Millions of Texans remain without power as the state experiences a massive failure through a historic freeze and a power network that – unlike the other 47 adjoining states – is separated from the rest of the country and not under federal supervision. This prevents Texas from borrowing power from other states.
The crisis has become a political hotspot in Texas over issues that are at the heart of its economy, with some of the world’s largest energy companies headquartered, and the environment, with Republican leaders in Texas insisting they do not want the lead follows from Democrat-led California and other states that have widely accepted renewable energy sources.
Early in the crisis, the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), which manages the state’s power grid, said frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supply caused power outages of higher than normal cause; since then, additional failures have sharply exacerbated the disruptions. ERCOT officials later made it clear that the problems with the natural gas system were mainly responsible for the distribution challenges.
But the clarification comes too late for Abbott, who grabbed the phrase ‘frozen wind turbines’ in the original ERCOT statement when he appeared on Fox News on Tuesday night, saying the failures indicated problems with accepting renewable energy sources.
“It shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States,” Abbott said on the program of right-wing opinion leader Sean Hannity and a proposal from the rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives condemned. did not become law and did not progress far in Congress. “It just shows that fossil fuels are needed for the state of Texas, as well as other states, to make sure we can heat our homes in the winter and cool our homes in the summer.”
But solar and wind energy make up a fraction of Texas’ energy supply, especially in the winter.
“We have a fossil-dominated network,” said Michael Webber, a professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin. He said it was ‘unimportant to blame the network’s struggle’ on renewable energy, which forms a relatively small part of the state’s energy supply.
“It’s really a bigger failure of the natural gas system,” Webber said. “This is the part that really struggled to keep up.”
He said a lack of overwintering is affecting the power supply in Texas: pumps have frozen at a nuclear power station. Coal stacks and equipment froze. Some equipment for natural gas plants froze and stocks fell too low. Wind turbines were stopped by ice on their blades. Solar panels were covered with snow.
“Wind performs well in much colder climates where they prepare for it,” Webber said.
Republicans like Abbott “point to one unique tree in a forest and miss the forest,” said Daniel Cohan, a professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. “It was a long list of what went wrong in this crisis, and really failures on top of each other.”
“Planners do not expect wind and solar power to carry the lion’s share in the hottest hours of summer or in the coldest hours of winter,” Cohan said, pointing to the planning documents from Texas power grid managers, which show that the state expects to rely much heavier on natural gas in winter. Concentrating on wind shortages rather than natural gas faults is, according to him, ‘very misleading’.
Abbott’s comments sharply criticize the Democrats in Texas, who have accused him of trying to alleviate the blame for the state’s failures.
“He has neglected the state’s outdated and deregulated electrical network. Now 4.4 million Texans have no power in freezing conditions,” Castro said.
Many Republicans, however, delivered a message similar to Abbott, blaming renewable energy despite the minimal role in the colossal crisis facing the country’s second most populous state.
“The Green New Deal was just unsustainable, as renewables are clearly unreliable,” tweeted Colorado representative Lauren Boebert.
Other Republicans opposed calls for regulatory intervention to prevent a similar catastrophe from occurring again, as global warming helped lead to an increase in extreme weather.
Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas and former president Donald Trump’s energy secretary, said residents of the state will be willing to endure power outages to deter federal regulators from new oversight of the Texas network.
“Texans would be without electricity for more than three days to keep the federal government out of their affairs,” Perry said in a blog post on Kevin McCarthy’s website, “partially rhetorical.” “Try not to allow the crisis of the day to have a resilient network that keeps America personally, economically and strategically secure.”
In turn, Abbott called for reforms from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit organization that controls the majority of the state’s power grid, making it a vital issue for the 2021 legislative session in Texas. He said on Tuesday that it had been “anything but reliable” for the past 48 hours and called on ERCOT’s leadership to resign in local interviews.
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans have come under fire for their comments mocking California, which faced a similar energy crisis last summer.
“This is what happens when Democrats are at the helm of affairs. Why California’s liberal climate policy is causing a power outage,” Texas Lieutenant General Dan Patrick tweeted in August 2020.
“California politicians did it, not the heat,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted in September.
“Biden / Harris / AOC wants to make CA’s failed energy policy a nationwide standard,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted in August. “Hope you do not like air conditioning!”
Cruz, in turn, did not try to defend his old tweets.
Some Democrats pointed to the tweets, saying the Republicans of Texas should support other states when they experience crises.
“I hope this will teach Texas politicians to stop locating other states when they go through disasters,” tweeted Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego. “All Americans deserve help and empathy from fellow Americans, no matter if it is a blue or red state.”