Wind Generation

[Skagit]

China opens a new coal fired power plant at the average pace of like 1 per month, WHILE they sell us Chinese made solar panels and wind mills.

They must laugh at us until their ribs hurt! We will fund them for decades through Chinese made solar panel and wind turbine purchases until their ascension to the #1 super power.

I'm not sure what the market share of Chinese panels here in the US is but I'm not sure it's that high, we have a pretty high tariff and there's a lot of panels made in North America and Europe now. I live off grid (solar) and I have a connection to a Victron Energy dealer, because of that I'm able to buy things at cost (which is awesome) but I can't buy Victron solar panels even if I wanted to, they won't even import them because of the tariff on Chinese made panels. I ended up buying Silfab panels which are made here in Washington State.

I don't disagree with your sentiment at all though, China's building coal plants left and right while the rest of us try to ban or make unaffordable everything that actually works in the name of 'green energy'... Case in point, I'm able to live off grid utilizing solar panels and a battery system because of propane, it wouldn't be possible in a northern climate without it, and yet, they want to ban natural gas and propane here.

 

[jyoutz]

I'm not sure what the market share of Chinese panels here in the US is but I'm not sure it's that high, we have a pretty high tariff and there's a lot of panels made in North America and Europe now. I live off grid (solar) and I have a connection to a Victron Energy dealer, because of that I'm able to buy things at cost (which is awesome) but I can't buy Victron solar panels even if I wanted to, they won't even import them because of the tariff on Chinese made panels. I ended up buying Silfab panels which are made here in Washington State.

I don't disagree with your sentiment at all though, China's building coal plants left and right while the rest of us try to ban or make unaffordable everything that actually works in the name of 'green energy'... Case in point, I'm able to live off grid utilizing solar panels and a battery system because of propane, it wouldn't be possible in a northern climate without it, and yet, they want to ban natural gas and propane here.

I don’t think that many wind turbines are imported from China. I know there’s a big plant that makes them about 4 hours north of me in Pueblo, Colorado, and I’m sure there’s many more.

 

[Hay Dude]

I don’t think that many wind turbines are imported from China. I know there’s a big plant that makes them about 4 hours north of me in Pueblo, Colorado, and I’m sure there’s many more.

They are made in China and many are made in Europe. Definitely not a product we only source from USA.
Solar panels are almost exclusively made off shore.
Both destroy the beauty of our landscape.
I’d much rather have a 200 acre site for a nuke or gasser than thousands of acres covered by windmills with the “whoosh-whoohs” 24/7 and the pile of dead birds under each one or the 1000 acres of Chinese black solar panels.
UG-LY

 

[jyoutz]

They are made in China and many are made in Europe. Definitely not a product we only source from USA.
Solar panels are almost exclusively made off shore.
Both destroy the beauty of our landscape.
I’d much rather have a 200 acre site for a nuke or gasser than thousands of acres covered by windmills with the “whoosh-whoohs” 24/7 and the pile of dead birds under each one or the 1000 acres of Chinese black solar panels.
UG-LY

The windmills used around here are trucked from the factory in Pueblo. We also have solar panel manufacturers here locally. I’m sure that China sells some here also (like everything else). As to our preferences; this is free enterprise: the ranchers around here love to lease lands to the power companies for wind farms. They make a good income and still graze the land. I personally don’t think that wind farms are aesthetically pleasing either, nor are solar farms. But neither are coal and gas plants. We all want power though.

 

[SandburRanch]

Because your posts come across as someone the doesn't believe that the wind turbines are connected to anything. Hope that's not what you're implying.
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Thanks for the answer i was looking for , and yes , that's exactly what i was implying and still are in my location .

The reason i ask is because in my area i'v never seen any indication of the turbines being connected to anything except the wind , and in fact the first that were set in a area approximately12 - 15 years ago were dismantled and moved about 4 years ago . Real information from the local news paper or local TV news is hush hush about the wind turbines , except one TV broadcast mentioned turbines once and were quickly silenced . That may have been a election year . No one locally wants to discuss them , especially the farmers that are seeing some revenue .
And there's a question about who is paying the farmers and ranchers . I once read a sketchy article that the state granted the manufacturer money to build and install so that means the tax payer is paying .

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I don’t think that many wind turbines are imported from China. I know there’s a big plant that makes them about 4 hours north of me in Pueblo, Colorado, and I’m sure there’s many more.

Worked on a repower project a couple of years ago. The blades and tower extensions came from the Colorado location you mention. The Nacelle (Generator and gear boxes) came from China.

The made in China components have already leaked hydraulic oil onto many of the towers.

 

[jyoutz]

Because your posts come across as someone the doesn't believe that the wind turbines are connected to anything. Hope that's not what you're implying.
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Thanks for the answer i was looking for , and yes , that's exactly what i was implying and still are in my location .

The reason i ask is because in my area i'v never seen any indication of the turbines being connected to anything except the wind , and in fact the first that were set in a area approximately12 - 15 years ago were dismantled and moved about 4 years ago . Real information from the local news paper or local TV news is hush hush about the wind turbines , except one TV broadcast mentioned turbines once and were quickly silenced . That may have been a election year . No one locally wants to discuss them , especially the farmers that are seeing some revenue .

What is your fixation with a windmill conspiracy? Your posts are more and more sounding like the rantings of a nutter.

 

[Tinhack]

Your Texas wind farms froze just like your Texas natural gas lines feeding power plants froze because in Texas they didn’t winterize the system. Meanwhile in adjacent New Mexico and the rest of the plains states, during the same cold weather the wind and gas plants kept operating because they were designed for winter. The problem is not with the technology; the problem is that they didn’t build the systems correctly in Texas.

Texas doesn't have much winter in the southern counties. ERCOT knew there was an unusual cold front coming and still forced the nuclear power plant on the coast to perform scheduled maintenance. ERCOT also knew many of the wind farms would be forced to shut down due to the record cold. ERCOT also knew that South Texas wasn't prepared for the historical cold and yet ordered what power could be generated routed to the North (and New Mexico) because the wind farms couldn't produce electricity in the cold.

Texas used to have a closed power generation system. We generated more than enough electricity and kept it in the state. Ever since ERCOT, we've been given the shaft.

I hope what ERCOT management that didn't quit got fired. The governor wanted to throw a few of them in prison.

 

[jyoutz]

Texas doesn't have much winter in the southern counties. ERCOT knew there was an unusual cold front coming and still forced the nuclear power plant on the coast to perform scheduled maintenance. ERCOT also knew many of the wind farms would be forced to shut down due to the record cold. ERCOT also knew that South Texas wasn't prepared for the historical cold and yet ordered what power could be generated routed to the North (and New Mexico) because the wind farms couldn't produce electricity in the cold.

Texas used to have a closed power generation system. We generated more than enough electricity and kept it in the state. Ever since ERCOT, we've been given the shaft.

I hope what ERCOT management that didn't quit got fired. The governor wanted to throw a few of them in prison.

Why do wind turbines freeze in Texas, but not New Mexico, Colorado, or Wyoming? Sounds like shortcuts were taken during construction.

 

[Raul-02]

evidence of a buried cable

what sort of evidence did you imagine they'dleave?
If they dig they replace the soil and plant grass make it pretty. If they use burrowing machinery there's no trench.

 

[bigtiller]

An interesting fact..
About 57.6 percent of electricity generated in Iowa in 2021, came from renewable sources.

 

[caver]

We had a company that paid us for our slag. The had a simple wash plant and then loaded it on a barge. The county would come in during ice storms and use it on the roads. Gas plants are great for peaking. They can be put online in minutes. A coal plant from a cold startup can take 24 hours. Coal plants start to have slagging problems at about 50% capacity (at least ours did) so they run best at wide open full load. That can be hard to do at night when load is way down unless you have a constant load from say an aluminum smelter. We had that option for years. Typically 400MW around the clock. Many plants switched to Wyoming coal in the early 90s to meet the clean air act. Why? Because scrubbers are expensive to operate. Our plant spent millions in building a rail spur and rotary dumper. We originally got our high sulphur coal off a barge on the Mississippi. Fly ash is what is usually the big waste component. At certain grades it is part of portland cement. Ours had too much unburned carbon in it. Our boiler was modified to burn low sulpher coal but even though they tuned it over the years you would still get small amount of unburned carbon.

 

[SandburRanch]

what sort of evidence did you imagine they'dleave?
If they dig they replace the soil and plant grass make it pretty. If they use burrowing machinery there's no trench.

The natural gas plant i retired from has buried pipe lines in over 1,200 sq. miles ( small gas field ) with several miles of 8 and 10 inch pipe with as much as 900 lbs. pressure. There hasn't been nor at present any of those pipe lines been flagged for safety which only a idiot would even think about burying a cable without calling 811 for a line locate . Plant grass and make it pretty ? About like a plumber would mop the lady's bath floor after setting a toilet . If that isn't enough evidence , there are winter wheat fields that's easy to see the evidence whether trenched or burrowing, and grass pastures where a shallow trench remains for years because of soil that's settled .

 

[dodge man]

When I worked on the wind farm near here I saw all sorts of cable being plowed in. I did the construction layout for the electric towers that hook it up to the grid. I didn’t personally hook up the wires to the turbines so I can’t guarantee they are hooked up. Does anybody think they put these things up and didn’t hook them up?

Birds? One of the statistics I saw is that house cats kill more birds than wind turbines. We have cats, I can vouch for that.

 

[Boss 302]

Look at some of the arial pictures of the windmill grid and you can get a better idea of what's hidden.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

My name isn't Dude and of all the thousands of turbines , and some being present during construction no one has actually seen a cable being laid . That's strange .

If the electric meter didn't spin on the new wind turbine installation, it is my understanding that there would be no Govenrment $$$$ sent to the owner. 30% subsidy as I recall. At $1.3 million dollars per Megawatt installation cost per wind turbine, I don't think the owner would give up there 30% subsidy.
Had to install cabling to get the meter spin.

 

[SandburRanch]

If you had said the blades must spin for the government to pay i would agree .

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

You are about ten years behind the times. The big incentives for wind energy have expired and they are producing wind energy cheaply. You don’t seem to understand how power is generated and distributed. The wind energy doesn’t feed into a power plant; the wind farm is the power plant feeding into the distribution grid. So does the solar farms and the new natural gas power plants. Modern electrical generation is a mix of sources; no some old fashioned single coal plant providing all the power.

Around here when we talk power generation we just say "Dam" But there are a few wind farms too.

 

[Hay Dude]

I agree, but where I live, we are also generating a lot of low cost wind and solar. Gas is the largest source though. My state should be a leader of nuclear because we did invent the bomb and develop nuclear technology first, but those power plants are hugely expensive and use a lot of scarce water resources.

We got all the water in the world out east in the big population centers. I have a nuke plant 25 miles northwest of me and 25 miles southwest of me.
I aint skeered. Build more where theres lot of water.

Best thing about nukes is its American technology and those are really good high paying jobs. Many in engineering, applied sciences, welding, computers and electronics. The windmills and solar panels are disposable junk, mostly foreign made and not as many American jobs.

We gotta get off being reliant of foreign crap spoon fed to us. Let’s roll America!

 

[workinonit]

Ask the Euro countries in a few months how closing all their nukes, going green too soon and hitching their wagon to Putin's pipelines is working out for them. I have no real issue with having wind turbines and solar farms. It's kinda like putting accessories on your tractor. They look good, make you and everyone else feel better but when work gets really serious they are turned off or not used. Those Euro countries will find out really quickly that the wind don't blow all the time and the sun don't shine as much as they thought it did. It'll hit home when the oil runs out and they are sitting in the dark. They will be exactly where we don't want to be but our president and leaders are trying their hardest to take us. Hopefully if nothing else comes out of WWIII this country will get an eye opening.