The climate-denying entertainers at Fox News were hyperventilating on Wednesday about how “liberal green climate policies” had left at least five million consumers in parts of the central and southern United States to face dangerously frigid temperatures without power as Arctic air knocked out power grids that couldn’t cope with the increased demand. As I happened to be scrolling by this morning, a popsicle with a human head popped out of a snow pile somewhere in Texas on my TV screen and intoned seriously:
"Millions of Americans in the cold and dark say the lack of power is because of green energy policies and the vilification of oil, gas, and coal—the stuff that really— keeps you warm.”
Before we go any further, let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that “millions of Americans woke up in the cold and dark” and said immediately to their familiars “Dang it, Edna. It’s them damned liberals with their fruity windmills and solar panels that did this. Kamala Harris must be impeached.”
I think most reasonable people can agree that millions of Americans did not say that but the story is an example of the kind of lazy lies and deliberate disinformation about climate change that right-wing media in America peddle every day.
What actually happened—and seems to be happening more frequently these days—is that the frigid air that usually rests over the Arctic is now swooping South because of warming changes to the jet stream, the air current that circles the Northern Hemisphere, and normally restrains the freezing polar vortex. When that happens, the midwest and the southern United States experience extremely cold weather and demands for energy soar in ways that most electric utilities never anticipated
In Texas, which was the worst-hit state, there is normally not that much demand for heat this time of year because the state has a generally temperate climate in winter. The utilities prepare for peak demand in the summer when residents spend much of their days and nights with the air conditioning running at full blast. Texas is uninhabitable without AC, IMHO.
Extreme storms are influenced by many factors, including the natural variability that affects all weather systems. Global warming is one factor. What we know for sure is that Northeast winter storms have increased sharply over the past decade. Of course, for climate deniers, freaky weather “proves” that climate change is a lie. If the planet is warming, why was it 3 degrees in San Antonio this morning? You can explain that weather and climate are not the same things until you’re blue in the face, but it’s not going to stop the big climate lie.
What happened this week is that the record-breaking chill caused millions of Texas residents to turn up their electric heaters and push the demand beyond the ability of grid operators to deliver. A lot of the state’s gas-fired power plants and even coal plants were knocked offline by icy conditions while other plants ran out of natural gas.
And, yes, some of the state’s wind turbines also froze and stopped working. An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, was offline.
The problem for the climate deniers is that 30 gigawatts—nearly double that—were lost from thermal sources, which include gas, coal, and nuclear energy.
You know, “the stuff that really keeps you warm.”
The real culprit of this story is the loose regulatory environment in Texas that allows grid operators to simply not consider that there might be extremely cold weather and plan in advance to deal with it. It’s about maximizing profits, stupid, not wind turbines.
You are reading the free version of the EarthWatch newsletter. My plan is to publish two or three updates a week—at least one of them free. If you want to receive all updates and special alerts, as well as read, comment and take part in the ongoing dialogue, you will need to subscribe. Thanks for your support.