Tornado /hail storm in Texas?

I saw on national news this morning a funnel cloud and hail storm in Texas heading towards a large wind farm. I was wondering how well the windmills held up? Does anyone in Texas know?

Not sure about the wind farm but did see that 3 tornado chasers were killed in a wreck while chasing a storm.

they take major storms like the piles of Waste they are what a JOKE they use far more oil to keep them running than what they "save" and kill birds by the thousands, I seen a few that had high winds hit them they were scattered every where, sure glad the butt ugly piles of wasted money are not close to me

I have been watching DFW news and saw no mention of any damage to electric windmills. There are a lot of power lines blown down. A few homes had the bricks blown off plus others had window & roof damage.

Be careful what you say, Case Nutty. George might call you a NIMBY! Thank you for stating the truth.

Your pretty negative! Do you have any facts to back up your rant? Alternative facts are not acceptable!

They must of caught it!

Got a brand new windmill farm going up in my county as we speak. Can't say l'm that excited about it. DP

The wind generators feather the blades and apply brakes so they don't fly apart in high winds.

Ice forming and flying off the blades can be a big danger though.

We have a new power line going across our land, took 13 acres, bringing Manitoba Hydro to the MN iron range. We are not too happy about it, but it is progress.

Just stating what I see and what I am told by friends who repair the piles of wasted money, if telling what I see is negative I guess I am,,, must not be ok to have my own view I take it lol

No! One ran a stop sign and T boned the other! I slept through the whole thing and my standby gen. didn't come on, meaning no lights lost around here. Usual news hype. Find the worst possible occurrence in any event and make a Broadway bash out of it. It's spring time. These things are the norm.

The "hail storm" we got Sunday night was about the size of a quarter at the most and lasted all of 3 minutes.

I worked hauling dirt on a windmill project one summer and had time to talk to an engineer that was in charge. He said that they never produce enough electricity to pay for building, maintaining, and the electricity they drawn while not in use. This goes along with what the guy from rhe city of Elk River told me about theirs 20 yeaes ago. The feds gave the city one in some type of exchange over a hydro electric dam the city owned. He claimed that even tho it was free to the city, the cost to run it was about equal to the energy produced and when it needed rebuilding the city would be out millions. I have no idea how true either story is, but it is 2 similar stories from 2 separate sources.

[b:a3bb838ee3]getting a bit off-topic, but...:[/b:a3bb838ee3]

Windmill farms are just another way of sticking a finger in a leaking dam. Yes, they generate electricity. Yes, they're a HUGE eyesore!! They're very expensive to build. Can't tell you how many times I see one of those farms and less than 1/2 the turbines are even turning. And while wind can blow at any time, there are many times that there is just not enough wind to do much good - especially provided the expense. In order to make a profit, these farms get money "given" to them by the gov't, which means hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Take that money away and the bottom will fall out of the wind farm market like it did with solar. For them to stay going, energy prices would have to.....oh, how interesting -- "[i:a3bb838ee3]necessarily skyrocket[/i:a3bb838ee3]". In actuality, they just have to go up artificially high and stay there, which they have.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to find alternative energies. However, there have been LOTS of alternative energy ideas that have been shoved aside, simply because the people "in the know" are too hugely invested into these schemes. One older example is jet turbine technology. How many of you remember that Chrysler built a turbine-powered car back in the 50's? Yes, the test units provided less than desired results, but mostly from the operational errors of the testers using them. But they were quite fuel efficient and, if it had taken, the engines would have become HUGELY quieter and more efficient over time. But the ONLY reason Chrysler execs allowed that test to exist was for the publicity of it - that was "The Jet Age".

I've seen dozens of articles of people who have come up with more efficient carburetors, more efficient engines, engines that run on much of the waste we currently send to our landfills, and more! So where are they now? Some have been bought up and are being sat on, as there's too much money in keeping things as they are now. Also, with each new and radical design, there WILL BE bugs to work out. Seems none of these amazing advancements ever gets the chance to make it far enough to work those bugs out.

There's even a company in the UK who is somehow able to extract oil right from the air around us! However, at this particular time, gas prices are too low for them to continue building their infrastructure -- in other words, it's not going to take off anytime soon!

I don't see how they can be very efficient as most wind blows right through those 3 blades. The old windmills that pumped water had enough blades to catch the wind.

The turbine blades are set to operate under a variety of wind speeds. It is true that they will pass a lot of wind at 5 mph apparent wind speed. It is also true that as the wind speed increases the blade speed also increases to the point that each section of the outer 1/3 of the blade length will be ever closer to the turbulent air coming off of the previous blade. Clean air flow is assured by the spacing provided by the 3 blade design. The tip speed is way higher than the air speed. Aermotor style mills with 20 plus blades were very poor designs and each blade blocked the wind from following blades when wind was even 5 mph. It took me a month of thinking to wrap my head around the idea. If a person could see a 12" balloon float into a large windmill, they would see that it would be unlikely that the blades would missed the balloon in the outer 1/3 of the blade length. Toward the middle, not so much. But 80% of the power is generated in that outer area. Jim

I saw one burn a couple months ago. It looked like a giant roman candle with fire trucks all around it watching. Melted the blades off and the thing is still standing but instead of being blue green it is black

Wait a minute here. Tom you are one of my close friends as well as George. You both have every right to your own opinions and ideas. I am not sure either way on this windmill concept, however if necessary I would fight for both of my friends to have their Ideas. To all YT guys I will say in 30 years of knowing George and 20 of knowing Tom I have never heard either one personally attack anybody of their character.

I worked on two farms being built in west Texas. Guy in charge told me they were a joke. But the job pays good money. If they catch fire. They let them burn,if brakes fail in high winds. Run away as fast as you can.

I might add my wife says I can often pass wind at greater than 5 miles per hour. LOL

If my remarks have offended George or Wilson, or anyone else, please accept my apologies. I have neither the need nor the desire to make any enemies here. However, living in the midst of one of these projects now under construction has caused me to become somewhat passionate in my beliefs and opinions. I have done enough reading and talked to enough people with experience in this area to know that wind produced electricity ain't all it's cracked up to be. YMMV. 'Nuff said.

Tom

Tx Jim, thanks for replying to the topic. geo.

Russ please don't take this as a insult, but in my area people want all of the nice things that are offered, but not in my sight. If it is out of sight out of mind. So again sorry if I stomped on anyone.

Bob

Hmm, well, there is plenty of facts backing up that the majority of the wind farms built, are done at the expense of innocent victims, wind developers always want to least the absolute least amount of land and make the biggest impact. If all the setbacks are based on property lines, and the distance is safe and proper, and the noise level is measured at the property line, and proper noise levels are set, then, and only then should they be allowed. Most are not done that way, at the insistence of the wind developer, and the Local officials they have signed leases with before getting them to set these ordinances in the wind companies favor, while voting in violation of conflict of interest. Of course anyone who insists on proper setbacks and zoning, is attacked by the wind developers, and their lease holders. Michigan State University just published their wind guidelines, follow them and there would not be so many people fighting about these things.

Never seen that pile of birds everyone says is there

Yes, I agree. I was frustrated a few years ago when we visited Kitty Hawk NC, where the Wright bros determined there was the best wind for flying, and there were no wind generators. There were hundreds of condos on the beach all with AC units, and no wind generated electricity. Even Walmart has solar panels over some of their parking lots in AZ, customers get to park in the shade and WM gets low cost electricity.

The reason some are not turning is because they are unwinding...the cable from top to bottom, that carries the electricity. Turbines follow the wind, and they can rotate in one direction for 4 turns, then they need to unwind, rather than twist that power cable even more. Found that out in a brochure I picked up at a motel in Pipestone, MN, while on vacation a few years ago...at the Laura Ingles Wilder site.

Strange. I thought they all worked using Pos and Neg rollers, allowing the head to rotate 360°. I've never seen any that had the cable hard-wired to the generator.

It's ft-lbs. Long blades, lots of torque. (Torque x rpm)/5252 = HP. 1 hp = 746 watts (VA cos phase angle). Couldn't effectively have something like that on a farm, shipped to and put up by a farmer, bought out of a Sears catalog. Since blades had to be shorter, took more to get any kind of power and obviously fatter would catch more wind. On wide blades vs narrow blades, why do do propeller driven airplanes have a few long thin blades but boats have a few short fat blades? Must have something to do with the efficiency of propulsion vs the media....air vs water!

Obviously the physics of the system dictates what is the most efficient and cost effective way to get the job done. One would surely think that these monstrous towers wouldn't be built and maintained if that wasn't the way to do it most efficiently, even with the construction and maintenance (gotta be) nightmare of dealing with something of that size. Had a semi come by the other day with a blade on it........humongous thing. None around here, other than a few novelty types.