Coal Fired Backup Generator or Tornado Producer?

In the latest move to discredit wind generated electric power, opponents claim that the numbers of coal fired backup generation plants have increased, and therefore the move to wind generated power has actually added to the potential for pollution in West Texas. If the wind dies, we have a dirty air crisis. Maybe.

If the wind dies, the smell from the feed lot might escalate out of control. The number of tons of ammonia compounds generated in cattle poop could double or even triple over the next decade, so all of those misguided souls who use the Atkins Diet are increasing planetary pollution levels at an ever accelerating rate. Somehow this seems to be a more credible threat than out of control emissions from backup generating plants which occasionally burn coal.

This seems to come along about the same time that biofuels get blamed for world starvation. Since biofuels account for only an infinitesimal percentage of biomass used in producing all the other products our world demands, maybe we ought to look other places for easy scapegoats. Maybe babies don’t need so many plastic whirly things, or maybe we don’t need to cut down forests to make borders for flower gardens.

Perhaps the circulating turbulence in the wake of those large turbine blades increases the chance of tornadoes in the area. After all, tornadoes are spawned when horizontal turbulence patterns rotate upright due to coreolis forces. I’m putting my money on this criticism.