Windmills in Michigan. Here is an interesting on why they dont freeze here. https://www.abc12.com/2021/02/17/michigan-renewable-energy-more-resilient-to-cold-than-frozen-texas-windmills/

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 10:23 am: Edit

As for federal regulators...ERCOT was set up, among other reasons, to *avoid* federal regulations. It's not subject to FERC jurisdiction under sections 203, 205, or 206 of the Federal Power Act.

The cost of winterization is, as a percentage of general operating costs, quite low. Given the low kWh rates within ERCOT, the pass-on costs of winterization to the customers would have been negligible. This isn't a matter of "build a second plant"; it's a matter of making sure the pipes don't freeze.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 10:52 am: Edit

The green energy designs have indeed improved and in 2020 are $9 gasoline instead of $14 gasoline. The salvage guys didn't want to touch wind turbines because it takes massive cranes to dismantle them. It costs more to take them down than the salvage is worth, and that still leaves the farmer's grandson with a hundred huge chunks of concrete in the way of his combine. I am glad to hear that there is a way to kill fewer bids. None of the wind turbines here use it, and I suspect it would cost money to do it and nobody is willing to do that on an existing turbine. A new one being built can be baked in. Anyway, that wasn't available when it was one of my reasons for not investing. And yes, the cost of cold weather operations is not negligible by any means, and retrofitting it to installed equipment is an order of magnitude greater. And remember I am a guy who supports building wind turbines. You should hear what the people who hate them have to say.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 09:44 pm: Edit

You can find any cost you want in some source somewhere, none of the actual green costs in valid non-political sources are anything close to the market value. Otherwise there would not be government subsides for all green energy except hydro. Hydro is great but there is nowhere left in the US to build it.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 12:01 am: Edit

Well, what about all of the dams that have been removed since the Obama administration changed the rules?

So far as I can tell, the Trump administration did not change the rules back regarding retirement of old obsolete or damaged hydroelectric plants.

In fact, California and other West coast states have been more worried about fish populations than jobs or energy production. Dams that prevent fish from reaching spawning areas have been targeted for removal by green peace and Sierra club.

Numbers would be great, but anecdotal evidence seems to support fewer dams rather than full capacity.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 12:07 am: Edit

That could be the case, but even if true and even if replaced, that's back to status quo ante not an improvement.

Back when I played SimCity a lot I would bulldoze most of the land to make it easy to build a city but leave a fairly big flattop mountain four levels high in one corner. Then place "water" on all the slopes (except the road up) and then place "hydroelectric dam" on all of those. Thus I had all the power I wanted without taking up space. Pity we cannot just create waterfalls that easily.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 03:42 pm: Edit

I can comment that when buying a car you need to know what it can and cannot do. My new car (2014 Nissan Altima) could NOT handle the snow at all. It bogged down in the parking lot, twice. Could not go forward all the way, and could not back out once you got in (especially wen there was traffic, i.e., build momentum and the car might suddenly gan traction and leap into the traffic when you do not want to, need to wait for BIG windows in the traffic to try at all).

The former Buick LeSabre did not have any real problems with the snow, but it is gone.

The Altma is fine on roads, but minor obstacles are major obstacles as far as it is concerned.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Whereas my little 2018 Prius C, equipped with Nokian WR-G4 tires, has done just dandy in the snow. If it still had the original Goodyear Assurance tires on it, it wouldn't be doing so hot.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, February 19, 2021 - 10:35 pm: Edit

Cars are like tools.
Different vehicles have different operating characteristics.

I have owned 6 different Nissan cars (Sentra, Versa etc...)

There are (and have been) consumer complaints about Nissan cars transmissions for several years now (for those unfamiliar with the issue, Nissan changed its transmissions in the 2009/10 Versa from traditional transmission technology to a design originally used in snowmobiles.). Other product lines changed over to the new model transmissions in following model years.

Your 2014 Altima may be so equipped.

Common issues do include acceleration issues, changing directions.

Since it is a “belt drive” as opposed to gear drive, it has a different set of symptoms than most people would recognize as transmission related.

I would suggest that you call or login to the Nissan customer service web site. Your vehicle may have been part of a recall/maintenance program for a known issue. If you bought it used from a place other than a Nissan dealership, it’s possible that the seller never checked the status.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 02:01 am: Edit

My Nissan Rogue has less trouble in snowdrifts than any car I have ever owned. (Not nearly as good as the Humvee I drove in the Guard but ... sigh.)

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 05:06 am: Edit

Interesting Discussion.

It's probably fair to say 'most things can be minimised - at a cost'.

If that cost is not paid, and the 1 in 1,000 event comes up, your in trouble.

I am guessing Nokian WR-G4 are Winter Tyres.

In some European Countries, Winter Tyres are compulsory to put on - and guess what, Snow and Ice doesn't cause many problems.

In the UK, it seems 30 cm's of Snow cause huge problems - as we never expect Snow in winter (and Winter Tyres are not compulsory).

On power - probably fair to say lots of energy solutions will not work initially without some tax payer involvement.

Nuclear has astronomical closing down costs for example.

And Coal in the UK actually has some non-expected costs - large swathes of Coal production areas have been built on - and occasionally, an old seam will collapse causing damage to the properties in the area.


Best solution - clearly it's a combination of everything - until we can get a big enough storage capacity in reserve (that huge 'Battery' in Australia for example) to cover drops in greener energy production.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 08:03 am: Edit

Remember that Europe is farther north than the US. It's about the same latitude as Canada.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 12:38 pm: Edit

IIRC that huge battery in Australia is circa 15 minutes power for just the state of Victoria.

It's a load leveling device and UPS for the grid, without backup generators of some sort, it doesn't and will not help a bit against a prolonged weather event. As far as I know, hydro (including pumped hydro storage) is basically the only power storage device that's really useful on a grid scale as a power storage device rather than a "this gives us time to spin up a gas turbine that was already at standby" device.

That's one reason different people have drastically different estimates of the cost of wind power. If all KwH of electricity were created equal, wind would probably be close to competitive without subsidies. But when you build wind you need to keep or build backups, and those backups need to be able to start and stop on short notice, and you need to have something to do with the wind power when it's delivered at 3 AM on a mild Sunday morning rather than when you actually need it.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 02:12 pm: Edit

Of course, the larger the grid, the more likely that "on average" solar & wind will be up to spec. So a calm day in Exemouth is contrasted by nice breezes in Darwin & Perth...

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 08:13 pm: Edit

At the time that I looked into investing in a wind farm the explosive "just falls over" option was specifically illegal as being too dangerous, and the farmers rejected the option because it might leave pieces parts in some inconvenient places. I am fairly sure it it still is illegal in Texas.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 08:31 pm: Edit

Whether the Windmills work or not....
The company that put them up, signed a rental
agreement for plot they are own...
Farmer just makes them pay the rent till they are gone....

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, February 20, 2021 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Having taken all of the Money out of the corporation good luck collecting rent.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 07:43 am: Edit

And then the farmer has to contend with removing the scrap and the concrete base.

I am not an engineer, but from my limited knowledge, a wind turbine requires a substantial foundation as a simple 3 inch thick pad is not sufficient.

Most farmers are not equipped to handle a project of that magnitude.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 02:13 pm: Edit

"I am guessing Nokian WR-G4 are Winter Tyres."

They're all-weather tires (as opposed to all-season tires), and they price out at right about the same amount as the stock Assurance tires (which I replaced when they were showing low tread depth). They're winter rated, but they're fine to run year round...and as they're also low rolling-resistance, they're a good option for a hybrid.

By Steven Zamboni (Szamboni) on Sunday, February 21, 2021 - 06:33 pm: Edit

My snow tires feel like they have double-sided tape on them, the rolling resistance is that bad. Like driving with the emergency brake on when they get ahold of dry pavement. They disintegrate in warm weather, so I have to put the rain tires back on about mid-March. (Someday I'll get actual summer tires too but I needed the skating rink set first.)

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021 - 11:55 am: Edit

That's because they're dedicated snow tires, rather than all-weather tires.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, March 03, 2021 - 06:31 pm: Edit

One more data point about wind mills that just came up on you tube.

In the North Sea, Britain has had wind mill farms operating for 30+ years.

It turns out that one of the original basic engineering assumptions was wrong. I.E. that the large fiber glass blades would not be affected by erosion. False, the blades are delaminating along the leading edge of all the blades. It appears as a materials failure as the treated and coated fiberglass blades are eroding from impact with particulate matter in the air (salt, sand, pollution etc.)

As the material breaks down, the effectiveness of the blades (air foil) decreases which in turn results in less rotation speed of the blades, which reduces (as the number of revolutions goes down) the amount of energy generated by the turbines/generators.

There appears to be no quick fix, which, if a practical (and cheap) solution is not found could result in more turbines failing.

Depending on the cost, the potential exists that the wind farms could be forced into bankruptcy as the repairs costs could exceed the diminishing revenues.

Fun.