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Texas’ Wind Power Generation Cut In Half Due To Winter Storm


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2021 Feb 15, 2:10pm   6,869 views  98 comments

by RWSGFY   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

Texas’ average power production has decreased after almost half of the state’s wind turbines were frozen over the weekend in a winter storm. Parts of Texas reportedly are experiencing temperatures of (-18C) over the weekend, causing over 2 million homes and businesses to experience power outages.

The Austin American-Statesman reported, “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,” they added. “As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.”

A photo began circulating on Twitter which shows a helicopter is using fossil fuel-derived chemicals to defrost a wind turbine, showing that only relying on renewable energy leads to many unforeseen complications.

“Wind power has been the fastest-growing source of energy in Texas’ power grid. In 2015 winder power generation supplied 11% of Texas’ energy grid. Last year it supplied 23% and overtook coal as the system’s second-largest source of energy after natural gas,” the Austin American-Statesman added. “The frozen turbines come as low temperatures strain the state’s power grid and force operators to call for immediate statewide conservation efforts, like unplugging non-essential appliances, turning down residential heaters and minimize use of electric lighting.”

https://thescoop.us/texas-wind-power-generation-cut-in-half-due-to-winter-storm/

Comments 1 - 40 of 98       Last »     Search these comments

1   RWSGFY   2021 Feb 15, 2:11pm  

"Put on that sweater and shut the fuck up you fucking White supremacist you!"
2   mell   2021 Feb 15, 3:06pm  

Globull warming! Manbearpig!
3   thenuttyneutron   2021 Feb 15, 4:55pm  

There is nothing better than nuclear fired power plants during this extremely cold weather.
4   RWSGFY   2021 Feb 15, 5:14pm  

thenuttyneutron says
There is nothing better than nuclear fired power plants during this extremely cold weather.


Gas-fired will do too.
5   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 15, 5:54pm  

I flew out to San Antonio to visit my parents in this shit. We're snowed in and haven't had power since 2AM. It's cold as fuck in this house. Almost no cell signal. I can read a few patnet pages an hour.
7   Booger   2021 Feb 15, 6:19pm  

BTW, how the fuck does a windmill freeze?

Did they use 20W-50 instead of synthetic 5W-30, or something?
8   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2021 Feb 15, 6:20pm  

Supply down, demand up = higher costs.

Was always part of the plan to fuck people over.
9   richwicks   2021 Feb 15, 6:31pm  

just_passing_through says
I flew out to San Antonio to visit my parents in this shit. We're snowed in and haven't had power since 2AM. It's cold as fuck in this house. Almost no cell signal. I can read a few patnet pages an hour.


I suggest, if it's still possible, (and it probably isn't at this point) go buy a kerosene heater. Their scent isn't wonderful, but if the pipes freeze you're really going to regret it.

I grew up in a remote location where our power would go out sometimes for more than a week from snowstorms. Always have to wonder how people can be so woefully unprepared. We ended up playing card and board games at night, or reading books by candlelight. We had two fireplaces, and my father later got a generator to run the furnace. Didn't need it for the fridge - we'd just pack up snow and ice and leave it in a bucket in the fridge to keep it cold. Whatever was in the freezer, we'd just put in the shed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg91VsButWE

It's not much, but you can at least cook with that.
10   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 15, 6:37pm  

We're fine. Have natural gas grill outside. We insulated the hose bibs well although one has a pvc tee that broke already. Nothing we could do about that. Just shut the water off..
11   Bd6r   2021 Feb 15, 6:39pm  

just_passing_through says
I flew out to San Antonio to visit my parents in this shit. We're snowed in and haven't had power since 2AM. It's cold as fuck in this house. Almost no cell signal. I can read a few patnet pages an hour.

we are fine. I drove around for a while today, eerily white and nearly no cars. We have heating by gas, so we don't get hit by "renewable" failures.
12   Bd6r   2021 Feb 15, 6:40pm  

Booger says
BTW, how the fuck does a windmill freeze?

Did they use 20W-50 instead of synthetic 5W-30, or something?

I suspect it is freezing rain that covers turbines and they can not run.
13   RWSGFY   2021 Feb 15, 6:51pm  

Booger says
BTW, how the fuck does a windmill freeze?


Ice on the blades make them inefficient, cause vibration due to disbalance, etc. The control software shuts them down then to prevent serious damage.
14   RWSGFY   2021 Feb 15, 6:54pm  

Rb6d says
just_passing_through says
I flew out to San Antonio to visit my parents in this shit. We're snowed in and haven't had power since 2AM. It's cold as fuck in this house. Almost no cell signal. I can read a few patnet pages an hour.

we are fine. I drove around for a while today, eerily white and nearly no cars. We have heating by gas, so we don't get hit by "renewable" failures.


We have friends in Austin who are affected by this outage. They also have gas heater but theirs doesn't run w/o grid electricity. Good thing they also have a gas fireplace.

Ironically, the roof of their house is completely covered with solar panels.
15   richwicks   2021 Feb 15, 7:40pm  

FuckCCP89 says
We have friends in Austin who are affected by this outage. They also have gas heater but theirs doesn't run w/o grid electricity. Good thing they also have a gas fireplace.


Generators costs a couple hundred bucks, $1000 if you want to get a good one.

They may need the help of an electrician to show them how to connect it to the mains of the house, and to disconnect the house from the grid.

It's emergency use only. Useful for running the heater, maybe some lights. Wouldn't recommend it for a stove, for a washer/dryer, or a hot water heater - assuming any of them are electric.

It's stupid not to have one.

Also, a gas fireplace won't necessarily prevent pipes from freezing. Depends on how stupidly the home was built, and there's some stupidly built homes today.
16   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 15, 7:41pm  

richwicks says
Generators costs a couple hundred bucks, $1000 if you want to get a good one.


I'm pretty sure these are out of stock everywhere by now. It's like shopping for a generator during CA fire season - good luck with that.
17   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 15, 7:42pm  

richwicks says
Also, a gas fireplace won't necessarily prevent pipes from freezing.


This one is easy: all you need to do is to constantly have water running through at least one faucet.
18   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 15, 7:52pm  

Eric Holder says
richwicks says
Also, a gas fireplace won't necessarily prevent pipes from freezing.


This one is easy: all you need to do is to constantly have water running through at least one faucet.


We have had several running. It got down to 9F.
19   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 15, 7:53pm  

Not only that but the pumps ar the water plant kept shutting off so we'd lose all water pressure. A few times so far...
20   richwicks   2021 Feb 15, 8:18pm  

just_passing_through says
Not only that but the pumps ar the water plant kept shutting off so we'd lose all water pressure. A few times so far...


You can get pipe insulation, if it's exposed. It's just a tube of foam that has a pipe sized hole cut through it, and it cut lengthwise down. They are normally used on hot water lines, but covering the cold water lines keeps the water cold as well - and prevents easy freezing.

In an emergency, we'd have blown out the pipes with an air compressor - basically remove all the water. We can turn off each line individually if needed (and we never needed).

My parents have a summer cabin (utterly unlivable in the winter) and so I'm well used to that. We use compressed air to blow all the water out in fall, and let it freeze over winter. Sewer lines - we empty the toilet tanks, place anti-freeze in the taps of the sinks, shower, and toilet. It gets below -40F where even the anti-freeze will gel, but it doesn't freeze hard so no threat of any of the sewer lines breaking.

Homes are built like shit today though. Annoys me to no end to see a million dollar "house" being put up in Silly Con Valley made out of paper mache and spit. My father owned a building supplies business when I was a kid. It's not that the people building these homes don't know what they are doing, it's that the people that are buying them don't know what they are doing. A million dollar home here, would fetch at most $75K where I grew up and people are like "well the value is in the LAND!" - well if you're going to spend a million dollars on land, at least put something on it that isn't a pile of garbage.
22   zzyzzx   2021 Feb 16, 9:43am  

Eric Holder says
This one is easy: all you need to do is to constantly have water running through at least one faucet.


Water is out in some places in Texas.
23   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 16, 9:58am  

zzyzzx says
Eric Holder says
This one is easy: all you need to do is to constantly have water running through at least one faucet.


Water is out in some places in Texas.


This is starting to look like a perfect clusterfuck.
24   HeadSet   2021 Feb 16, 11:22am  

FuckCCP89 says
Booger says
BTW, how the fuck does a windmill freeze?


Ice on the blades make them inefficient, cause vibration due to disbalance, etc. The control software shuts them down then to prevent serious damage.


Aircraft have "anti-ice" heating wires built into the leading edge of wings. Seems the same concept could be used for wind turbines in cold climates. Just tap a little of that generated electricity to heat the blades.
25   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 16, 11:28am  

HeadSet says
Aircraft have "anti-ice" heating wires built into the leading edge of wings.


I thought aircraft used some kind of de-icing liquid.
26   zzyzzx   2021 Feb 16, 11:37am  

HeadSet says
Aircraft have "anti-ice" heating wires built into the leading edge of wings.


Retrofits are available. I wonder if something like a teflon coating would have made a difference.
27   HeadSet   2021 Feb 16, 11:40am  

Eric Holder says
I thought aircraft used some kind of de-icing liquid.


A de-icing liquid is used to hose down the plane will still on the ground prior to takeoff. In flight, the planes have anti-ice heat or anti ice boots that inflate and throw the ice off.
28   MAGA   2021 Feb 16, 12:46pm  

I'm glad that San Antonio invested (40%) in nuclear power. I hope they build South-Texas-3 and South-Texas-4 as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Texas_Nuclear_Generating_Station


30   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 16, 3:46pm  

zzyzzx says
Eric Holder says
This one is easy: all you need to do is to constantly have water running through at least one faucet.


Water is out in some places in Texas.


Yup still no water. I've been melting snow on the grill to flush toilets
31   MAGA   2021 Feb 16, 4:22pm  

Water is still out in San Antonio. Power is back.
32   Bd6r   2021 Feb 16, 4:51pm  

We have water and gas but no power near Houston
33   NDrLoR   2021 Feb 16, 5:31pm  

Everything still on in Waco--I have a year old gas furnace that is keeping the house at a constant 73 deg, running 24/7. I usually shut it off overnight, but not this time. I just hope if we have freezing rain tomorrow it won't bring down power lines.
34   Booger   2021 Feb 16, 5:42pm  

NDrLoR says
I have a year old gas furnace that is keeping the house at a constant 73 deg, running 24/7. I usually shut it off overnight, but not this time. I just hope if we have freezing rain tomorrow it won't bring down power lines.


Yeah, I run my furnace more if I think that there might be a strong induced electricity outage.
35   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 16, 6:17pm  

MAGA says
Water is still out in San Antonio. Power is back.


No power here. Can we stay with you!?
36   RC2006   2021 Feb 16, 7:10pm  

Friends in Texas have water and power out they are burning firewood and running oven to keep house in 50s.
37   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 16, 8:19pm  

"We can live with some intermittency and rationing—at least until batteries and other forms of energy storage are up and running everywhere....we don’t need the entire residential third of U.S. electricity consumption to run off lithium or to operate seamlessly. We don’t need Nest or permanent telecommuting. For a while, let’s eat a cold dinner here and there. Continuity costs too much."

https://patrick.net/post/1335554/2020-10-12-to-save-the-climate-give-up-the-demand-for-constant-electricity
38   Maga_Chaos_Monkey   2021 Feb 16, 9:26pm  

Yeah, fuck off and wear a sweater eh asshat (@bostonreview)?
39   Ceffer   2021 Feb 16, 10:22pm  

Does this mean everybody in Texas is going to move to California now?
40   Eric Holder   2021 Feb 17, 10:41am  

Ceffer says
Does this mean everybody in Texas is going to move to California now?


Some CA transplants sure will.

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