A deep freeze this week in the Lone Star state, which relies on electricity to
heat many homes, is causing power demand to skyrocket. At the same time,
natural gas, coal, wind and nuclear facilities in Texas have been knocked offline
by the unthinkably low temperatures.
"The extreme cold is causing the entire system to freeze up," said
Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy
Policy. "All sources of energy are underperforming in the extreme cold
because they're not designed to handle these unusual conditions.''
The ripple effects are being felt around the nation as Texas' prolific
oil-and-gas industry stumbles.
It's striking that these power outages are happening in a state with abundant
energy resources. Texas produces more electricity than any other US state -
generating almost twice as much as Florida, the next-closest, according to
federal statistics.
Wind power is also booming in Texas, which produced about 28% of all the US
wind-powered electricity in 2019, the EIA said. But the problem is that not
only is Texas an energy superpower, it tends to be an above-average temperature
state. That means its infrastructure is ill-prepared for the cold spell
currently wreaking havoc. And the consequences are being felt by millions.
Critics of renewable energy have pointed out that wind turbines have frozen or
needed to be shut down due to the extreme weather.
Even though other places with colder weather (like Iowa and Denmark) rely on
wind for even larger shares of power, experts said the turbines in Texas were
not winterized for the unexpected freeze.
But this is not just about wind turbines going down. Natural gas and coal-fired
power plants need water to stay online. Yet those water facilities froze in the
cold temperatures and others lost access to the electricity they require to
operate.
It's too early to definitively say what went wrong in Texas and how to prevent
similar outages. More information will need to be released by state
authorities. Still, some experts say the criticism of wind power appears
overdone already. "ln terms of the blame game, the focus on wind is a red
herring. It's more of a political issue than what is causing the power problems
on the grid," said Dan Cohan, associate professor of environmental
engineering at Rice University.
The energy crisis in Texas raises also questions about the nature of the state's
deregulated and decentralized electric grid. Unlike other states, Texas has
made a conscious decision to isolate its grid from the rest of the country.
That means that when things are running smoothly, Texas can't export excess
power to neighboring states. And in the current crisis, it can't import power
either.
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