Windmills Frozen with Inaction — Literally.  Cold weather blamed for failure of windmills to work properly.  Uh-oh.  Windmills in Minnesota that were recently ordered from California refuse to spin on some of the windiest days here.

The turbines were to be fully operational by Nov. 7. To date, the number is zero. One reason offered this week at a North St. Paul City Council meeting: hydraulic fluid and lubricating oil in the turbines’ gear boxes. In cold weather, the fluid turns gel-like and doesn’t flow, said Derick Dahlen, president of Avant Energy, which manages the MMPA. That can be particularly problematic if the turbines are already at a standstill.

To fix the problem, a contractor installed heating elements this week in the turbines. In addition, heat tracing is likely to be added to the hydraulic lines and lubrication oil system.

This is a real problem, because we have a lot of coal burning plants in the north and midwest and they should be replaced by renewable energy as soon as possible. This winter is not unusually cold either. In fact, it’s been warmer than last winter, according to my Xcel Energy power bill.  However, Dahlen thinks the problem is not the weather, but the contractor.  “I think they should absolutely have known about the cold weather issue, but I think the problems go deeper with that.”  He also says that when the weather is warm they don’t run either. What is so difficult about building a wind turbine that works?  Can’t the U.S. do anything right when it comes to renewable energy?  We need funding for this now, not for more weapons systems and war funding.

Shiho Fukada for The New York Times-- As China takes the lead on wind turbines, above, and solar panels, President Obama is calling for American industry to step up.

China is leading the renewable energy race. China is now far ahead of the United States in wind turbine production. The danger of this is that the United States might go from being dependent on other countries for oil and gas and switch to being dependent on them for solar panels and wind turbines.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. . . . . Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.

The U.S. is losing the potential to become a leader in anything, but especially renewable energy technology, because of the inertia of Congress and the ultra-partisanship of our right-wing politicians.  It has led to a lack of cooperation on anything, including jobs and renewable energy support, in [...]