The stuff I see they scream about winterization of the turbines instead. Yes, it exists and yes it works. It also comes with a significant cost increase. Engineering is all about working with a budget and constraints and being that this was at the very least a 25 year weather event and in my opinion rare enough to not warrant the additional cost.
It's one of those things where if you have with X budget you can buy 1500 windmills, if the winterproof ones cost 50% more, you only get 1000 windmills for the same cost. What's better? 1500 windmills that work in prevailing conditions 24 years and 50 weeks of the time or 1000 windmills that work the full 25 years?
If the next thought is to increase the budget, that additional money could likely be used in other ways that would both provide for better reliability that two weeks every 25 years and provide a utility the rest of the time.
This is all under the presumption that you want the windmills at all. I know there's a case to be made to spend that same X budget on nuclear, coal, hamsters in wheels, whatever. I was just trying to point out the stupidity of the argument that Texas is too cheap to buy winterproof windmills.
This is an absolutely VERY good point! Get more wind turbines that poops power occasionally, or less wind turbines with winterization that will poop less power occasionally! Very well put!
WUWT has a good article about the Texas situation. Basically in Texas you don't get paid for available capacity but for vomiting power onto the grid, which incentivizes solar and wind because they have no guaranteed capacity and just vomit power on the grid when available. So while green power sucks it's really more that green power policy sucks.
The stuff I see they scream about winterization of the turbines instead. Yes, it exists and yes it works. It also comes with a significant cost increase. Engineering is all about working with a budget and constraints and being that this was at the very least a 25 year weather event and in my opinion rare enough to not warrant the additional cost.
It's one of those things where if you have with X budget you can buy 1500 windmills, if the winterproof ones cost 50% more, you only get 1000 windmills for the same cost. What's better? 1500 windmills that work in prevailing conditions 24 years and 50 weeks of the time or 1000 windmills that work the full 25 years?
If the next thought is to increase the budget, that additional money could likely be used in other ways that would both provide for better reliability that two weeks every 25 years and provide a utility the rest of the time.
This is all under the presumption that you want the windmills at all. I know there's a case to be made to spend that same X budget on nuclear, coal, hamsters in wheels, whatever. I was just trying to point out the stupidity of the argument that Texas is too cheap to buy winterproof windmills.
This is an absolutely VERY good point! Get more wind turbines that poops power occasionally, or less wind turbines with winterization that will poop less power occasionally! Very well put!
WUWT has a good article about the Texas situation. Basically in Texas you don't get paid for available capacity but for vomiting power onto the grid, which incentivizes solar and wind because they have no guaranteed capacity and just vomit power on the grid when available. So while green power sucks it's really more that green power policy sucks.