Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output

[Leo123]

I actually cried when I learned that we were taking it and burying it deep in the Earth. In our Mother. We've only got one, folks.

But.....That's where the radioactivity CAME from. Did you know bananas are radioactive? They are full of potassium-40 isotopes.

"A value of 9.82×10−8 sieverts or about 0.1 microsieverts (10 μrem) was suggested for a 150-gram (5.3 oz) banana."

Dry your eyes and eat a banana OldLady.

 

[Sunsettommy]

Well, they need it once every forty years or so, right? I guess we can forgive that.

What alternatives do you THINK are actual alternatives? Wind and solar are SUPPLEMENTS, never alternatives. Because they cannot be RELIED ON for grid power. Solar is only good for 6 to 8 hours a day depending on lattitude, clouds, precip, and ICE and snow ALSO !!!...

And wind is so entirely flaky, it cannot be scheduled for contracts at all.. Often functionally GONE for 2 or 4 a week or in the dead of night.

THESE are your "Green alternatives".. To quote James Hansen, the godfather of Global Warming, --

"If you think you're gonna fix GWarming with just wind and solar -- you probably believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny",.

YOUR PARTY is apparently a bunch of Tooth Fairy believers. Who SEEM to want to kill off more of the population by BANNING OUR STABLE GRID GENERATION -- before they find a better replacement for than the Tooth Fairy...

I don't think we should do that and I doubt if anyone is advocating it. You don't have to be insulting about it, either. I'm not a Democrat. I don't have a party. What is wrong with you lately?

I'm peeved that science and engineering have been politicized and so many folks have been entirely propagandized.. And scared SHITLESS that mental midgets like Bernie, AOC, and our GWarming Czar Ketchup Kerry are gonna be deconstructing our energy policy.

When you say "no one is advocating this" you're being entirely dishonest. I haven't changed. The question really is -- What is wrong with YOU lately?

She is a victim of party politics.

I have learned that people commonly do not know how to do basic research and understand it when they research it.

Solar and Wind power are examples of LOW mass power producers with a large environmental footprint damage associated with it. They can't understand that these unreliable erratic power producers disrupt the flow of electrons through wires and devices designed for steady flow of electrons, which is why they get wild fluctuations that sometimes cause a black out, even when there are plenty of power available ongoing the entire time.

Early on I saw these Niche power producers main value were for OFF GRID use such as homesteaders and isolated traffic lights and similar applications.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Mother Nature defeats us all the time, one way or the other. This is just another one of her little love pats.

I think this goes to the question of reliability. Wind and solar are more susceptible to disruptions than the other technologies.

I don't. Lines going down during wind, snow and ice storms are a regular part of winter where it gets cold, no matter how it's generated.

Correct. Which is why moonglow's argument that icing is not unique to generating electricity is spurious.

As for the question of reliability - setting icing aside which has been a major world wide disruption of solar and wind this winter - wind and solar are inherently less reliable than traditional power generation technologies because neither is a 24/7/365 technology. They operate in the 50% or less utilization range the last I looked.

Don't they store it for slack times? Don't you think the technology will improve, just as all other technologies have done?

I don't believe they are storing it at the generation sites but I could be wrong. As for the icing I believe they already have a heat trace technology they can apply but it is expensive because they need to take the blades down to add the coating. I have no idea why they ever installed them without freeze protection in the first place. But they did and so did the Germans and they are considered the world's leader in wind. As for the inherent inefficiency of solar and wind (aka the wind not blowing and sun not shining) there's nothing they can do about that. To me these are technologies that should never be our primary source. Relying on these technologies for peak load seems to be a predictable surprise waiting to happen.

Is it being used for peak load? I didn't know that was the plan. It would be awesome if all renewable sources could be used that don't pollute our world further, though. They're looking into tidal energy, as well.
Posters who are pointing to wind power as a failure due to a once in a hundred year weather event is not sensible, though. Catastrophes happen. Mother Nature always wins.

That's my understanding of the plan. What part of no more fossil fuels am I not understanding?

Yes, catastrophes happen. That has nothing to do with poorly thought out aims which will result in predictable surprises and are knee jerk reactions to a problem we don't have.

I understand you are a Texan, so naturally you support your state's greatest natural resource, but it's fucking up the planet, ding.

How is it fucking up the planet?

 

[Leo123]

No one ever thought of this worst case scenario because they deluded themselves into believing that there would be no cold snaps. If the temperature is going to be hot enough in nine years to kill all life on earth it would be too warm now for cold snaps.

That is probably one of the smartest things I have heard on this to date.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

They're looking into tidal energy as well. The technology will improve. By chipping away at demand for carbon fuels by using renewable, clean energy where possible, everyone wins.,

Tidal energy is a waste of time unless you have a very substantial rise and fall of the tides and then the environmental impact is catastrophic on the local areas.

 

[flacaltenn]

Well, they need it once every forty years or so, right? I guess we can forgive that.

What alternatives do you THINK are actual alternatives? Wind and solar are SUPPLEMENTS, never alternatives. Because they cannot be RELIED ON for grid power. Solar is only good for 6 to 8 hours a day depending on lattitude, clouds, precip, and ICE and snow ALSO !!!...

And wind is so entirely flaky, it cannot be scheduled for contracts at all.. Often functionally GONE for 2 or 4 a week or in the dead of night.

THESE are your "Green alternatives".. To quote James Hansen, the godfather of Global Warming, --

"If you think you're gonna fix GWarming with just wind and solar -- you probably believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny",.

YOUR PARTY is apparently a bunch of Tooth Fairy believers. Who SEEM to want to kill off more of the population by BANNING OUR STABLE GRID GENERATION -- before they find a better replacement for than the Tooth Fairy...

I don't think we should do that and I doubt if anyone is advocating it. You don't have to be insulting about it, either. I'm not a Democrat. I don't have a party. What is wrong with you lately?

I'm peeved that science and engineering have been politicized and so many folks have been entirely propagandized.. And scared SHITLESS that mental midgets like Bernie, AOC, and our GWarming Czar Ketchup Kerry are gonna be deconstructing our energy policy.

When you say "no one is advocating this" you're being entirely dishonest. I haven't changed. The question really is -- What is wrong with YOU lately?

There is nothing wrong with me. I haven't changed. And I'm certainly not being dishonest. If there are current plans to make renewable energy our primary source, please share. I know about the big goals of the green energy thingy; it's always nice to have a goal, but it's a bunch of words, like all those meaningless mission statements folks have these days for every org.

Renewable energy, in my understanding, still being in its infancy, is not expected to take over anytime soon as the only power sources we have. If I'm wrong, link me.

What do ya THINK the sources will be if we're gonna spend $2Trill RIGHT NOW -- to start to make grid generation AND TRANSPORTATION BOTH -- carbon free by 2035? What news sources ARE NOT telling you this? So that you can honestly say you've never heard it...

Ya think they'll build out a lot of nuclear plants that are carbon - free? That would be a smart use of $2Trill.. NO -- clearly, when any one of mental midgets in the Biden Admin EXPLAIN THIS -- it's ALL about wind and solar. Kerry wants those pipeline workers to "build solar panels"... Did ya not hear that brain fart. WE DONT MAKE solar panels anymore to any great degree. China "ate our lunch and our supply chain on that a decade ago..

It's FOLLY and dangerous... And you did not know that virtually EVERYONE of his top post and cabinet picks were selected BECAUSE of the rush to "alternative" energy and to KILL fossil fuels FIRST -- through making them too expensive and regulated to exist???

Here's a link..
Energy policy implications under the Biden administration (cbs7.com)

Biden’s Green-Grid Timeline ‘Difficult’, Power Trade Group Says (bloombergquint.com)

I suggest you find out about this MASSIVE Democrat plan that is NOW one of their top 2 or 3 priorities to "save the planet".. Right now my house in Tn looks like it was built on a glacier. Cant even get the dog out. Tell me if the planet is gonna die by 2030....

 

[the other mike]

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.

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

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.

And you still live there ?
This is the primary reason I live in Arkansas ...( although we had a good one in 2000)

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

A helicopter running on fossil fuel spraying a chemical made from fossil fuels onto a wind turbine made with fossils fuels during an ice storm is awesome.

View attachment 457666

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

Oh Brother!! Talk about irony!! They're probably spraying some kind of fossil-fuel treatment too. Water would not cut it.

It's de-icing fluid. Probably antifreeze. Saw a vid on news tonight of using drones to spray them clean. What they NEED are blade heaters. Yeah, that's a lot of metal in sub-zero windchill, but the energy would only be needed a few days a year. So this COULD BE FIXED as some incremental cost to initial cost to the rig and maintenance and production efficiency..

Reminds me of when, I think Michigan -- started to replace their traffic lights with "low power" LEDs. First bad winter they totally iced up and filled with snow.. Because it was the waste heat from the older bulbs that prevented that in the winter time..

So they had to replace all of them or retrofit. Dont KNOW if the heaters have to run all year or they can be switched on manually at each intersection or by internet.

The blades are not metal, They are fiberglass and carbon fiber.

 

[Sunsettommy]

Watts Up With That?

Texas frozen wind power – outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour
2/15/2021

Anthony Watts

Excerpt:

There’s a saying in the lone star state “Don’t Mess with Texas” which actually started out as an anti-littering campaign but has become sort of a slogan for the rugged, no-nonsense way of life that people have there. Now with dead wind turbines littering the state, the focus on deploying unreliable renewable energy in the name of “saving the planet” has literally “messed with Texas” in a huge way.

Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a massive deep freeze across the state locked up wind turbine generators, creating an electricity generation crisis.

Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year, behind natural gas, which represented 45%, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) figures.

ERCOT reports today the spot price for electricity in Texas is currently a stunning $9000 per MegaWatt-hour. Even in the high demand summer months, $100 per MW-hr would be high.

LINK

 

[flacaltenn]

I actually cried when I learned that we were taking it and burying it deep in the Earth. In our Mother. We've only got one, folks.

But.....That's where the radioactivity CAME from. Did you know bananas are radioactive? They are full of potassium-40 isotopes.

"A value of 9.82×10−8 sieverts or about 0.1 microsieverts (10 μrem) was suggested for a 150-gram (5.3 oz) banana."

Dry your eyes and eat a banana OldLady.

Granite counter tops also... When they originally discussed the Yucca Mtn waste project, the amount of radiation that workers inside would be exposed to came to LESS than annual radiation exposure standing in the Capitol rotunda around all those marble statues for a couple hours a day.

Radiation is ALWAYS in the background of the enviro.. When flying at altitude, or walking on a sandy beach..

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

A helicopter running on fossil fuel spraying a chemical made from fossil fuels onto a wind turbine made with fossils fuels during an ice storm is awesome.

View attachment 457666

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

Bullshit. We have global warming. Cold weather is so last century.

 

[flacaltenn]

A helicopter running on fossil fuel spraying a chemical made from fossil fuels onto a wind turbine made with fossils fuels during an ice storm is awesome.

View attachment 457666

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state's electric grid operator says

Texas grid operators urge conservation as frozen wind turbines freeze up electric generation.

www.statesman.com

Oh Brother!! Talk about irony!! They're probably spraying some kind of fossil-fuel treatment too. Water would not cut it.

It's de-icing fluid. Probably antifreeze. Saw a vid on news tonight of using drones to spray them clean. What they NEED are blade heaters. Yeah, that's a lot of metal in sub-zero windchill, but the energy would only be needed a few days a year. So this COULD BE FIXED as some incremental cost to initial cost to the rig and maintenance and production efficiency..

Reminds me of when, I think Michigan -- started to replace their traffic lights with "low power" LEDs. First bad winter they totally iced up and filled with snow.. Because it was the waste heat from the older bulbs that prevented that in the winter time..

So they had to replace all of them or retrofit. Dont KNOW if the heaters have to run all year or they can be switched on manually at each intersection or by internet.

The blades are not metal, They are fiberglass and carbon fiber.

Maybe I got that from reading about recycling OLD wind turbines. Before they were 60 ft tall with huge blades. Because they were talking about the metal content available to recycle. Makes sense since those newer blades would be a bear to turn being metal, but not much recycle value to fiber glass and carbon fiber.

 

[flacaltenn]

Watts Up With That?

Texas frozen wind power – outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour
2/15/2021

Anthony Watts

Excerpt:

There’s a saying in the lone star state “Don’t Mess with Texas” which actually started out as an anti-littering campaign but has become sort of a slogan for the rugged, no-nonsense way of life that people have there. Now with dead wind turbines littering the state, the focus on deploying unreliable renewable energy in the name of “saving the planet” has literally “messed with Texas” in a huge way.

Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a massive deep freeze across the state locked up wind turbine generators, creating an electricity generation crisis.

Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year, behind natural gas, which represented 45%, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) figures.

ERCOT reports today the spot price for electricity in Texas is currently a stunning $9000 per MegaWatt-hour. Even in the high demand summer months, $100 per MW-hr would be high.

LINK

This is temporary. The grid in Texas can sustain the loss of wind and solar NOW, but not once the green weenies have their way.. Wind might supply 23% of Texas's energy, but the DIRTY SECRET IS -- it generates MOST OF THAT ENERGY on only about 100 days out of the year. So to make this claim, Texas has to have COMPLETE or partial fossil/nuclear BACK-UP for the other 265 days...

If the blades on the newer GIANT wind turbines aren't metal tho -- I guess there's no quick fix to "de-icing" them.. And if you look at a map of the "Wind Belt" in the US where it makes sense to TRY wind power -- the whole map of GOOD choices has this vulnerabilitty.

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

GLOBAL WARMING WILL KILL US ALL !!!!
Oh wait....it might be getting cooler !!
NO! We have to go with CO2...it's getting HOTTER....Antarctica is melting !!!

 

[Leo123]

Maybe I got that from reading about recycling OLD wind turbines. Before they were 60 ft tall with huge blades. Because they were talking about the metal content available to recycle. Makes sense since those newer blades would be a bear to turn being metal, but not much recycle value to fiber glass and carbon fiber.

Wind generation is in its infancy. I could be that the days of tall towers and long blades and generators as large as a small house are already outdated. Check this out....



I think the guy (Robert Murray-Smith) has some good ideas. If you go to You Tube and just type 'wind generation' into their search engine there are a lot of interesting videos by various others. I just find this stuff interesting.

 

[flacaltenn]

Maybe I got that from reading about recycling OLD wind turbines. Before they were 60 ft tall with huge blades. Because they were talking about the metal content available to recycle. Makes sense since those newer blades would be a bear to turn being metal, but not much recycle value to fiber glass and carbon fiber.

Wind generation is in its infancy. I could be that the days of tall towers and long blades and generators as large as a small house are already outdated. Check this out....



I think the guy (Robert Murray-Smith) has some good ideas. If you go to You Tube and just type 'wind generation' into their search engine there are a lot of interesting videos by various others. I just find this stuff interesting.

It's interesting but has many issues to get to "grid scale" or even "home scale".. Can't produce more energy than you can capture with ANYTHING moving. Whether it's a 30ft turbine blade up on pole or a bunch of these "reeds".. And even a turbine field has to space out the towers so that they don't SHADOW each other or create vortices that lower production.. So making a "mat of reeds" is a bit problematic because they are all in each others' path to the wind.

Also, it's CURRENT generated that matters, and not voltage per se.. To get to even the current drain on a 9V battery -- you'd need maybe 20 times bigger coils and magnets on a "reed" than what this guy is showing..

 

[flacaltenn]

Solar is also vulnerable to the elements. If they are positioned in tornado or hail areas -- you can risk catastrophic loss. And they degrade over their lifetime from heat and abrasion from wind driven debris, like THIS --->

National Weather Service confirms tornado touched down, destroyed solar panels in South Jersey

The National Weather Service in Mount Holly confirmed Saturday that a tornado touched down in South Jersey's Cumberland County during this week's storms, and another touched down in Mercer County.

www.phillyvoice.com

.

The South Jersey tornado hit land in Millville on Wednesday, near the city's sewer department facility, according to the NWS's report. The tornado was rated an EF-0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which ranks tornados from EF-0 to EF-5 in terms of severity.

Here's the NWS's full summary of the tornado, which the weather service termed a "weak" tornado:

"A weak tornado briefly touched down in Millville, New Jersey, on Wednesday evening. The tornado touched down in a field of solar panels adjacent to the Millville City Sewer Department facility. Several rows of solar panels sustained damage either from the tornado or from the falling debris of other panels, with a couple rows of panels largely destroyed. The tornado continued into a wooded area. A twisting patern observed in the damage to the solar panels was sufficient to determine that the damage was caused by a tornado. In addition, an eyewitness looking in the direction of the damage from near the nearby Millville Executive Airport reported a possible funnel cloud sighting as the storm passed the area."

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The time has come for serious politicians and legitimate scientists stop the global warming nonsense and deal with reality.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Very cool, I'm jealous. I love natural disasters, well at least the ones that involve power outages.

I have the same issue here. When the power goes out the first thing that comes to mind is: "You get ONE flush, make it count". Actually if there's a power outage it usually means the creek just across the way is swollen with water, so I'll take a bucket over there to refill the toilet tank. For drinking and cooking I have backup stored water to tide me over until if need be I can drive up the road to a local spring. Wood stove and/or propane camping stove for cooking. If it's arctic weather and the reefer is off I can just store food out in the car. That's why I like power outages -- it makes ya get creative. And if you live in a lighted area (I don't any more) you get to see stars.

Fuck creative. Power goes out, I fire up my generator.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Tidal energy is an enviro nightmare. As a conservationist, I'm appalled at the prospect of locating underwater cuisinarts to mince and dice marine life that will be located at EXTREMEMLY SENSITIVE enviromental areas like shorelines and tidal basins.

Have you ever SEEN THESE THINGS?? They did a test project in England. Essentially DAMMED a whole sensitive tidal basin and the only way in and out is through the blades... YOU LIKE THIS????

I'm sure there will be no problems from the salt water on the generators, either.