Minnesota Windmills Don't Spin In Cold Weather, Confuse Residents

The New York Times:

For those who suspect residents in places like Minnesota of embellishment when it comes to their tales of bitterly cold winter weather, consider this: even some wind turbines, it seems, cannot bear it.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[John Mainstream]

09:51 AM on 02/09/2010

What is the cost per MWH when using hemp? Or would anybody really care...

[John Mainstream]

09:49 AM on 02/09/2010

Hemp is green.

[mountainweb]

08:19 AM on 02/09/2010

So, the "green jobs" are people standing around with their thumb in their mouth, how productive....

[DavePalen]

07:28 AM on 02/08/2010

Would they have worked up in Cape Cod by the liberal Kennedy compound? Oh wait, they can't be built there because they would be ugly. By the way, when will Obama unemployment go down? I am waiting for the millions of magical green jobs.

[urchinsadrift]

10:23 AM on 02/08/2010

Nope. You cant have wind turbines wherever wealthy librals live. Not west coast. Not east coast. Just wait til they try to put in solar farms on austin or santa fe. They wont allow those either. The MN turbines the CA celebs had taken down because they were unsightly.

[privateersforfreedom]

06:16 PM on 02/07/2010

The next big bubble and financial failure: subsidized "Green" energy.

[leatherface49]

02:53 PM on 02/07/2010

cost of 1 megawatt produced by coal.....$5 cost of 1 meg by wind..........$600 figure it out

[privateersforfreedom]

06:18 PM on 02/07/2010

Huge subsidies for "green" energy because it uses more resources, produces less energy and causes more pollution.

[rougebaisers]

11:12 AM on 02/07/2010

One would think that someone living in that brutal wind chill climate 4 months out of the year would have thought about testing them under those extremes. I still cannot figure why the things must weigh so damn much...does that not require more wind to move them?

[Chopin]

08:42 PM on 02/06/2010

Why is that even news? Anybody can tell you that at extreme low temperatures surface moisture condensation can change the physical viscosity of metal surfaces of moving parts. Besides, physicists can tell you low surface temperatures can change the surface physical characteristics of the metal itself. So it's no surprise at all that they tend to have greatly increased frictional forces jamming up the moving blades. If you consider that news, it must be a really slow day at NYTimes and Huffpost.

[urchinsadrift]

10:57 PM on 02/06/2010

Umm. The point the article made was that northern turbines worked fine. The SoCal imports, rejected by palmsprings celeb whackos, did not.

[PlayTOE]

07:45 PM on 02/06/2010

oops ..gotta put a heater on the gearbox? I think not.

Try changing the lubricating fluid to one suitable for the climate. There are plenty of choices available.

[leatherface49]

02:52 PM on 02/07/2010

no

[hippie4ever]

02:29 PM on 02/06/2010

Banned, fanned.

Hemp could provide us with power: it could either be converted into ethanol or feed into a biomass electric generator. It could also produce our paper products and cloth; both products would be far superior to wood pulp paper or cotton fabric.

Animals fed hemp are healthier than animals fed grain. The crop takes little nutrient or water to produce life sustaining materials and foods.

Legalize all hemp in the United States. Give the American farmer a way to remain financially solvent.

[urchinsadrift]

02:32 PM on 02/06/2010

Sounds great. More freedom for farners

[research]

06:15 PM on 02/06/2010

Hemp is a great crop, great rope, cloth, feed.

When that cloth wears out, it's great rag for paper,

when the paper wears out,

it's great feed for waste Bio Fuel.

[TakeSake]

06:42 PM on 02/06/2010

And then it goes around again!

[BannedNBoston]

02:02 PM on 02/06/2010

Lubricate the bearings with organic hemp seed oil.

[JerryAguy]

04:00 AM on 02/06/2010

Looks like it might be a bad time to lose the heat, the technology will get there, hopefully not too far in the future.

[urchinsadrift]

10:30 PM on 02/05/2010

Of course the article leaves out a key piece of information - "WHY" were the turbines moved from southern california? Haha! The librral celebrities thought they were an eyesore and a hazard to birds!!!!

[DocSkull]

10:17 AM on 02/06/2010

Are those the same liberal celebrities who voted for Reagan and Schwarzenegger?

[urchinsadrift]

10:23 AM on 02/06/2010

Umm. No. They are the ones who voted for Moonbat jerry brown.

[jsarets]

09:01 PM on 02/05/2010

Wind turbines work in Antarctica, so they should work in Minnesota.

[Dangerous Dan]

04:52 PM on 02/05/2010

Even if the mechinism were kept warm, the blades are too brittle in the cold weather to withstand the forces that operation would require.
Oh, snap.

[research]

10:18 PM on 02/05/2010

Unsubstantiated claims.