Millions of Texans are without power as the state is experiencing a massive outage due to a historic freeze and an electrical grid that – unlike the other 47 neighboring states – is separate from the rest of the country and not under federal regulatory oversight. That prevents Texas from borrowing power from other states.
The crisis has become a political flashpoint in Texas on issues at the heart of the economy, with some of the world’s largest energy companies headquartered there, and the environment, with Republican leaders in Texas insisting they don’t want to be in charge following Democracy-led California and other states that have embraced renewable energy sources in a broader sense.
Early in the crisis, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state’s power grid, said frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies had caused more than normal power outages; since then, additional disruptions have greatly exacerbated outages. ERCOT officials later made it clear that the problems with the natural gas system were primarily responsible for the distribution challenges.
But that clarification came too late for Abbott, who used the phrase “frozen wind turbines” in the original ERCOT statement, when he appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and said the failures point to problems using renewable energy sources.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott said in right-wing opinion leader Sean Hannity’s program, condemning a proposal from the New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives did not become law and did not progress very far in Congress. “It just goes to show that fossil fuel is needed by the state of Texas, as well as other states, to ensure that we can heat our homes in the winter and cool our homes in the summer.”
But solar and wind power only make up a fraction of Texas’ energy supply, especially in the winter.
“We have a power grid dominated by fossil fuels,” said Michael Webber, a professor of energy resources at the University of Texas at Austin. He said it is “disingenuous to fight the power grid” due to renewable energy, which makes up a relatively small part of the state’s energy supply.
“It’s really a bigger outage of the natural gas system,” said Webber. “That’s the part that really struggled to keep up.”
He said a lack of winterization was affecting power in Texas across the board: pumps freeze at a nuclear power plant. Coal heaps and equipment froze. The equipment of some natural gas plants froze and the supply fell too low. Wind turbines were hindered by ice on their blades. Solar panels were covered with snow.
“Wind performs well in much colder climates where they prepare for it,” said Webber.
Republicans like Abbott “point to a unique tree in a forest and miss the forest,” said Daniel Cohan, a professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. “It’s been a long list of what went wrong in this crisis, and really successive failures on top of each other.”
“Planners don’t expect wind and solar to bear the lion’s share on the hottest hours of summer or the coldest hours of winter,” Cohan said, pointing to planning documents from Texas power grid operators, which show the state that expected to be much more dependent on natural gas in winter. Focusing on wind shortages rather than natural gas disruptions, he said, is “very misleading.”
Abbott’s comments were harshly criticized by Texas Democrats, who accused him of avoiding blame for the state’s failure.
“He neglected the state’s outdated and deregulated electrical grid. Now 4.4 million Texans have no power in freezing temperatures,” said Castro.
However, many Republicans delivered a message similar to Abbott’s, blaming renewable energy, despite its minimal role in the colossal crisis facing the country’s second most populous state.
“The Green New Deal has just turned out to be unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable,” tweeted Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.
Other Republicans oppose calls for regulatory action to prevent a similar disaster from happening again, as global warming contributes to an increase in extreme weather.
Rick Perry, former Texas governor and energy secretary to former President Donald Trump, said the residents of the state would be willing to endure power outages in order for federal regulators to keep new oversight of the Texas grid.
“Texans would be without electricity for more than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” Perry says “in part rhetorically,” in a blog post on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy website. “Whatever the crisis of the day, try not to take your eyes off a resilient network that keeps America personally, economically and strategically safe.”
Abbott, for his part, has called for reforms from the Texas Electric Reliability Council, the nonprofit that controls most of the state’s electrical grid, making it an emergency issue ahead of the Texas state legislature in 2021. He said Tuesday that it was “anything but reliable for the past 48 hours” and has called on ERCOT’s leadership to resign in local interviews.
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans have been criticized for their comments mocking California, which faced a similar energy crisis last summer.
“This is what will happen if the Democrats stay at the helm. Why California’s liberal climate policy is causing electricity outages,” tweeted Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in August 2020.
“The California politicians did this, not the heat,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton tweeted in September.
“Biden / Harris / AOC want to make CA’s failed energy policy the national norm,” tweeted Texas Senator Ted Cruz in August. “I hope you don’t like air conditioning!”
Cruz, for his part, wasn’t trying to defend his old tweets.
Some Democrats pointed to those tweets, saying Texas Republicans should support other states when faced with crises.
“I hope this will teach Texas politicians to stop dunking in other states when they go through disasters,” tweeted Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat. “All Americans deserve help and empathy from fellow Americans, be it a blue or red state.”