The irony of this event is oh so delicious
Nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.
Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend's
freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.
www.statesman.com
Where's the "irony"?
Check Weatherman2020's post on this earlier. He illustrated with helicopter spraying petrichemical deicer on the wind turbines to get rid of the ice so they could make green energy.
But seriously, is this a matter of ice on the blades?
One of our local radio stations has had a shitty signal lately which I strongly suspect is the effect of de-icers on the antenna not working. Ice will fuck up things that need to be smooth as it changes the shape. Anyone who subscribes to satellite TV probably knows this too. And of course in the case of a propeller it changes the whole weight and balance.
Wind turbine blades should have de-icers on them, at least if they're in a climate where ice is likely. And maybe they do but not in Texas.
When Maine had the Mother of all ice storms in 1998, very few people had generators; even most gas stations didn't, which was causing the electric crews called in to help to run out of gas. 3" of ice encased the state; transmission lines fell like a row of dominoes, electric was down for a week and a half. Most people around here have wells, so along with the misery of no lights, no heat, no tv, and living on devilled ham sandwiches, most people also had no running water. We tried melting buckets of snow to flush the toilet, but it was too damned cold in the house for it to melt. After that storm, a lot of people started investing in pellet stoves or generators and most gas stations now have enough backup to at least pump gas (and hopefully make coffee). They're not expecting anything like it for a hundred years. Maybe Texas, too, will start planning for the unforeseen. It seems like defrosters on the turbines should be standard, at any rate.