Officials say the situation in Texas is terrible, as about 3 million homes and businesses remain without power due to a deadly record storm. As some of the coldest temperatures in decades hit the Lone Star State, many people blamed it on an unusual source: wind turbines.
While the state’s power grid can handle the scorching hot summers, it is not nearly as prepared for severe winter weather – extremes which is expected to only worsen as the climate crisis escalates. Frozen wind turbines across the state have led some conservative politicians to declare it renewable energy is responsible for the disaster and power outages.
“This is what happens when you force the network to rely in part on wind as a power source,” Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw said. tweeted Tuesday. “When the weather conditions get bad like this week, there is no alternating renewable energy like wind when you need it.”
“We must never build a wind turbine in Texas again,” Sid Miller, Texas’ commissioner of agriculture, wrote on Facebook. “The experiment failed miserably.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed the sentiment and took the opportunity to criticize the Green New Deal.
“It shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States,” Abbott said. said to Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday. “Our wind and solar power came to a standstill, and together they accounted for more than 10% of our power grid, and that drove Texas into a situation where the country did not have power.”
But the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), which supplies about 90 percent of the state with its power, said Tuesday wind power is responsible for only a fraction of the loss. Of the 45,000 megawatts of power that were offline during the peak, 30,000 megawatts came from natural gas, while 16,000 megawatts came from wind turbines.
“Of the power shortage that hit Texas, more than 80% was due to problems at coal and gas-fired plants,” PolitiFact reported.
Experts believe that traditional energy sources, including coal and natural gas, are performing below expectations, while wind power has actually performed above expectations.
“The most important story is still the failure of thermal power plants – natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants – which ERCOT reckons will be there when needed. They have failed,” said Jesse Jenkins, a professor of engineering at Princeton. tweeted Tuesday. “Those of you who have heard that frozen wind turbines are to blame for this, think again. The extreme demand and the interruption of the thermal power stations is the main cause.”
Proponents of renewable energy civil servants explode because they only blame the case on turbines.
‘It is shameful to see the antagonists of clean power “whether it’s attacking, whether it’s raining, snowing or shining the sun – engaging in a politically opportunistic character that is misleading Americans into promoting an agenda that has nothing to do with restoring power in Texas communities,” Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, said in a statement on Tuesday: “This is an extreme weather problem, not a clean power problem. If anything, it shows why we need to invest in the expansion. of more renewable energy sources with better transfer and storage to replace obsolete systems. ‘
Both ERCOT and energy analysts believe that natural gas, which supplies just over a third of the power in Texas and heats about 40% of its homes, is largely to blame for the outages.
“By far the biggest disruptions are coming from our natural gas plants,” Daniel Cohan, associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, told Irina Ivanova, CBS MoneyWatch reporter. ‘A section was down for scheduled maintenance. Others are not designed to work reliably in cold weather, and others have not yet been able to get enough natural gas supply. ‘
“It seems that much of the generation that went offline today was mainly due to problems with the natural gas system,” Dan Woodfin, senior director of ERCOT, told reporters.
Abbott also acknowledged this, in contrast to his comments on Fox News. “The capacity of some power generation companies has been frozen. This includes the natural gas and coal generators,” he said. tweeted Monday.
Furthermore, there are anti-icing methods available to operate wind turbines in icy temperatures, but Texas did not invest in it due to the barely cold weather there.
“Iowa and Denmark get a larger percentage of their power than we do. There are many ways to overwinter many of these power providers, but it costs money and it requires power and maintenance,” Cohan said. “In Texas and the South, we were more focused on keeping our lights on in the summer.”
ERCOT said they were prepared for winter storms – but even their most predictions were surpassed by this week’s heavy weather, and demand for power soared. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, almost every energy source was damaged during the storm.
Texas is the only state in the continental US that has its own separate power grid – it is not regulated by the federal government and is not cut off from neighboring states. Abbott on Tuesday ordered an investigation into ERCOT.
“The Texas Electric Reliability Board has been anything but reliable for the past 48 hours. Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes,” he said in a statement. statement. “This is unacceptable.”