Posted on 02/05/2010 7:48:37 PM PST by neverdem
For those who suspect residents in places like Minnesota of embellishment when it comes to their tales of bitterly cold winter weather, consider this: even some wind turbines, it seems, cannot bear it.
Turbines, more than 100 feet tall, were installed last year in 11 Minnesota cities to provide power, and also to serve as educational symbols in a state that has mandated that a quarter of its electricity come from renewable resources by 2025.
One problem, though: The windmills, supposed to go online this winter, mostly just sat still, people in cities like North St. Paul and Chaska said, rarely if ever budging. Residents took note. Schoolchildren asked questions. Complaints accumulated.
“If people see a water tower, they expect it to stand still,” said Wally Wysopal, the city manager of North St. Paul. “If there’s a turbine, they want it to turn.”
No one knows for sure why these turbines do not. Officials believe there may be several reasons, but weather is the focus of much speculation. It is not as though turbines cannot function in cold places; thousands of them work perfectly well throughout Minnesota and the Midwest, the American Wind Energy Association is quick to note.
But the 12 turbines in question, each 20 years old, spent their earlier years twirling in California...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sic semper “green technology.”
They are inherently unreliable and require tons of maintenance to stay on-line. They just can't do what their promoters claim.
And since their contribution to power on the grid is so spotty, people running grids don't really care if they are working or not, so nobody bothers to fix them when they break.
The answer is simple, and not very interesting: Nothing works when it is cold. Anyone from the Rockies on up to Alaska will tell you that one.
Thanks for the pics.
Funny... So was I, just then...
Our problem is that we should have taken the green-weenies to the woodshed before they demonized all of our natural, God-given, resources.
Thanks for the insight. Especially the “people running grids” part. I hadn’t considered that part of the equation.
Correct.
And feel-good symbols that kill tens of thousands of birds annually.
Makes me wonder: Why do "Greens" hate birds?
>> Our problem is that we should have taken the green-weenies to the woodshed
Better late than never. And we can spank ‘em twice as hard now to make up for lost time.
Love it!
“kill tens of thousands of birds annually”
Are you making that up, being sarcastic, or serious?
bump for later
Maybe they should just motorize the damn things in the summer, to give folks a nice cool breeze.
I’ve decided that the proper sendoff for Ted Kennedy will be to dig him up when the Nantucket wind farm he opposed (because it was in HIS back yard —you don’t underSTAND; I can SEE it from MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!) is finished, power them all up, and blow his ashes all over the Sound.
>> Makes me wonder: Why do “Greens” hate birds?
Birds ==> Eagles ==> America ==> Tea Parties
It’s simple when you view it from the right angle. :-)
>> Maybe they should just motorize the damn things in the summer, to give folks a nice cool breeze.
ROFLMAO!
Twenty year old wind turbines is probably the answer to this problem, because the technology has changed considerably since these turbines were designed and built. Blade technology alone makes an enormous difference in how much wind is required to get the turbine moving in the first place, and there are many more factors that will affect technology this old, including low temperatures.
Classic example of the Law of Unintended Consequences in action in my view.
For the record, we have a large number of windfarms here in Washington and Oregon, and when you drive up the Columbia River Gorge, it is not unusual to see a significant number of wind turbines feathered, and not turning.
Any down time at all that a windfarm spends in favorable winds costs money and lots of it...
Already been decided install the heaters, and change the fluids. The only delay is that they have to hire Union Contractors to do that work.
I'm being conservative, actually. At one mountain pass -- Altamont in California -- they average almost 5,000 dead birds a year from windmills. That's just ONE mountain pass covered in windmills.
However, the numbers are all over the place. Some estimates range as high as a quarter million (I think that's high), but others think it's closer to 80,000 dead bird per year. There is a lot of politics in dead bird numbers, and I don't know who to trust.
I can say this though: tens of thousands of birds are killed every year thanks to the tree-hugger green technology. And for what reason?
Seriously: for what reason...?
Runaway prop LOL! They could not feather it.
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