The week
Texas governor walks back Fox News comments on Green New Deal, says gas, coal fails in Texas freeze
While millions of Texans were without power in Texas on Tuesday night below freezing temperatures. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) went on Fox News and told Sean Hannity that the failure of the state’s power grid “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States.” Abbott said “our wind and our solar power came to a standstill”, which drove Texas into a situation where the country did not have power. However, the main culprit for the power outages in Texas are failures in the natural gas sector, but Abbott returned his comments on Wednesday. “I was asked a question about renewable energy in one TV show, and I answered the question,” Abbott said. “Every power source for which the state of Texas has been compromised, whether renewable power such as wind or solar power, but also, as I mentioned today, access to coal-fired power, access to power generated by gas, has also been compromised.” The Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), which supplies 40 percent of Texas’ energy from natural gas plants, 23 percent from wind turbines, 18 percent from coal and 11 percent from nuclear power.the Texas power grid.But in winter, only 7 percent of ERCOT’s capacity comes from wind sources. ‘Texas is still fueled by fossil fuels’, and it’s obviously stupid to suggest that’ the Republicans running the state accidentally adopted a Green New Deal that eliminates fossil fuels and the reliability of the network destruction ‘, writes Michael Grunwald at Politico. “The real problem in Texas is the frantic weather, and unfortunately climate change is producing much more freaky weather.” a phenomenon that Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe calls ‘globally strange’. Abbott, when declaring the failures in Texas, pleaded on Wednesday that “this is a cold front once in 120 years to which we must respond.” But “today only a fool expects a hundred-year-old drought or flood or snowfall event once every hundred years,” Grunwald said, and Texas – and America – must prepare for it. More stories from theweek.com Trump gets away from hiding The power grid in Texas has mostly failed due to natural gas. Republicans blame wind turbines. Rush Limbaugh’s Estate: A Guide for Insiders