Just a thought. Seems that the power plants are slowly being used for peak times. Guess we need some really nasty weather to increase electric usage?
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/green/Winter-Wind-Credited-With-Record-Power-Generation-185454822.html

Probably correct. We did an inspection of the power plant at Mountain Creek Lake (yeah i know) last year, and the guy told us many power plants are being privately purchased and electricity sold only during peak times, when they can negotiate a better rate.

He said they can just maintain the plant for 8 months of the year, then make all their money during the other 4 months. Extremely cold/hot weather is when they'll be operational.

Wind mills only add a very small amount of energy too the grid. They dont even produce 1% of power needed.

I thought i heard that those record wind productions would only power 200 average homes, or 1 highland park home.

At 3 p.m. Christmas Day, 8,638 megawatts of power was provided by Texas wind farms.


One MW is enough electricity to power about 200 homes during periods when electric use is highest and about 500 homes during periods of typical consumption.


8638 x 200 = 1,727,600 homes

LMAO.

OK. So 2 highland park homes.

Roughly 20% of Texas' electricity comes from renewable sources, more than any other state or country except China. Most of that is from wind.

But.....most of the contracts to produce electricity are old and with fossil fuel plants, and the distribution of wind power to markets is a problem.

Back when I was working with Ed Bonn on powerplant lakes, the plants ran 24-7. That is why Martin Creek experienced a large die off back in the eighties. Too much wash water with poisonous minerals in it entered the lake from evaporation ponds during the '83 freeze.

Nowadays the more efficient natural gas plants, cleaner nuke plants, wind turbines, and other alterntives are used and many of the less efficient big coal plants are only brought up when demand increases.

I guess Obama is really cinching down on coal fired plants. He would rather make Al Caida rich than provide Americans with jobs.

Wondered how long it would take to get there

LOL.....

But can you make the wind blow when you need it? How do they store all that electricity that is produced when it isn't needed?