All Snow, No Blow

You can see the snow on the ground. Hey, that's what you expect in wintertime Canada, right?

What you can't see is all the ice. On the blades of that wind turbine. The one that isn't spinning or generating electricity because it's frozen. (we hit this on The Energy Report, this morning)

This is the Caribou Wind Park in New Brunswick, Canada. 33 turbines, open and online now for only three months. But Canadian Broadcasting says that GDF Suez North America park has already lost 20-days of operation because of blade icing.

Maybe it's not surprising that another wind farm in Minnesota has had a similar problem recently. But, curiously, the site manager at Caribou says colder temperatures would have actually helped the turbines. His point? All the precipitation would have been snow, not ice.

For now, the park is a total lime Fla-Vor-Ice...clean, green, and frozen.