alt Hacker NewsEveryone with a functional understanding of thermodynamics knows that you cannot extract energy from a system and expect there to be the same energy in the source after the extraction.
I do wonder if - in 20 to 50 years - we find out that we somehow screwed up the ecosphere with renewable energy production in a subtle and catastrophic way, much like we did with coal-powered or nuclear plants.
The wind and solar energy would've merely heated up the earth, then get radiated back out. Us capturing some of it, using it, and then re-radiate it back out (at a later date) won't have made any difference.
Unless/until the day we paved the entire earth with solar panels and capture the entire atmosphere of their wind, this will continue to be the case. Hopefully, we reach a dyson swarm before that occurs...