nwtk2007 wrote:
We had a storm like this in Dec 1989. A killer ice storm in Jan 1978. Was that also caused by climate change?
What we have is too many people moving in too fast. They come on faster than infrastructure can keep up. The areas where most of the outages occurred were fields back then. Now they are suburban sprawl.
I grew up in Amarillo, and moved to the country as soon as I could once I was able about 35 years ago.
My mail route begins literally 3 blocks west of my childhood home which was on the edge of town when we moved there. Now, fields I remember hunting prairie dogs, and riding dirt bikes in are covered with houses, and businesses. Pisses me off every time I have to deliver to that Wal-Greens because it sits on the best moto-cross track ever!
We seem to have done a little better here though. Not much in the blackout area here. But, there is a coal fired plant 3, or 4 miles as the crow flies from where I sit. As well as thousands of idle wind turbines, which, my understanding is, have their production routed down south.
They need more coal plants down that way in my opinion.
This winter is no different than many I've seen in my lifetime. And it very well could be how the state has handled the power distribution through it. I don't know. It seems somebody dropped the ball somewhere.
Could it be coal plants being regulated out of existence since they're killing people?
And what's this I've read from some here about not using anti freeze on coal, and wind turbines? LOL?
If you throw a cold lump of coal in a furnace, will it not burn?
Can you put anti freeze in the oil filled gearbox of a wind turbine. Do they make anti freeze for the multiple pounds of grease lubricating the massive bearings?
All those things are is a propeller attached to a gearbox, attached to a generator with a lot of "smart" stuff in between. Ice on the blades causes an inbalance, and they shut down. It ain't cold air.....
Sorry for rambling. I overfilled my truck, so I've been sitting here letting it burn some gas off.