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Wind and Solar suffered a crushing defeat this week at the hands of snow and ice. From the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf Coast and Eastern shores, the United States has been in the icy grip of Old Man Winter.
“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.
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.”
Stop and think about that for a minute. The Biden Administration along with good ole Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Greta Thunberg are demanding that we move to wind, solar, and electric. They’d like us there as early as 2025.
Cue that thing we call WINTER. Here in the Rocky Mountain region we’ve had freezing temperatures for days. From here on east, it isn’t much better. Minnesota saw temps at -20 below, St. Louis is getting hammered at the moment and when you add snow with high humidity, you get icy unsafe driving conditions. Kansas City has been notified they’ll have to deal with rolling brownouts for at least two days, and people from Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and more are being told to conserve electricity.
“Platte River Power Authority’s call for customers to conserve energy on Sunday resulted from a perfect storm of energy supply issues, as extreme cold created a regional shortage of natural gas, ice and frigid temperatures restricted power from wind turbines and blankets of snow covered solar panels.”
But that doesn’t matter, right? Everyone should be fine. Right? I mean, we’ve got solar panels and wind turbines as our go-to…right?
Due to the extreme cold, ELECTRIC energy needs to be conserved. Isn’t one of the key Biden Administration platforms a move to all electric? Hmmmm. Now, let’s look elsewhere. HEY TEXAS!!
“About 2 million homes statewide were without power Monday as the Texas electric grid grappled with a diminished supply of energy in the face of the lowest temperatures the state has seen in three decades.”
Let’s talk about those wonderful wind turbines for a minute shall we? They look pretty interesting don’t they? How many times do you see 100% of a group of wind turbines turning? The answer is, you never will. Secondly, wind turbines shelf life is less than twenty years. In fact, a turbine is doing great if it makes it to fifteen. Thus, what do you do with obsolete turbines? Crush them using heavy diesel-powered equipment and fill land-fills with non-recyclable parts. That’s right. Wind turbines aren’t recyclable.
Think solar is much better? Can a panel be recycled? Yes, according to this article. No, and watch out for toxic chemicals according to this article.
Sure seems like green energy isn’t so green. Furthermore, green energy is no match for ice and snow as multiple states are dealing with blackouts and rolling brown-outs.
President Trump was right when he said, if wind quits, there goes your power grid.
February is expected to be warmer than average across much of the U.S. and that trend may continue into early spring: https://t.co/mnzRm67rGW pic.twitter.com/UNyCLEFwRL
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) January 21, 2021
Yes, that certainly aged well didn’t it? Meanwhile we have a climate guy in Massachusetts talking about how everyone’s will needs to be broken in order to get the U.S. away from fossil fuels. Too bad we can’t sit his ass down in Texas right now and see how he does. Particularly given that well over four million Texans were without power on Monday night, and still without power today. As of yesterday, the electricity spot price was $9000 per Megawatt hour!
Claire McCaskill, formerly a Senator from Missouri, tried to dunk on Governor Abbott for requesting that Texans stay home.
Meanwhile this guy thought it would be funny to slam those who are afraid to drive on Texas roads.
I lived in Texas for nearly ten years. I dealt with three major ice storms while living there. When you are carrying bowls of lukewarm water and towels outside in frigid temps in order to carefully unthaw the edges of your car doors so they can open; and when you realize that no matter how carefully YOU, a person trained to drive in Wyoming blizzards and whiteout conditions, are scared to death to drive on Texas roads and highways because the other drivers, who don’t know how to deal with ice, are on the road; this is what can happen.
New details on the awful accident on I-35W in Fort Worth this morning:
— William Joy (@WilliamJoy) February 11, 2021
Police say “75 to 100 vehicles” involved.
5 deaths confirmed.
Unknown injury total.
There’s a family reunification center at Riverside Community Center at 3700 E Belknap St.
(@wfaa) pic.twitter.com/jKPo6ExGvR
There are only eight times I was that scared to drive, and those Texas ice storms were three of them.
Let’s look at how wind is handling this in Texas and other states. First of all, rolling power outages are now in place, because the grid can’t handle the demand with half the wind turbines frozen solid. Secondly, electric demand due to the cold is expected to exceed the highest summer peak demand of 74,820 megawatts. Third, with the push to move everything in our homes to an electric footprint, the demand for power is outstripping the supply due to the push for wind and solar while decreasing gas and coal output. Which leads to the grid failures we are seeing today.
That doesn’t matter to Bill Gates, who freely admits his carbon footprint is mega massive. Nope, he’s all about ignoring reality and pushing the world into green energy whether we can handle it or not…because fungus burgers!
Billy boy would not now how to survive in a Wyoming blizzard nor a Texas ice storm.
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. pic.twitter.com/3HInc2qKb9
— Luke Legate (@lukelegate) February 15, 2021
When ERCOT is telling Texans they have no idea when the power grid will stabilize and customers are being told by their energy company to expect power outages to last…indefinitely, this is the very real danger of moving to green energy without having contingency plans in place!
Green energy has its place. But it is NOT and should not be the only energy source we utilize. In fact it should be a minor energy source, nuclear anyone? If anything, this bout of Old Man Winter should be a lesson to us all. Wind and Solar will always lose against snow and ice.
Welcome Instapundit Readers!
Feature Photo Credit: Downed power lines after spring ice storm, royalty free stock photo by PBouman via Shutterstock, cropped and modified
Scott says: Nuclear is the only truly long term sustainable option. Until people realize that, this is the road we’ll go down…
As for Claire, does anyone actually pay attention to her?? and that clown Brandon… I know he’s lying to make a point, but I hope he does EXACTLY as he said in his tweet… let Darwin take his course says I…
Rick Yarnell says: Retired utility mgr here in KS. Spoke with friend this morning who also works in electric industry. Kansas has been on a tear with new wind farms every year. But all wind turbines in the state are down for this cold. They’re all iced up and can’t spin. Supply of NG for CT generators is tight, and coal piles are frozen, so those two sources struggle as well. The only electric generating plant in the state operating at full capacity is the state’s sole nuclear power plant. 2-16-21
My location suffered a 3 hour rolling blackout this morning.
jo blo says: Is it true that wind turbines are best kept turning, because it’s hard on the gigantic hard to replace bearings? The weight of the blades sitting at one side of the roller bearings wears a dent, I saw elsewhere. If so, the extra weight of the ice could shorten the life of these turbines drastically. Replacing the bearings would require removing the turbine, which would require a huge crane brought to each one as they fail.
NTSOG says: “Secondly, wind turbines shelf life is less than twenty years.”
Aside from the cost of removing the actual generators and blades, presumably for recycling, when they are no longer functioning, what happens to the monstrous concrete towers on which the generators are mounted. I have read elsewhere that those towers sit on foundations of steel and concrete deep underground, the volume of concrete used being equivalent to 500 truck loads for each tower. Can such towers be re-used and for how long, or will they stand forever, a blight on the landscape? I cannot understand how wind power as it currently being established can be considered economical and ecologically sound practice.
Nina Bookout says: Good question! The blades aren’t recyclable, so are buried well over 30 feet deep in landfills in WY, SD, and Iowa. Other components are – but that’s a minimal amount compared to the blades.
As for the towers themselves and the concrete … who knows.
Mark Kaulius says: Most wind and solar components don’t get recycled but just dumped in land fills. So much for the green
talgus says: wind turbines work in Alaska, but given the closeness of west texas to pacific and gulf moisture to combine with polar cold, produces abundant freezing rain. airplanes required de-icing in these conditions. so do wind turbines (they are wings), the only problem is they do not move, and are located scattered all over multiple square miles.
But texas politicians bought this as a solution to DIRTY coal. take the power from all Progressives and sierra Club members. they loves them some iced turbines
[…] Engaging In Head of State Calls? Transterrestrial Musings: “The Science” Victory Girls: Wind & Solar TKO’d By Ice & Snow Volokh Conspiracy: The New York Times And American Communisma Weasel Zippers: Health Inspector Does […]
Uburoi1 says: It’s NOT the wind turbines causing this. 12000 MW is a patch on the total generator capacity missing. The problem is that the power plant owners have not winter-proofed their plants. Too many coolant lines and other parts are exposed to the cold, resulting in them freezing up. Happened in 2011, happened in 2018, happening now. They’re blaming it all on the wind farms because those are the _competition_. Many plants in TX are independently owned, and those owners don’t want to spend the money to winterize their plants. Dumping on a competitor’s wind farm is just…icing on the blade.
Mike Gallagher says: Solar will also always lose during the rainy seasons in the Congo and Amazon River basins. And of course, there are all those pesky trees to get in the way.
Howy says: Claire McCaskill and Brandon Friedman obviously want people to die.
Kevin says: It’s not the green power grid that has failed Texas … it’s the other resources that were not prepared to operate in low temperature conditions. It’s also nice to know that you’re blaming “green energy” (as an extension of where the fault lies) … hmmmm, Texas is controlled (by huge margins) by Republicans … you should start there to figure out who to blame and stop blaming Democrats/Liberals/GreenEnergy/Progressives. You blame Democratic held big cities … do the same to Republican held states/legislatures.
Kevin says: Headline article in the NY Times … “No, Wind Farms Aren’t the Main Cause of the Texas Blackouts. The state’s widespread electricity failure was largely caused by freezing natural gas pipelines. That didn’t stop advocates for fossil fuels from trying to shift blame.” The VG lie machine loses again …
[…] Wind and Solar suffered a crushing defeat this week at the hands of snow and ice. From the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf Coast and Eastern shores, the United States has been in the icy grip of Old Man Winter. […]
Gregory Brou says: Folks committed to understanding the root cause of the Texas power failure need only to scan the monthly meeting agenda for ERCOT the planning commission for texas power. The board meeting agenda contains no reference to adverse weather planning since last June. The operating subcommittee makes no reference to adverse weather planning, there is a black restart agenda item that has no activity the last 6 months.
Neither group has any reference to spinning reserve or the balance between demand power generation and green generation.
ERCOT needs to be dissolved and reconstituted to manage the operation. Right now their agenda describes only a commercial group that handles a few relay coordination issues
[…] this country moving and heated. Switching 100% over to solar and wind will net the country a Texas ice storm times […]
[…] let’s definitely ignore the fact that the only way wind and solar companies are marginally profitable is because of the subsidies (our tax dollars) handed to them by […]
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