As Texans faced record low temperatures this February and snow and ice made roads impassable, the states electric grid operator had lost control of the power supply, leaving millions without access to electricity. As the blackouts extended from hours to days, top state officials called for investigations into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and Texans are demanding accountability for the disaster. Reports started coming in earlier this week that over half the wind turbines in the state of Texas were frozen and not producing any energy. This number grew into almost 3/4 of the turbines in Texas had frozen solid and weren't producing energy. The only wind turbines that weren't frozen were the turbines that sit in the Gulf of Mexico where temperatures didn't drop as low as the rest of the state. State officials began blasting the wind turbines and their inability to produce power when Texans needed it most. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said, "We should never build a wind turbine in Texas". Of course liberal democrats were quick to come to the wind turbines aid and point the blame for power loss elsewhere. The fact remains that the 45 gigawatts total were offline, 20 of those 45 gigawatts lost came from the failed wind turbines and renewable energy. (numbers provided by the ERCOT) So despite the liberal left trying to shift blame onto oil and gas, almost half the states energy was lost due to frozen wind turbines and renewable energy. Oh but there is more. Since the snow and ice started to accumulate across Texas, we heard mayors from across the state (San Antonio, Dallas & Houston) tell Texan's to reduce energy usage, turn off unused lights, don't crank the heater up so high, etc. At the same time, the lights in empty downtown buildings were lighting up the nights skyline, using precious energy that could have warmed your families home. It wasn't until day 3 of the power outages, before those empty buildings finally turned off their lights to reduce energy consumption, but by then it was too late, 21 Texans had lost their lives in the storm. Meme below was not made by TITFF, not our grammar mistake. Now for the ERCOT. The ERCOT operates Texas's electric grid. Did you know that a third of the Board of Directors for the ERCOT are not Texans and don't live in Texas? When Texas lawmakers found this out, they started calling for change, but Texans were already angered by this. No one should control the Texas electric grid that lives thousands of miles a way. One has to believe that if Texans were in charge of the board, things would have been a little different. The ERCOT even had to pull pictures of these board members in fear they would be targeted by angry Texans. Texas Rep Leech is drafting legislation that would require the ERCOT board to live in Texas to hold that position. In San Antonio, Texas, mayor Ron Nirenberg boasted about the fact that he opened the Henry B Gonzales Convention Center to house 500 families who did not have power. Sounds good right? Unfortunately San Antonio has almost 2 million residents, so that 500 families wasn't much help at all. A drop in the bucket. When asked why there wasn't more facilities open (like the Alamo Dome, etc.), he responded that Covid was still a thing. So it's ok to allow Texans to die from lack of heat, but for God's sake don't break Covid precautions, you might kill people. Do you see the problem? We will end this article by saying this, Texas needs to make some changes to ensure our power grid is capable of handling weather events like these. Although we rarely see storms like the one we are in now, we should be ready for them. In 2011 we had a winter storm hit Texas and yes we had rolling blackouts (although they weren't as bad as now), but we never fixed the problem. We still produce the most natural gas and oil in the USA, so lets protect those systems for cold weather, so we never have to face this problem again. In the same sense, we must get rid of our incompetent mayors who allow energy to be wasted on empty downtown buildings, just so they can look good from afar. Let's learn from this and correct these problems.
3 Comments
Ron Frame
2/20/2021 11:24:29 am
Good article. Hopefully not too late to wake up and fix the problems. Texas First is my new motto. Use our resources here and let California and New York depend on their green energy.
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David Orlando
2/21/2021 02:38:31 pm
I sure do like the Texas First Motto.
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PATRICE C
3/8/2021 03:17:36 pm
We are overloaded and use more electricity than ever before, including charging electric cars. I disagree strongly that we are positioned for extremely hot weather. Perhaps it is a little better than subzero, but rolling blackouts still occur frequently during 100+ degree weather.
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