The book Mine is relevant here. It’s about how people argue over what belongs to whom, especially when ownership is unclear.
When one wind farm is upwind, its turbines slow the wind for farms behind it, cutting their energy. In a way, it’s “stealing” some of the wind.
The book explains why these kinds of fights over shared resources happen and why we need better rules for such situations.
Other examples: upstream hydropower reducing downstream potential energy; a tree in your yard casting shadows on your neighbor’s property, thereby “stealing” sunlight and potential solar power.
We have been here before with the waterwheels that powered the mills at the start of the Industrial Revolution, allegedly.
Allegedly this was a problem in the Cotswolds, UK, when the woollen industry was where the big money was. I only know this from school history classes, not from Google, hence my use of the word 'allegedly'. Allegedly, mills placed upstream slowed the flow to existing mills downstream, leading to disputes.
In time, mills were built with big chimneys, meaning coal. But why would you go for expensive coal that had to be transported when you had 'free' power from the river? It has been hypothesised that drought may have played a part in this, not the over use of waterwheels.
It's quite obvious if you look at how a watermill is built. Upstream, there's a wier which diverts water along a culvert into a pond at the level of the weir. The watermill is then driven by water falling from the pond to the level of the river at that point. Depending on the gradient of the river, this can be some distance from the weir. If the weir diverts on average a substantial portion of the flow, anyone wanting to use the river between the weir and the mill will find there's much less water for the purpose. Many British rivers in areas where there were (literal) cottage industries like little mesters are not that big (only a few metres across and under a metre deep) so you can see where conflicts could arise. And also they do dry up to almost trickles in dry weather.
Mine, by Kim Faulk, 2022
Synopsis: “ Family is everything...
I always knew my father was a cold, heartless bastard.
But the moment he took Elle Castlemaine and her pathetic daughter into our home, barely a month after our mom died, he unleashed something savage inside me.”
Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Heller and Salzman. The authors are professors of (real estate and environmental, resp.) law.
“He unleashed something savage inside me. I built an upwind, windmill fight and our family and the worlds view on wind rights was never the same again”
When one wind farm is upwind, its turbines slow the wind for farms behind it, cutting their energy. In a way, it’s “stealing” some of the wind.
The book explains why these kinds of fights over shared resources happen and why we need better rules for such situations.
Other examples: upstream hydropower reducing downstream potential energy; a tree in your yard casting shadows on your neighbor’s property, thereby “stealing” sunlight and potential solar power.