Triple Bottom Line: Ted Cruz and Texas — what’s actually happening
In the time since my last publication, the state of Texas saw a historic cold snap and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was allegedly held hostage in Cancún by his daughters against his will.
The storms that hit Texas have become increasingly politicized, and the media circus in the wake of the senator’s ill-advised tropical vacation have served to distract from the real issues at hand. What happened in Texas was a failure of the electrical grid to meet the demands of its customers, as well as a failure of state and national leaders to effectively come to the aid of their constituents.
Heavy winter storms have caused Texas to reach subzero temperatures and households across the state have been without water, heat or power, causing massive damage. Food supply chains have been disrupted, pipes have burst and coronavirus vaccinations have reached a standstill as Texans all over the state have been affected by the cold weather. To reduce unprecedentedly high demand on the state’s electrical grid, rolling blackouts were initiated to regulate consumption.
Many notable Republicans, including Texas’ own governor, Greg Abbott, have claimed that the outages were caused by the state’s increased reliance on renewable energy sources, particularly wind power. Abbott seized upon the initial statement released by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which cited the reason for outages as frozen wind turbines and a limited natural gas supply. While ERCOT later clarified that natural gas shortages were the primary reason for the energy deficit, Abbott took the opportunity to criticize the prospect of a Green New Deal, pointing fingers and condemning Texas’ — albeit extremely limited — reliance on renewable energy.
His claims are misleading and inherently false, shifting blame away from a disjointed electrical grid and record-low temperatures that have affected transportation and power across all fuel types. While there’s no denying that ice-encrusted blades may have affected the wind turbines’ ability to perform at maximum efficiency, the problem extends beyond just one method of producing power.
While Texas has invested more in the implementation of solar and wind power plants in recent years, wind energy generates about 20% of electricity for the state, while natural gas supplies some 47% and coal at around 20% of the total energy produced. Contrary to the comments of Republicans, the state is still heavily reliant on fossil fuel energy, both for its own electricity sources and its economy; some of the world’s leading crude oil, natural gas and coal extractors areTexas-based. Abbott, who has collected campaign contributions from the oil and gas industries, pulls significantly more weight in the energy arena than he’s let on, and even has some oversight over ERCOT functions.
Texas winters are typically mild, meaning that there hasn’t been a need to winterize energy production equipment. This lack of preparedness was evident when pumps froze at nuclear plants, solar panels were blanketed with snow and the equipment for refining fossil fuels simply froze, limiting the amount of energy that was readily available.
Although storms of this caliber occur infrequently, infrastructure must be prepared to compensate accordingly, and power distribution systems across the country should engage in mandatory weatherization to prepare for emergencies. Despite Abbott’s assertions, technology to run wind farms in icy conditions does exist, however, the weatherization needed to do so was not done in Texas.
Unlike other states, Texas features a deregulated energy market with numerous independent utilities competing in the market, focusing on offering the lowest possible prices instead of building long-term resilience. The Texas power grid, operated by ERCOT, is separated from the other 47 contiguous states and is designed to stay within the state, avoiding interstate federal regulation, meaning Texans were unable to borrow power from other sources. ERCOT doesn’t have the capability to force more capacity online; it can only adjust monetary incentives for privately-owned energy utilities.
While this typically works well, as Texas has large reserves of both fossil fuels and renewable sources, the system was stressed due to weather and gas shortages and many natural gas power plants were temporarily shut down. With some energy sources down, energy officials severely underestimated the power demand and initiated blackouts to prevent the entire grid’s shutdown. While it’s entirely possible that blackouts still would have occurred had Texas been connected to the federal grid, it could have helped mitigate the stress placed on private energy providers.
Texas’s outages serve as another reminder of the stress on our energy system caused by more extreme, climate change-driven weather occurrences. From severe blizzards and rampant wildfires to excessive heat waves, anthropogenic climate change only serves to make our weather more drastic. This is compounded by the ever-increasing demands and reliance on the power grid, which is projected to continue growing as populations increase and as we electrify more cars and homes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Rolling blackouts are an effective way to temporarily shut off power in response to an energy shortage. By lessening the power available in a controlled way, energy workers are preventing more widespread outages.
However, this is not a sustainable long-term solution. Our electricity infrastructure is inadequate — it was designed for fewer people on the grid, and as the Texas snow storms have shown us, it doesn’t have the capacity to anticipate and accommodate extreme weather events that have become commonplace across the United States. Additionally, privately-owned companies and state-regulated monopolies alike are slow to proactively implement change and maintenance that may prevent future weather-related disruptions in the grid.
Building more energy transmission lines will help reduce the reliance on a single one if the connection is somehow disrupted and also helps incorporate more clean sources of power to store energy. While costs to maintain, revamp and expand energy infrastructure are undoubtedly high, the cost of not improving our energy systems is even higher when lives lost and buildings and houses damaged are taken into account. Although every region has its own unique vulnerabilities, an increased emphasis on climate change mitigation strategies in the energy sphere at a local level is more important than ever, as there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Investing in infrastructure will streamline energy production processes, as well as create more resilient distribution systems, generate more equitable accessibility to regular sources of power and make it easier to transition to relying more heavily upon renewables. The situation in Texas should make it clear to policymakers that Americans rely on electricity now more than ever before, and our current system is not anywhere close to where it should be.
And, obviously, political leaders shouldn’t abandon their freezing constituencies for the warm beaches of Cancún. Despite Abbott’s unfounded accusations, a Green New Deal is still necessary, and it needs to recognize the vulnerability of existing power grids and infrastructures, making sure that there is adequate and ample supply and storage that can withstand the weather.
Montana Denton is a junior writing about environmental issues, sustainability and society. Her column, “Triple Bottom Line,” runs every other Thursday.