Or more specifically, in Kim Stanley Robinsons “Mars” books, can the windmills contribute anything to warming up the planet?
No. Not even a very small amount as claimed later on in the series. According to RED MARS, the windmills convert one form of energy into another–no conservation of energy violation occurs. The problem is that they are irrelevant to the process of this conversion, which happens quite efficiently because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, windmills or no windmills. That’s what the growth of entropy is all about. While the actual, secret purpose of the mills was quite different, it is not credible that their official purpose should not be exposed as a fraud almost immediately.
