This seems like a candidate for the FAIL blog, hence my caption.
Here’s the story:
“We can’t control the weather,” Julie Vitek said in an interview from company headquarters in Houston, Texas. “We’re looking to see if we can cope with it more effectively, through the testing of a couple of techniques.”
She says the conditions in northern New Brunswick have wreaked havoc on the wind farm this winter.
“For us, cold and dry weather is good and that’s what’s typical in the region. Cold and wet weather can be a problem without any warmer days to prompt thawing, which has been the case this year.
“This weather pattern has been particularly challenging.”
Full article here
h/t to a whole bunch of WUWT readers, “TomRude” being the first.
Turn the base part of the defunct turbine into a small country cottage. The city slicker greenies would snap them up like hot cakes and use them for their weekend pot parties.
Give them to controlled demolition guys who can use them for research and training. After they bring a tower down, it could be cut up and sold for scrap.
These guys could also recover any copper which now goes for $10,000 per tonne.
Cut some big holes in the mid section of the tower so bats could enter and use them as a roost. After some years, the bat guano could be removed and sold for fertilizer.
The military could use them for artilllery or jet plane smart bomb target practice.
Use them for free housing for hippies.
Take off the turbine housing and remove machinery. The platform could be used by raptors for nesting sites or by hang gliders for launching pads on windy days.
BCC says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:27 am
“A couple weeks ago, there was a post here that speculated that wind power was to blame for the rolling blackouts in Texas.
Turns out that wind power was doing just fine during the critical times in Texas; it was gas and coal units that were down.
Quoth Trip Doggett of ERCOT:
I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this time frame.”
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I, for one, am suprised that the output of said “wind community” is not being played up. I am sure it was near the rated capacity, and a bargain to build it.
I am suprised the cost/benefit ratio is not being pushed as an example of tax subsidies paying off, with a detailed study of money involved.
Oh wait…
“How many windmills
must a simple snow storm shut down
before they’re forever banned?
The answer my Friend
is blowin’ in the wind….
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
};>)
Green guy says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:10 am
“I don’t care because I don’t have a job and it cost me nothing. BTW I hate people.”
Welcome to WUWT, Gg, where even normal progressive ‘green guys’ are welcome!
As a tip, if you intended that as sarcasm, it is good practice to follow it with /sarc or a similar identifier
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
BCC says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:27 am
“A couple weeks ago, there was a post here that speculated that wind power was to blame for the rolling blackouts in Texas.
Turns out that wind power was doing just fine during the critical times in Texas; it was gas and coal units that were down.”
Okay, so I get your point about that post. But this post is not speculative. Wind power did fail. What point ARE you trying to make here?
AtlanticJim, I’m from the area too and that’s the first thing I thought of as well. Dry? WTF are they talking about? It’s never been dry here? It’s certainly not typical.
Do a search using BC Hydro wind power, and BC Hydro wind power projects, interesting studies..
BC Hydro is the main electrical utility for British Columbia in Canada. Our power rates are on the increase to pay for these Independant Power producers, which includes run of the river plants.
From DirkH on February 17, 2011 at 1:08 pm:
Thus I think of One Great Benefit of having a home alternative power system, with inverter and batteries and electricity stored from PV or wind or whatever.
Instead of having home exercise equipment that blows air, makes heat from friction, or even uses electricity like a motor-driven treadmill, you can have equipment that drives a inexpensive DC generator and directly charges the batteries.
Heck, that can even be scaled up. Want to fight the obesity epidemic? How about an exercise center where people can work out for free, maybe even make some pocket change, and get healthy? Just divert the government money wasted on wind turbines, build those exercise centers, and the economy will be saving lots of money.
Those man-sized hamster wheels don’t sound all that bad.
☺
re :AMcguinn says: February 17, 2011 at 11:06 am
Which of course overlooks boring little details like wind power being a several thousand year old technology which was swiftly replaced once more predictable, reliable power sources became available. Nothing can solve wind’s fundamental problem of being at the mercy of the weather, which our climate scientists tell us will get calmer, or stormier. Neither of which are healthy for wind turbines, but present little concern to a well sited reactor hall, or even coal/gas generation plant.
Split atoms, Not birds.
RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
===
Ok , Al Gore is afloat in a CO2 caused storm, the anchor comes lose and threatens the loose of the ship, the affact of the loose of anchor my mean the ship will be wrought upon the rocks, but ………
As far as I could get, snip at will. 🙂
I’m seriously torn. I can’t decide which is the the more foolish, wasteful and destructive pursuit – ethanol or wind. No sane engineer would recommend either. I am in vehement, passionate opposition to ethanol (except in adult beverages) but wind power may be even more foolish. I moved to Amarillo, TX when I was 27 and lived there until I was 38. I wear hard contact lenses and I swear the wind blew incessantly. This is one very windy area. I always thought that harnessing the wind would make perfect sense. In close proximity to the fabled “Cadillac Ranch” on old Route 66 one of the Texas Universities had a large, vertical ‘eggbeater’ wind turbine. In ten years I never saw that sucker turning but apparently the prospect of wind power had been explored long before I ever moved there (back in the late 80s). I had to move away, grow older and wiser before I realized why wind power was folly.
If one had the means one could set up a personal household array of a wind turbine and banks of PV cells with extensive banks of batteries, charge controllers and voltage inverters and live the life of an energy pig free of charge and completely off the grid. Those without $100K in up front investment capital and hours and hours of spare time to service their system were out of luck. Wind works. Especially in Amarillo. But in the real world it just isn’t practical. Wind sucks for commercial energy generation for a lot of obvious reasons. Even under the best of conditions it is intermittent and diffuse and the necessary equipment and infrastructure is (usually) prohibitively expensive.
Wind power is the demon spawn of crony capitalism, PC and political clout exerted by environmentalist concerns. In practical terms it is sheer stupidity. It’s a classic example of “you can’t there from here”.
Steve R
I love IT!!!!
RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
__________________________________________________________
While you’re at it you might want to work on “there, their and they’re”, “your, you’re and yore” and “to, too and two”…I have little hope for effect and affect…not to mention the most despised verb, “impacted” (as in colon).
“The facility has enough capacity to power about 19,000 homes.”
And this has an environmentally small CO2 footprint per house how?
From RoHa on February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm:
After you wreak havoc, you have wrought havoc.
Noun substitution:
After you wreak iron, you have wrought iron.
Something seems off there…
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wrought
Collins English Dictionary entry:
I would normally use wreaked myself, unless going for an effect as with really old wording: What windswept madness hast thou green fools wrought?
[REPLY – What hath God reeked? ~ Evan]
Where I come from, a new $200 million industrial wind farm development was recently announced in the newspaper. Fifty new jobs for up to twenty years, don’t you know. We don’t need the power, so the $200 million, plus cost to hook up to the grid, plus return on investment to the promoter will simply get added to our our energy bills, like some big credit card.
Then, in the same paper there is a story about how a brand new processing plant may not be located in the area (we could lose out on maybe 1,000 highly skilled technical jobs – for a few generations) because our energy is twice as expensive as other competing jurisdictions. Go figure !
Quoting about the Texas rolling blackouts:
” Wind was blowing, and we had often 3,500 megawatts of wind generation during that morning peak, which certainly helped us in this situation.”
Commenting:
Texas has the largest wind power capacity of any state – more than #2 and #3 combined. That capacity is touted as over 10,000 Megawatts. So, if the coal, natural gas and nuclear plants were producing at 1/3 of their capactities, would that “certainly help…in this situation”?
Solar power FAIL.
Brought to Ontario, Canada, by Red-Green Liberal-socialist McGuinty, et al.
“The province’s long-term energy plan calls for $9-billion to be invested in solar, the bulk of it in the next few years – all so that solar can eventually comprise 1.5 per cent of the power supply mix. (By comparison, wind power is supposed to make up 10 per cent of supply, at a cost of $14-billion.)”
…-
“Ontarians pay price for Liberals’ backfiring green energy plans”
“At a certain point, the excuses start to wear a little thin.
Yes, Ontario entered largely uncharted territory with the most ambitious alternative-energy strategy in North America. Sure, it was inevitable that a few mistakes would need to be corrected along the way. The price of moving urgently, and all that.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/adam-radwanski/ontarians-pay-price-for-liberals-backfiring-green-energy-plans/article1912364/
I support the proposal to have a new reference page in WUWT on “renewable energy”. I used the above picture in my new article, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/02/energy-rationing-and-climate-alarmism.html. Thanks.
I agree with AtlanticJim, I live in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The winters are definitely not dry, and they are always cold.
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Dr. Dave says:
February 17, 2011 at 5:26 pm
RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
__________________________________________________________
While you’re at it you might want to work on “there, their and they’re”, “your, you’re and yore” and “to, too and two”…I have little hope for effect and affect…not to mention the most despised verb, “impacted” (as in colon).
————————
OOOOps!!!
You’d better check that whole “knowing” thing. You don’t wreak iron to make a fancy fence.
We had a similar situation here in Minnesota last winter. I think it was a subject of a post here at WUWT. The problem here wasn’t icing but improper lubrication in units that were supplied by a vendor from warmer climes.
Then there was the story out of the UK of the wind turbine erected in close proximity to a small community which resulted in the local residents not being able to go out on the public streets in the winter months because they were under constant bombardment from semi-lethal ice shards being thrown off by the turbine’s blades.
Most telling for me though were the stories about how many of the major players in the EU alternative energy market were mafia figures. I know the old Don’s were stereotypically portrayed as often trying to look like public benefactors, but I kind of doubt that that is the reason for their involvement in this area.
Oliver Ramsay says:
February 17, 2011 at 6:43 pm
“OOOOps!!!
You’d better check that whole “knowing” thing. You don’t wreak iron to make a fancy fence.”
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Damn it! Now I have to tear down my wreacked iron fence. I wonder what ‘affect’ it will have on me. This is to much to bare. Their is going to be hell to pay. Your going to have to bare with me…
I was, with my sister & brother driving backwards down the Alaskan highway after the Alaskan Marine Highway System dropped us off at Valdez. In Whitehorse in the Yukon they had two wind generators they were developing. Last time I checked it gets a wee bit colder in the Yukon then in New Brunswick. This was in 2005. In lieu of the amount of time the private sector and populace has been given to reduce their CO2 emissions I would think NB should’ve had this problem solved. But, then, it’s always easier to issue edicts.