are wind turbines moving our planet?

theres been alot of wind turbines going up in the uk and recently a good few here in south wales, anyone that drives up or down the glyneath road will notice them perched up on the mountains .

anyways on a recent shopping trip my 10 year old daughter pointed them out and asked me if they could move the earth with them?? i told her i didnt know to be honnest but it was a good question and got me thinking...
if there was some kind of planet about to collide with earth could the governent fire up all the wind turbines all over the world at the same time and it would somehow move the earth or make it spin faster or slower??

might sound daft but theres 1000s of turbines all over the world that could cause some kind of drag on the way the earth spins if they were all knocked on and pointed in the right direction at the same time??

They are passive, they collect energy like a windmill. They don't actually have an engine to move them other than the systems to move the blades.

So the answer is no, no matter how many windmills they put up, they won't move the earth or disturb it's rotation in any way.

lol no they are not moving the planet

reply to post by welshbeliever



The Wind blows the turbines not the other way round !

No way.

The resistance of the wind itself on the terrain would be millions of times greater. And even that does nothing.

yeah but thats what they want you to think lol.
what if they knocked them on to reverse then?

reply to post by welshbeliever


Well I hope you tell your child the right story...things could get messy otherwise...

Kinda reminds me of this actually:

reply to post by welshbeliever


Even if we had a wind turbine on every available space this planet has to offer they would have no effect on the Earth's rotation or the speed in which it moves at in space.

The blades of the turbines are victims of the air's movement, not the other way around. And even if the turbines blew out masses of air it would only circulate around the atmosphere.

Originally posted by whatukno
They don't actually have an engine to move them other than the systems to move the blades.

Permanent magnet generators are electric motors. If the wind turns them, they produce electric current. If you supply them with current, they will turn the blades.

Not enough to affect the rotation of the planet, though.

Physics works in many weird ways.

This is just not one of them.

I can't imagine any way that would be possible... but I guess that doesn't mean much. You would just be blowing air around inside the atmosphere.

The only way for that to work (assuming you could even generate enough thrust with wind turbines, which I seriously doubt) is if the earth spins and the atmosphere stays stationary.. which it doesn't. Or else we would have winds the speed of the earth's rotation battering the whole planet.

Not to mention, I don't even think the generators are capable of reversing polarity. I know a generator is basically just an electrical motor, but I don't think the way its configured would lend itself to simply "flipping the switch the other way" But once again, I could be wrong...

Originally posted by welshbeliever
theres been alot of wind turbines going up in the uk and recently a good few here in south wales, anyone that drives up or down the glyneath road will notice them perched up on the mountains .

anyways on a recent shopping trip my 10 year old daughter pointed them out and asked me if they could move the earth with them?? i told her i didnt know to be honnest but it was a good question and got me thinking...
if there was some kind of planet about to collide with earth could the governent fire up all the wind turbines all over the world at the same time and it would somehow move the earth or make it spin faster or slower??

might sound daft but theres 1000s of turbines all over the world that could cause some kind of drag on the way the earth spins if they were all knocked on and pointed in the right direction at the same time??

unfortunately it would never work, unless they were to get some kind of super jet turbine, it is a good thought though but the earth is a million times the size of any wind turbine

reply to post by welshbeliever


Beyond the fact that turbines convert wind to electricity and do not generate wind themselves, they couldn't move the earth even if they were giant engines creating wind as that merely blows oxygen around inside our atmosphere, the planets movement through space is dictated by the gravitational pull of the other bodies in the solar system.

since there is no (well next to no) oxygen in space, a fan wouldn't do a darn thing.

No. Here is an analogy that may help.

It is the same as mounting a fan on a sailboat to blow onto the sails. There is no net gain. There is only a net loss in energy, as the boat will not move and you are using energy to run the fan.

hahaha oh my dear god are you serious????
Wind doesnt effect our orbit whatsoever.

Its a very intelligent question for a 10 year old and she seems to have grasped the action -> reaction bit of physics quite well.

I'm assuming that unless the turbines were somehow 100% efficient then the wind moving through the blades would indeed cause some kind of drag that would in effect be trying to push the turbine tower backwards i.e. if the turbine wasn't anchored into the ground then it would be pushed over by the wind, but the force would be minuscule compared to say the force of the wind hitting the side of a sky scraper or a cliff

It's a shame we can't attach some big motors to all of them and fly the earth about for a while I bags first go on the steering wheel

thanks for clearing that up :-)

reply to post by welshbeliever


What the ......? Surely you are not serious.

reply to post by MR BOB


ARGH! You beat me to it! CURSES!