Blowin’ In the Wind

By visdia @ Shutterstock.com

The best news of the week is taking a backseat to the unprecedented catastrophe in Texas, which should be the shining beacon of fossil fuel energy abundance and the envy of all, Francis Menton writes in the Manhattan Contrarian.

And yet in Texas this week, there has been a good blast of cold air, accompanied by some meaningful ice and snowstorms, and suddenly Texas finds itself with widespread power blackouts covering much of the state.

Although the levels of cold and ice have been somewhat unusual, they have also been well within the range of historical experience.

The simple answer is that despite its great abundance of fossil fuel energy, Texas nevertheless fell big for the ridiculous scam of trying to produce a high percentage of its electricity from wind. Yes, the story is somewhat more complicated than that, as stories always are. But not much more complicated.

Basically, with its grid stressed in many ways in the past week, the wind was useless to carry the load that needed to be carried.

Misleading reports claim the blackouts were caused by large numbers of natural gas and coal plants failing or freezing. The answer is so obvious it is right in your face. Here’s what really happened, explains Jason Isaac in the Federalist:

The vast majority of our fossil fuel power plants continued running smoothly, just as they do in far colder climates across the world. Power plant infrastructure is designed for cold weather and rarely freezes, unlike wind turbines that must be specially outfitted to handle extreme cold.

The difference is as intangible as the wind. Daniel Turner in the Federalist notes:

So serious is this percentage of the electric grid coming from unreliable wind power that more than two years ago, the Chair of Texas Public Utility Commission called lack of dependable electricity reserves “very scary.” Yet, Texans still saw three coal plants removed completely from the equation, even as a back-up, a safety net.

Now to this week’s best news:

Pitchers and catchers have officially reported to spring training.