BLUF:
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.
Wind And Solar TKO’d By Ice And Snow
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.
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.
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.
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.