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I know they do not because I have lived through several CAT 4/5 storms and have seen them fail. Also a brutal freeze in Houston recently where EVERYTHING failed

I know they do not because I have lived through several CAT 4/5 storms and have seen them fail. Also a brutal freeze in Houston recently where EVERYTHING failed to include wind turbines that froze solid. I'm for solar and wind but fossil fuels are still needed as a backup plan (another basket of eggs). Gotta have it. I survived the hard freeze in Houston with no electrical power with stored gasoline and a couple of generators for 5 days no problem. I just fueled up the other day. With additives the fuels last several years. Good to go for a freeze or a major storm for a couple weeks.

ubermonkey 3y ago
You're going to need to show me a cite that wind turbines freezing was a major part of the problem during the big Texas freeze a couple years ago. Just because Abbott says it was doesn't make it so; he was outright lying (as he often does). It is more accurate to say that the real problem was the failure of ERCOT & etc to winterize any part of the grid, which led to failures of transmission and/or generation across the board, for every source type. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-win... Gas is the biggest source of power in Texas. While all power sources were poorly winterized, the failure to prepare the fossil fuel infrastructure hurt the most because gas provides more power than wind or solar in the Texas grid. And, of course, almost NOTHING has been done about this failure despite how close the state came to a weeks-long power grid failure, and virtual no one has been held responsible.
kube-system 3y ago
The problem you have in TX is that your utility providers haven't designed their equipment to work in cold temperatures. In parts of the country where we plan for cold weather, our natural gas flows and our wind turbines spin in the winter.
- yobbo 3y ago
  Wind turbines need to be de-iced in cold weather. In practice, it is accomplished by spraying warm water.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    If you didn’t purchase a turbine that has ice protection systems built in.
outworlder 3y ago
> where EVERYTHING failed to include wind turbines that froze solid. McMurdo station in freakin Antarctica uses wind turbines. They run just fine in the cold. Texas utilities just didn't want to pay for proper weather proofing. Backups are backups. They can be fossil fuel based, it's fine and I don't know who is arguing that it's not ok. We can't optimize for natural disasters at the expense of all the other times there isn't a natural disaster.
epistasis 3y ago
For a fact is check here, I recommend that people do a quick web search. "Solar panel hurricane" or "wind turbine hurricane" will set the record straight here, that they survive hurricanes just fine. And for people or small communities with battery storage on their solar, they are back online before everyone else. Solar panels also work absolutely great in freezes, without requiring due supply. And since a grid built on renewables has far more battery storage on it, and is used to shifting power sources frequently due to the intermittency of renewables, a renewable grid will have fewer single points of failure and be more resilient when there are large weather events that take out large generators.

ubermonkey 3y ago

You're going to need to show me a cite that wind turbines freezing was a major part of the problem during the big Texas freeze a couple years ago. Just because Abbott says it was doesn't make it so; he was outright lying (as he often does). It is more accurate to say that the real problem was the failure of ERCOT & etc to winterize any part of the grid, which led to failures of transmission and/or generation across the board, for every source type. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-win... Gas is the biggest source of power in Texas. While all power sources were poorly winterized, the failure to prepare the fossil fuel infrastructure hurt the most because gas provides more power than wind or solar in the Texas grid. And, of course, almost NOTHING has been done about this failure despite how close the state came to a weeks-long power grid failure, and virtual no one has been held responsible.

kube-system 3y ago

The problem you have in TX is that your utility providers haven't designed their equipment to work in cold temperatures. In parts of the country where we plan for cold weather, our natural gas flows and our wind turbines spin in the winter.

yobbo 3y ago
Wind turbines need to be de-iced in cold weather. In practice, it is accomplished by spraying warm water.
- kube-system 3y ago
  If you didn’t purchase a turbine that has ice protection systems built in.

outworlder 3y ago

> where EVERYTHING failed to include wind turbines that froze solid. McMurdo station in freakin Antarctica uses wind turbines. They run just fine in the cold. Texas utilities just didn't want to pay for proper weather proofing. Backups are backups. They can be fossil fuel based, it's fine and I don't know who is arguing that it's not ok. We can't optimize for natural disasters at the expense of all the other times there isn't a natural disaster.

epistasis 3y ago

For a fact is check here, I recommend that people do a quick web search. "Solar panel hurricane" or "wind turbine hurricane" will set the record straight here, that they survive hurricanes just fine. And for people or small communities with battery storage on their solar, they are back online before everyone else. Solar panels also work absolutely great in freezes, without requiring due supply. And since a grid built on renewables has far more battery storage on it, and is used to shifting power sources frequently due to the intermittency of renewables, a renewable grid will have fewer single points of failure and be more resilient when there are large weather events that take out large generators.