While Texans suffer from freezing temperatures and extensive power outages, frozen wind turbines are being used as a ploy to spread skepticism on the reliability of renewable energy.
As Jenkins explained on Twitter, even though wind turbines were operating at about two-thirds of their capacity, wind was expected to provide less than 10 percent of the energy needed to power the state’s grid during the peak of a winter storm, while natural gas plants were supposed to provide 66 percent of the power. “Those of you who have heard that frozen wind turbines are to blame for this, think again,” the engineer added.
“Texans were counting on natural gas and coal plants to be there when they needed them,” Jenkins observed. “Only 50-60% of that capacity has been able to produce during the past three days. If a student in my course got a 60% on the midterm, we’d call it an F. Fossil generators deserve an F here too.”
17 February 2021
Much of the language of anti-renewable energy discourse occurs through visuals. It’s relatively important on social media; pictures travel much faster than words.
Wind turbines, in particular, lend themselves to this style of misinformation. They’re physically significant in and of themselves. And one of the longest running visuals used to attack renewables is a picture of a helicopter spraying some unidentified fluid onto an ice-covered wind turbine.
It has been around since at least 2015. It was, in fact, shared then by Liberal MP Craig Kelly, and I wrote about it back then, here at RenewEconomy. By my calculations in that post, the wind turbine cancels out the emissions from the helicopter de-icing the blades within 20 minutes (Kelly claimed it would take decades).
While Texans suffer from freezing temperatures and extensive power outages, frozen wind turbines are being used as a ploy to spread skepticism on the reliability of renewable energy. This week, a relentless winter storm pummeled through parts of the southern and central U.S.