore wind area. How long have they been doing it now?

I guess the the push has really started in the 80s and I guess the turbans have gotten a lot bigger. So they started off with small turbans and we haven't talked about that. But you know, the the turbans right now they're gigantic, right? These are huge machines. They they're, they're sort of bigger than this, you know, much bigger than the Statue of Liberty now the newer stuff, the newest ones.

So you're you're talking about gigantic machinery they have grown. So in Denmark, yeah, they they've they've been doing it for maybe two to three decades. I work quite a bit with Danish Technical University DTU there who've been pioneers. Over the last few decades.

Maybe I should I should mention since you're in California, I think the very initial and the Danish say that to the aerodynamics of the modern wind turbine really was started in the 70s in Southern California with the sort of the arrow aeronautical knowledge that was president in Southern California, a lot of a lot of companies and so on a lot of know how and aeronautics was translated into wind energy to get it started. And now it's now it's a it's a big business.

Well, it's pretty amazing that they're talking about wind turbines that are as tall as the Statue of Liberty? How many? How many of those is going to take to say, power? Denmark? Or how many do they have out there made? It seems?

I did the quick calculation. So for the US again for Denmark, I don't know. But the for the US if we wanted to get the entire energy, so not just electricity, but transportation, industry, everything, everything. So with no solar, it would take 2 million, roughly 2 million of those, those turbines, which sounds like a lot. But if you start dividing and thinking about how many, you know, how many ships and airplanes and cars were able to build in no time? It's, it's not unreasonable.

Right? And how much area would that take up? If if we were to do something like that?

So that's that's the that's the crux of the that's, that's a big question. So if we wanted to build a single wind farm to take care of everything in the US, it would be a square, I think, again, don't know, don't quote me too much on the very detailed numbers, I'm very hesitant to put numbers like that out there. But let me do it anyway. It'd be 700, roughly 700 by 700 miles square.

So now you got to take the square and chop it into smaller squares and put some squares and in, in off a lot of squares offshore on the east, the West Coast close to the urban centers, you put some of the squares or rectangles over Texas and Kansas and Iowa and so on, and we can get there. Remember, for onshore, certainly, it doesn't mean that you're covering the entire surface, right?

Farmers love the wind energy, because they can still you can still have your cornfields and the cows there, together with the wind turbines, and then they get a bit of the revenue from the from the operators. And so so that's not It's not land.

That's, that's that's sort of covered, you don't want to put them close to houses and urban centers, because that is that is counterproductive. That is not good. But far from urban centers and houses. No problem.

Well, it's kind of common sense. It seems like it would be challenging to put one in an urban center, but maybe you can tell us if what other effects it would have on an urban center. Other than kind of being unsightly.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the there's the issue of the low frequency noise. So if you stand next to a large wind farm wind turbine, you'll hear sort of a wash, wash every every few seconds, there's this sort of wash sound. And if you listen to a tool to you know, too long, if your house happens to be there, I think it is it's not that it's not that pleasant, I think you then you sort of end there's a bit of the the light flicker so even even if it's a little further away, if the you know, if it modulates the light that you see in the sort of periodic motion is apparently not very pleasant that I haven't I haven't seen that.

So I don't know about that. But and then yeah, and then and then again, so those are the big ones. I think some people are thinking, you know, on the roof of buildings, you could put vertical axis smaller wind turbines to generate a little bit of power for for very local needs. So there's there's other types of wind turbines that are more adapted for small scale implementation.

And those could also play some some role in urban centers. But you know, for suburban and urban installations, I am a big believer in rooftop solar. That's just a terrific idea to complement things.

What's the what's the cost reduction curve that you've seen in wind over the last 10-20 years? And what are we likely to continue to see cost savings in kilowatt per hour generation from?

Yeah, so my understanding is that right now, the utilities for onshore wind, they have to pay between two and four cents per kilowatt hour, which is, you know, that's a far cry from the 20 or 30 cents per kilowatt hour just a few decades ago. So that that has come down tremendously. And as as everything else, you know, it's a massive implementation good research, good technology. I don't think the onshore you know, it's already cheaper than the alternative.

So I don't think the pressure there is is very big to keep it going down and it might not go down much more now. Other costs like transportation, and and transmission is larger, but offshore, I think those numbers can still come down probably by another factor of two where perhaps in some years, the offshore will be will match the onshore Costa. So that's what I think I think in a few years, the offshore will go down, keep going down until it matches perhaps the onshore wind costs

Okay, well, it's been fascinating talking to you, Charles about these issues and educating myself and hopefully the audience about wind and how we can use it to come to a carbon free economy. It looks like we are on a path that we can do it and we just need to kind of start implementing it further and, and we will get there.

Well, you've been listening to Unite and Heal America KABC 790 This is Matt Matern, your host and we will be back next week. Stay tuned.

Thanks, Matt. All the best.

Thank you very much.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that's 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.