Posted on 02/17/2021 8:00:32 AM PST by karpov
Texas is a long way from New York and New England, but the Lone Star State’s experience with wind turbines is a cautionary tale for the northeast, where state political leaders are moving ahead with plans to construct thousands of megawatts of wind power off the Atlantic coast.
Texas relies on wind turbines for one-fourth of its electric power. A brutal winter storm and record cold temperatures had plunged the state into darkness. The problem? Half of the state’s wind turbines were unable to generate electricity because of ice on their blades. Millions of Texans were left without power as the state’s electricity authority ordered rolling blackouts because there wasn’t enough electricity to go around. Anyone who has experienced an old-fashioned nor’easter knows just how unpleasant conditions can be.
And yet, the northeast intends to become heavily reliant on offshore wind. New York governor Andrew Cuomo has issued an executive order for at least 9,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind by 2035. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy is calling for 7,500 MW by that same year. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island have all proclaimed their goal of 100 percent emissions-free electricity as soon as 2030.
But placing one’s electric eggs in an offshore wind (and solar) basket will be a prescription for a wintry disaster. Besides snow and ice, a nor’easter can produce gale-force winds. (The turbines shut down once winds reach a prescribed level, usually 55 mph.) At sea, cold and high winds combine to form ice from salt spray.
Imagine that, during a nor’easter, most of those planned offshore turbines are shut down. Solar panels won’t be generating power either; even if they did, solar power is limited in winter because there isn’t much daylight to work with.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
I just hope they get the culprits no matter who.
It wasn’t just the cold, it was the icing on the turbine blades. They cannot safely spin with that much ice on them. Texas needs to have sufficient on-demand natural gas turbines to back them up.
As stated ... Texas is a cautionary tale for the northeast. You can bet a Kerosene heater is in the pipeline!
Its worse than that. When the wind blows too hard, they have to shut these POS’s off. What the hell is the point! After this cold snap, people are tired of freezing to death in to embrace GloBULL Warming.
I moved from Texas over to the state of Tennessee
When I saw how things were F’d up thanks to Rick Perry.
He listened to T Boone Pickens with wind farms for the left
Then they all seized up one winter, and Texans froze to death
Old John Kerry, you can stop your false alarms
Cuz Texas is an ice cube, thanks to frozen wind farms!
Texas never had a need to winterize infrastructure until now. The climate change is real, due to a disappearance of the jet stream. Lesson learned.
China owns a bunch of our wind turbines. They just bought more recently. Blame it on China and Biden.
You trust the government to do it right?
I’ve got some real nice waterfront property in FL to sell you.
Germany IS an example of what we’ll get is the government meddles in it.
Green energy is not feasible yet, and we cannot eliminate coal and oil until and unless we can fully replace it with something else.
Besides, when they go for oil and coal, more people will be burning wood.
Does these rocket scientists realize that wood produces CO2 also?
Vermont Doubles Down on Wood Burning, with Consequences for Climate and Health
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26112019/wood-burning-climate-health-consequences-vermont-forest-energy-plan/
Nah, the NE and all of their leaders clearly have their sh!t together. Can’t happen.
I surmised on a different forum yesterday that cooling water lines at Texas coal plants were frozen. Every fossil plant probably has a couple of miles of them. Turns out I was right.
My guess is that Texas, due to the fact it rarely gets this cold, were haphazard in their preparations. At the coal-fired plant where I worked, we knew to check the insulation and heat tracing before cold weather set in.
Texas fossil plant operators really dropped the ball.
You have all the answers. The wells themselves aren’t freezing. The wellheads on the Haynesville Shale wells would burn your hand to the touch. They make a lot of salt water from frac flowback and when the tanks fill up, they have to be emptied. The trucks were (are) unable to get in on the lease roads. Also, multiple compressor stations have gone done on pipelines. Also, gas wells aren’t pumped unless they are stripper wells. Better learn a more about the business before you cast stones.
Natural Gas due to its nearby well heads has little storage in Texas and relies on wells, pipelines, well-head tanks that also get water in them, pressure systems not ready for winter peak usually dealing with summer peak and less usage by end users due to climate change bullshit.
“Better learn a more about the business before you cast stones.....The wells themselves aren’t freezing. The wellheads on the Haynesville Shale wells would burn your hand to the touch. They make a lot of salt water from frac flowback and when the tanks fill up, they have to be emptied....”
I live right on top the one of the largest gas deposits in the country and it gets to zero every winter. The difference is we have our pumps winterized and our wellheads do not freeze up because we have systems in place to make sure freezing does not happen.
Texas was caught off guard thinking sub zero temps would never happen. Their own Dec 7th or 9-11 moment.
You friggin’ dumbass... it has nothing to do with your idiotic “one worlder” ad hominem diversion, it’s about your assertion that northeast dumbasses winterizing their green energy infrastructure would have prevented these problems. Germany did exactly what you suggested would prevent the problem, and it doesn’t work.
And there you go. Over the end. Please don’t stroke out.
You said yet. But has to start somewhere. I remember the “world’s going to end” lightbulb wars on here. Lol. Everybody is thankful for the new LED bulbs but wow at first you thought we were becoming a communist country. That proved that sometimes we are over the top with opposition to everything. Not every change is bad.
The Sun’s energy doesn’t reach us at night or during a storm, when we need the energy the most. Windmills shut down when the wind blows too hard.
And there isn’t yet a good way to store energy for those times. Batteries can’t do it. Maybe some other way, but it’s not here yet.
There are idiots who want us to freeze in the dark to save the planet.
Nobody said change was bad and there’s no problem with finding alternative sources to coal, gas, and oil.
There is a real problem, though, with eliminating what we have that works when there’s nothing to replace it with.
Did you not read what I said? The wellheads aren’t freezing up. The tanks are full of salt water and have to be disposed of with trucks. Last time I checked, Pennsylvania was Number 2 in gas production. What’s the matter? You can’t keep up.
” What’s the matter? You can’t keep up.”
Our water tanks and pumps are winterized and water trucks are doing just fine in zero degree weather. Your state was not prepared for sub zero temps.
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