Texas Wind turbines went right on Turning under Harveys impact, as Refineries Shut Down

[deminks]

(snip)

Not only is gasoline going to be more expensive as a result, but the pollution dangers from the damaged refineries are horrific.

But guess what? Texas’s wind turbines weathered Harvey. Some were pushed to the max by its powerful winds, but they just went on making electricity! Turbines shut down if the wind is 55 mph or more, but most wind farms affected by Harvey were able to keep operating. One shut down because the electrical wires were knocked down, not because the turbines stopped working!. On an average day, Texas gets 20% of its electricity from wind. That only fell to 13% the day of Harvey’s landfall.

Harvey also menaced a nuclear reactor, a la Fukushima, but we dodged that bullet this time.

Nuclear reactors no longer make any sense, and they remain dangerous and vulnerable to extreme weather events. Even if wind turbines did get damaged by a storm, they don’t explode or spread around radioactive fallout.

(end snip)

https://www.juancole.com/2017/09/turbines-turning-refineries.html

[Motley13]

1. I was amazed that people in such dire straits had electricity

we have the 1st little promise of a puff of wind & the power goes off.

[Igel]

3. Cole writes from far, far away.

Harvey's winds when it hit CC were 130 mph and above. The wind turbines didn't hit 55. They weren't that close to Harvey. They didn't get hit with floods. They didn't get hit with a 9-foot sort of storm surge.

They got rain. And not just a ton of it.

CenterPoint said that about 100k lost power around Houston. That's probably the maximum number at any one time. Then again, CC was hit a lot harder. Beaumont was slammed. Houston just got a lot of rain and the drainage system choked under the onslaught. If we had sustained winds of 25 mph for more than an hour I'd be surprised. SW Houston may have gotten higher winds.

[FBaggins]

2. Harvey didn't "menace a nuclear reactor"

There's a huge difference between a magnitude 9 earthquake sending waves that in some cases exceeded 100 feet... and even the largest hurricanes. Not only wasn't the reactor "menaced"... it didn't even have to shut down.