This storm

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twistsol
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Re: This storm

Post by twistsol »

db5 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:43 pm Probably the biggest disaster has been in Texas. About 20% of electricity is produced by wind turbines and everyone in Texas, except west Texas gets power from that regulating authority. Turbines are iced up. Nothing was done to prevent that when they were built. Turbines in northern Europe don't ice up. This could have been prevented. My son lives north of Dallas. Power went out at 4:00 a.m. Monday and came back on for less than an hour at 4:30 p.m. It's been on twice for about an hour twice since then. It's still our. Only heat is from a gas fireplace. forty degrees inside yesterday afternoon.
It was -25F and snowing with wind chills in the -50 to -60 range when I went past the Buffalo Ridge wind farm in SW Minnesota / SE South Dakota. All the turbines were running as normal. I've been wondering what the difference is and why the ones in Texas failed.
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thunderbirdbat
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Re: This storm

Post by thunderbirdbat »

twistsol wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:55 pm
db5 wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:43 pm Probably the biggest disaster has been in Texas. About 20% of electricity is produced by wind turbines and everyone in Texas, except west Texas gets power from that regulating authority. Turbines are iced up. Nothing was done to prevent that when they were built. Turbines in northern Europe don't ice up. This could have been prevented. My son lives north of Dallas. Power went out at 4:00 a.m. Monday and came back on for less than an hour at 4:30 p.m. It's been on twice for about an hour twice since then. It's still our. Only heat is from a gas fireplace. forty degrees inside yesterday afternoon.
It was -25F and snowing with wind chills in the -50 to -60 range when I went past the Buffalo Ridge wind farm in SW Minnesota / SE South Dakota. All the turbines were running as normal. I've been wondering what the difference is and why the ones in Texas failed.
My guess would be when they were installed, most if not all of the cold weather protection/additions were probably not installed. The theory was probably because of the average temps of the area they were not needed. It has been a long time since I looked at wind turbines, but if I remember correctly for those used in cold climates there were different seals, lubricants and also some had heater elements.
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garys
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Re: This storm

Post by garys »

The good news for southerners is that the US weather pattern is changing this week. The extreme cold that covered the northern plains and forced the cold icy storms into Texas and Oklahoma has moved back into Canada. That cold was blocking the storms moving from West to East so they were not able to follow their normal path across the central plains through SD, Neb, and Kan. The cold up north forced these storms to OK and TX causing all this damage down there. Warmer temperatures in southern Canada and ND have arrived for now so the storm path in future days and weeks is likely to return to SD, Neb, and Kan. That should allow more normal temperatures to return to the south so they can start cleaning up and repairing the damage from the current storms.
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Re: This storm

Post by Hobbyman2 »

Some days it really makes ya wonder ,,,might be the got to have it right now crowd , I seen footage of the solar cells covered in snow and wondering why they didn't have any one out there sweeping them off ?, I mean if your cold burn a tire right ?
would rather ruin a couple glass sun screens than freeze, also why didn't they have a few heaters in the turbines ? summer range or not it would seem like they could have found some heaters of some kind for those housings ? I agree with thunderbirdbat I delivered supplies to wind farms in the far north years ago in mid winter they were still running .
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davebodner
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Re: This storm

Post by davebodner »

It's not a wind turbine issue, a solar panel issue, or a fossil fuel issue. All kinds of electricity generation technologies have been failing in Texas lately. Whatever the technology, they chose not to include the cold weather equipment necessary to keep things running.

Also, Texas is on its own grid, separate from all the other states. This allowed them to bypass federal grid regulations. Would complying with federal regulations have helped in this situation? I can't say.

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Re: This storm

Post by thunderbirdbat »

I did not know that Texas was on it's own grid. It does explain why the power plants in other areas are not picking up the load. I know that power outage is no fun as I had a week and a half of it over the summer. Hope they get it figured out soon and get power back on.
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Ed in Tampa
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Re: This storm

Post by Ed in Tampa »

As I understand it the problem in Texas was not wind turbines or snow covered solar farms. The problem was caused by taking a nuclear, and two coal plants off line at the same time. That coupled with the abnormally cold weather combined to cause the problem. Apparently officials ignored various warnings and proceeded do what they wanted. Now watch at the end of the year, these same guys will be given huge bonuses for their handling of the disaster. That is how this country works blame inanimate objects when in fact the problem was people with their heads up their butts that should never have been in the position to make such decisions.
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Re: This storm

Post by edma194 »

I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to assign blame after Texans get some heat and water again. Plenty of time, and I'm sure plenty of blame too. But we can wait a little while to start in on that.
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