The Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed defenders of green energy alternatives, such as wind power, for attempting to blame gas and coal power for the outages currently plaguing much of Texas.
“Between 12 a.m. on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16, wind power plunged 93% while coal increased 47% and gas 450%, according to the EIA,” the editors said. “Yet the renewable industry and its media mouthpieces are tarring gas, coal and nuclear because they didn’t operate at 100% of their expected potential during the Arctic blast even though wind turbines failed nearly 100%.”
As power outages affected millions of Texans the last three days, many critics were quick to pounce on the state’s reliance on wind power being at least partially to blame for the situation. Temperatures plunging into the single digits caused many of the turbines to freeze right at the moment a surge in demand for power was coming from many homes and businesses across the state.
But some also jumped in to defend the state’s renewable energy sources, claiming that it was actually the natural gas industry that failed to keep the lights on around Texas.
“Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage,” read the headline of a fact check by PolitiFact Wednesday.
The fact-checker cited a statement by Electric Reliability Council of Texas senior director Dan Woodfin to back up the claim.
“Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told Bloomberg that frozen gauges and instruments at natural gas, coal and nuclear plants cut into operations. Natural gas-fired plants also had to deal with low gas pressure in their supply lines,” PolitiFact reported.
But the Wall Street Journal pointed out that Woodfin had only been referring to Tuesday specifically, noting that most “wind power had already dropped offline last week.”
“Climate-change conformity is hard for the media to resist, but we don’t mind,” the editors said. “So here are the facts to cut through the spin.”
“Gas generation fell by about one-third between late Sunday night and Tuesday, but even then was running two to three times higher than usual before the Arctic blast,” the editors continued. “Gas power nearly made up for the shortfall in wind, though it wasn’t enough to cover surging demand.”
Far from being the cause of the failure, the editors argued, coal and natural gas production almost surged enough to prevent the disaster but fell just short amid an extraordinary storm that is rare in the state.
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The Wall Street Journal concluded that electrical infrastructure that depends on renewable energy sources still needs a “baseload power source to weather surges in demand.”
“Politicians and regulators don’t want to admit this because they have been taking nuclear and coal plants offline to please the lords of climate change,” the editors said. “But the public pays the price when blackouts occur because climate obeisance has made the grid too fragile. We’ve warned about this for years, and here we are.”
