It's not so easy being green

[audiophile]

km1125 is right.

Even an electric car looses 20-40% battery capacity in cold because of the needed heating.

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km1125 is right.

Even an electric car looses 20-40% battery capacity in cold because of the needed heating.

Technology is always improving. Industries best minds are no doubt on the case.

[audiophile]

Sure, but they can't violate physics.

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Sure, but they can't violate physics.

Not yet.

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This is why I don't support the abandonment of natural gas and oil. Though there are certainly a lot of benefits with turbines and alternative sources of power, there is something to be said for a gradual phase in.

It is difficult to to blame the bulk of this on wind turbines though. This is absolutely unprecedented for areas like Houston and Austin. What we are seeing is the impacts of climate change. For the jet stream to dip this far south is almost inconceivable, especially for 4-5 days as it is.

Oh, and so much for CNN being a liberal propaganda medium.....

I would be careful labeling any one weather event “the results of climate change”... that’s not really how this works.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

This is why I don't support the abandonment of natural gas and oil. Though there are certainly a lot of benefits with turbines and alternative sources of power, there is something to be said for a gradual phase in.

It is difficult to to blame the bulk of this on wind turbines though. This is absolutely unprecedented for areas like Houston and Austin. What we are seeing is the impacts of climate change. For the jet stream to dip this far south is almost inconceivable, especially for 4-5 days as it is.

Oh, and so much for CNN being a liberal propaganda medium.....

I would be careful labeling any one weather event “the results of climate change”... that’s not really how this works.

Have you looked at the pressure isobars and the jet stream path? Pretty much a 100 year event we are seeing.

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This is why I don't support the abandonment of natural gas and oil. Though there are certainly a lot of benefits with turbines and alternative sources of power, there is something to be said for a gradual phase in.

It is difficult to to blame the bulk of this on wind turbines though. This is absolutely unprecedented for areas like Houston and Austin. What we are seeing is the impacts of climate change. For the jet stream to dip this far south is almost inconceivable, especially for 4-5 days as it is.

Oh, and so much for CNN being a liberal propaganda medium.....

I would be careful labeling any one weather event “the results of climate change”... that’s not really how this works.

Have you looked at the pressure isobars and the jet stream path? Pretty much a 100 year event we are seeing.

Yes it is. But that doesn’t mean this has never happened before or that it wouldn’t happen absent humans existing.

[TC Talks]

Solar panels are good to -40C/F If they are using lipo battery storage, I hope with have a newer BMS with cold charge logic.

That wasn't the question. Yes, solar panels are even actually more efficient as they get colder, but what does efficiency mean when they are putting out NO meaningful output when they have even 1/4" of snow on the panels?

Also, LiPo batteries DO NOT like the cold. None of the Lithium variants do. Their output capability drops greatly especially when you drop below 10F. To get more output you have to heat them up somehow, either by using some kind of fossil fuel or by burning up some of your battery capacity, which drop efficiency to very low numbers.

Recently, there have been some really promising BMS devices that will allow you to charge your LIPO in low temperatures (like freezer temperatures). This is an emerging industry, and problems are just one solution away. Do you remember the oil industry before fracking?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywn-vBjKblI

[km1125]

Solar panels are good to -40C/F If they are using lipo battery storage, I hope with have a newer BMS with cold charge logic.

That wasn't the question. Yes, solar panels are even actually more efficient as they get colder, but what does efficiency mean when they are putting out NO meaningful output when they have even 1/4" of snow on the panels?

Also, LiPo batteries DO NOT like the cold. None of the Lithium variants do. Their output capability drops greatly especially when you drop below 10F. To get more output you have to heat them up somehow, either by using some kind of fossil fuel or by burning up some of your battery capacity, which drop efficiency to very low numbers.

How about diverting a small amount of the energy harnessed to melting the snow and heating the batteries?

That's why I included the statement "or by burning up some of your battery capacity, which drop efficiency to very low numbers."

It can’t use THAT much power... running flashing lights 24/7 can be done with solar.

Flashing lights doesn't melt snow, nor encourage it to fall elsewhere. It takes a bit of power to melt snow... about 1 gallon of diesel for each inch of snow in a spot the size of a parking space..

[TC Talks]

Ever heard of wipers? Think roomba Zero petroleum...

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Ever heard of wipers? Zero petroleum...

Minimal electricity too.

[TC Talks]

The engineering crowd must hate change...

[jadednihilist]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... power-woes

Wind shutdowns accounted for 3.6 to 4.5 gigawatts -- or less than 13% -- of the 30 to 35 gigawatts of total outages [in Texas], according to Woodfin. That’s in part because wind only comprises 25% of the state’s energy mix this time of year.

While wind can sometimes produce as much as 60% of total electricity in Texas, the resource tends to ebb in the winter, so the grid operator typically assumes that the turbines will generate only about 19% to 43% of their maximum output.

Even so, wind generation has actually exceeded the grid operator’s daily forecast through the weekend. Solar power has been slightly below forecast Monday.

[Lester The Nightfly]

"No, frozen wind turbines aren't the main culprit for Texas' power outages"

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16 ... es-frozen/

"Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power-generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm."

[bmw]

"No, frozen wind turbines aren't the main culprit for Texas' power outages"

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16 ... es-frozen/

"Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the lost wind power makes up only a fraction of the reduction in power-generating capacity that has brought outages to millions of Texans across the state during a major winter storm."

I read through the article several times, and the author did a terrible job of clearly explaining the numbers, some of which just don't add up. In one place, the author states that "ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online" yet in another says that ordinarily, "67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power." So does this 67 GW include nuclear or not? Moreover, if 80% is coal + gas + nuclear and 7% is wind, then what is the other 13%? The author says that ordinary wind capacity is 6 GW but also that "16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, were offline." Then you look at the claim that 30 GW of electricity attributable to coal + gas + nuclear went offline, yet 67 minus 43 is only 24 GW. I can't make heads or tails out of these numbers as some directly contradict one another.

This could have been so much better organized into a simple graph broken down by energy source as follows:

Coal + gas normal capacity vs winter storm capacity
Nuclear normal capacity vs winter storm capacity
Wind normal capacity vs winter storm capacity.

What I would LIKE to know is what percentage of total wind power and total nuclear power were lost. Were both of those at 100 percent? Because if coal + gas was still operating at 2/3 capacity and other sources of energy were running at zero, then this is a very deceptive article as the point that conservatives are making is that if we move towards replacing gas/coal with wind, then the number of people without power when storms like these hit will only increase.