>>>Happens there's an example right now of the way the Republican party has decided to privilege power over truth (and, incidentally, over taking care of the people who elect them). There's a polar vortex over the US right now and it resulted in unusual freezing temperatures and snow in Texas. The result has been that millions of Texans have been without power for several days.
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>>>Okay, stuff happens. But a ton of Texas Republicans, as well as right-wing media, have made public statements blaming the problem on the Green New Deal, which hasn't yet been passed. Some don't go quite that far and instead blame it on the failure of wind turbines in Texas. The problem is that wind provides less than 20% of Texas's power, and in fact, the reality is that many of the fossil fuel plants failed in the cold weather. Another part of the reality is that, unlike the other 47 states in the mainland US, Texas's power grid is not connected to that of other states. That's because Texas wanted to avoid federal regulation. In addition, the reason so much of the grid has failed is that the state and the power companies chose not to winterize, even after several close calls in the recent past.
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>>>And just to clarify, Texas has been under Republican rule for quite some time. GOP governors since 1994, the legislature has been under full GOP control since 2003 and the Texas Senate has been controlled by the GOP since 1997.
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>>>Tamar
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>>I'm involved in a project with some people in Dallas - they have no power and they're completely out of business.
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>That, too, but my biggest concern is how many people are going to die because of this. I donated yesterday to an org helping get people out of the cold.
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>Tamar

Agreed the problem is not the Green New Deal -- since it has not been passed. The problem is not enough reserve power and reliable power in all conditions. There were failures (I understand due to freezing) of the wind turbines - the percentage does not matter. The reality is that there is now not enough power. Lets suppose that most of the states now under snow also had wind turbines providing up to 40% of their power needs (I believe this is the amount that the wind turbines provide in Texas). A lot of these turbines would now also be frozen and out of commission. More states would have had people without power.

Alternative power is now be needed (reserve power). As you pointed out, there were fossil fuel plants that failed -- this is actually very understandable. Machinery likes to run, when it is not used for long periods of time it will rapidly deteriorate. The boilers, pumps, turbines, and other equipment needed for the power generation basically can fail. Had they been running all along, they are less likely to fail under the current weather conditions. Texas has a number of nuclear power plants -- these are run universally at full power (as a side note -- I was a plant engineer at a nuclear facility for 13 years before shifting to programming SAP) since they are very economical to run and produce power at 100%. So Texas has these and what ever else is running. But the reserve power is not enough and hence people have rotating blackouts.

This has occurred in California as well (rotating blackouts) due to insufficient reserve power. California actually receives a large portion of its power from Mexico just south of the border. In the early 2000's I worked with the Mexican electric company on contract and learned this. The Mexican are all fossil fuel plants. So California declaring it self 'Green' and closed most (if not all) of their fossil plants and consumed the electricity from Mexico. They only shifted the CO2 production to someone else -- it is still there. To go truly 'Green' you have to now use any electricity generated by fossil fuels.

Back to reliable power which we all want. I think it is now oblivious that wind turbines are susceptible to failure in harsh weather conditions during the winter. So are solar panels -- they are covered by snow and no longer can produce power. So while these two solutions should be pursued (wind and solar), we also have to have reliable power available. Dams are another possible solution but can is only available where there is sufficient water to dam up and an area to hold the water (lake). So the plains states are not that great a candidate for this. The Green defenders don't want fossil fuel (gas or coal) so that leaves only nuclear power (which most also do not want). France is a big proponent of Green power -- around 70% of their power is provided by nuclear. Other countries too have high nuclear power generation.

So had the entire mid-west states all been at 40% wind power we would have a massive problem for the entire country. As a whole country we would have had to have rotating blackouts to share the power out west. I for one do not want this and want to pursue having reliable reserve power in the best form. So I would advocate the use of more nuclear power. As a side note, California also had multiple nuclear power stations but have shut down all of them years ago.

Greg