Texas frozen wind power – outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour

Nothing like thousands of gallons of environmentally friendly de-icing substance to get those turbines unbound.

I’vew already called my state rep and Senator. The Legislature and Governor have already called for investigations. I predict there will be lots of used wind turbines for sale soon.

Valentina Zharkova lifts this comic tragedy from the realm of humor into pathos. She is a mathematical physicist in England and a world renowned solar researcher. Her concentration is the relationship of the sun’s two great magnetic fields to one another. It is that cyclic, predictable relationship that vastly dominates the variable climate of our solar system’s planets.

To hear meteorologists on the news and other non-engineering, non-scientists… especially politicians… we are currently suffering a “polar vortex”, or “the polar express”, without what seems the least understanding of true cause. Some of us of little understanding are blaming atmospheric CO2 for causing global warming and driving the cold out of the Arctic and Antarctic to plague us all. But computer simulations and prophesies are really cartoons and only as good as the political beliefs of those who draw them. You can generate any numeric outcome your belief system desires. Any. All you have to do is not include certain facts as they should be and accentuate others that shouldn’t.

What Zharkova and her team… and others… have done, is to measure those long duration magnetic fields generated within the sun, and correlate their cyclical activity to the great climate blessings and catastrophes of our long term past. When the fields are closer to being in sync there is global warming. When they oppose each other there is global cooling. We are swiftly heading toward the latter. The results are guaranteed to be incredibly catastrophic for mankind if we don’t come to our senses and stop worshipping at the altar of global warming political correctness. We may…MAY… avert some of the worst consequences of global cooling if we take thought and action soon.

The most recent of the major tragic global coolings occurred during the period of the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715, and was caused by the sun’s magnetic fields being opposed to each other over a long term. All of the other minima that have been accurately studied, both prior and since, have the same cause. As mentioned, the warming maxima have the opposite cause: the sun’s fields being cyclically in sync.

It’s the temperature minima that cause devastation. When the sun’s magnetic fields tend to cancel each other they don’t prevent cosmic rays… the universe’s most energetic particles… from reaching Earth’s atmosphere from far outer space as readily as the fields do when they are more in step with each other. When the fields are in step the result is a magnetic field that extends far into the solar system and deflects incoming cosmic rays at a high enough rate to help prevent their seeding clouds in our atmosphere.

The sun’s emission of electrons also counters incoming cosmic rays, which are largely protons. This Solar Wind, emitted through sunspots, occurs more strongly when the two magnetic field cycles correspond. It’s largely these two effects taken together that cause the rate of cosmic ray incidence to be decreased.

This is a good thing. Fewer cosmic rays means fewer clouds. This leads to the warming of Earth and allows civilization to flourish. Going hand-in-hand with this is that the general energy output of the sun is at a level to comfortably warm the oceans and atmosphere. Agriculture is more plentiful. Comfort is more widespread. Mass emergency migration is prevented. War doesn’t occur as readily.

But what of the times of greater cosmic ray penetration? According to Heinrik Svensmark’s research in Denmark, up to 30% of Earth’s cloudiness is caused by cosmic rays interaction with molecules in our atmosphere. The obvious result is cooler climate, more rain and snow, shorter growing seasons, less food produced, more strife.

Millions died in Europe during the Maunder Minimum because of the increased cold, decreased food production, increased sickness. The population of Earth was at one billion people in 1800, and perhaps only seven hundred million or so eighty-five years before that in 1715 at the end of the Maunder when Earth warmed up again. Today, Earth’s population is eleven times that of 1800.

If the global cooling that we are headed into by way of the predictable decline of the sun’s overall magnetic field is as severe as that of the Maunder… and top researchers are warning that the Maunder will indeed reoccur… we are in big trouble around the world.

According to Zharkova the cold will hit in two great waves, the first of which has only recently begun and will be with us over a period of a few years. There will then be a moderate respite for a few short years, when temperatures will increase slightly toward a more comfortable level. The first wave will be bad enough. The second will be tremendous. Politics will be thrown out of the window. Mass migration, war, revolution, starvation, freezing and disease could (will?) be the norm… UNLESS we throw global warming on the junk pile and develop an outlook based on science and reality.

Click on Valentina Zharkova and also Heinrik Svensmark to learn from the experts.

Serious question here. I’m not anti EV, but how in the world will an already stressed power grid hold up to the addition of 10 million+ cars being charged? Someone better look at this before we end up a country of cars that can’t be driven due to lack of energy. 1973 all over again.

“It is sad and ironic that in a state known for its huge petroleum and natural gas resources, the lack of reliability of wind power has brought the state to its knees in a time of crisis, not unlike that which California experienced in 2020 during record heat where wind and solar power could not keep up with demand and was near collapse.

The folly of chasing renewable energy as a means of mitigating “climate change” is making itself abundantly clear today in Texas. When will politicians wake up and realize that renewable energy almost always equates to unreliable energy?”

Unfortunately this is not one of WUWT better articles. While the statements about the loss of wind power is literally true, the article fails to note that the problems Texas is having with its power grid is widespread and complex and is due to cold weather/freezing rain/snow impacts on all of its power generation. For example, one South Texas nuke plant is down due to freezing supply water problems (it is located on the Gulf!). Other Gas, Oil and Coal plants are having problems due to an array of problems, most related to protracted cold temperatures and grid issues. The gas problems appears to stem from over demand resulting in low system pressure. While it is obvious that the loss of wind and solar due to icing, snow, lack of sun etc is clearly predictable, the large loss of “conventional” source is likely due to poor planning, design, construction, and most of all lack of resilience to this type of weather event. Too much reliance on a single power source (gas) which has no inherent fuel “storage”…ie too dependent upon a real time gas pipe distribution system. Any notion that wind and solar could be dependable under these circumstances is insane (icing being a specific problem). The loss of the South Texas nuke plant is absurd. I have worked in nuclear for several decades, and generally they are built pretty darn well to deal with marginal situations. Why the heck this plant went down is a big question.

The bottom line is that the Texas power grid was ill prepared for this event. The reasons will be myriad and complex. I have no confidence that politicians will be part of the solution. Even the Texas governors first reaction is to blame somebody else (ie just like Newsom, California), never saying, WE all need to take a look at how we got here.

To see where the potential solutions/grid improvements will come from, I suggest you first look at any entity that is practicing introspection. If the first element of any analysis is essentially “Its not our fault….”, look elsewhere….the analysis will not lead to anything useful.

A reliable power grid takes a steely eyed approach to the complexity of the problem. There are no simple solutions.

Ethan Brand

I’m profoundly sad to say that Rush Limbaugh has died.

He was the voice of reason in a crazy world. I will miss his perspective very much.