February 19, 2021
By Ariel Cohen
Let’s not mince words (click here) – the energy crisis in Texas is an unmitigated disaster on all fronts. Some 4.4 million people have been without power, heat, and running water for days and lack of the state grid’s preparation is to blame. Texas loves to brag about its energy independence and self-reliant electrical grid. But the events of the past week underscore that America’s largest energy producer is not as energy secure as once thought. About 90% of the Lone Star State is powered by a Texas-only power grid, but the current events strongly suggest that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) should join a regional transmission organization to meet energy demands.
Texas’ energy island, compounded by a failure to weatherize renewable and thermal power sources, led to the worst energy crisis in the country since the Northeast Power Outage of 2003. So far 30 people have died and hundreds have been poisoned by carbon monoxide from generators in their house or by car exhaust, trying to stay warm. What’s worse, we failed to prepare the country for the expectable pandemic, and now we have also failed to prepare a large section of the country to cope with fully expectable weather conditions. These are massive failures of resilience our geopolitical enemies take very seriously.
Climate change is empirically leading to more frequent and more extreme weather events on both sides of the thermometer – this is a fundamental reality. At the same time, America’s energy infrastructure has grown increasingly fragile, with vulnerabilities put on display over the years in California, New York, and now Texas....
