Thread by @JustinHGillis

Much as I admire @russellgold and many other WSJ news reporters, I am sick of the lies of @WSJopinion. They came out of the gate blaming green energy for Texas problem on basis of no facts. Let's look at some facts, shall we? 1/13

As Arctic blast descended on Texas, power grid peaked late the evening of 2/14, pumping out 68 gigawatts of power. But then equipment started to fail. Generation dropped drastically over course of 2/15, and blackouts began. 2/13

Now, it is true that as the cold front moved over Texas, wind power boomed, peaking at 8 gigawatts. And also true that once the frigid, still air settled on the state, wind power dropped way off. This is exactly what you would expect and plan for. 3/13

It's also true that some wind turbines froze up, since many in Texas apparently lack weatherization package. Don't think we know yet what the breakdown was between turbines freezing and turbines just losing wind. 4/13

But fossil plants were also freezing! Gas tripped offline, coal tripped offline, even one nuke plant tripped offline from a frozen pump. All day Monday into Tuesday, things kept getting worse. Blackouts spread across Texas. 5/13

When things bottomed out, the state grid had gone from pumping out 68 gigawatts to supplying only 43. Massive! Let's call that the "hole" in the Texas grid: 25 gigawatts of missing power. 6/13

By now, natural gas lines were seizing up. Wellheads were freezing. Homeowners who burn gas were getting priority of supply. So even gas-fired power plants that managed to get themselves unfrozen were short of gas. 7/13

When we look at all sources, which contributed most to the 25 gigawatt hole? Turbines were down 6 GW from their peak, so they were responsible for 25% of the hole. That's a big deal, but again, somewhat expected in this kind of worst-case "extreme low wind" event. 8/13

Coal plants tripping offline made up 12% of hole. Nuke plant that tripped was 5%. But the gas that went down — that was 57% of electricity hole! And unlike turbines, the gas /coal / nuke dropoff was NOT expected. You should be able to run those plants in cold weather. 9/13

Texas has made a conscious decision to be an electricity island, largely unconnected to USA. If it had big power lines going east and west, other states might have helped plug the power hole, but Texas has always said, 'Nah, we're good.' 10/13

I say you SHOULD be able to run gas plants in cold weather, but they need to be "winterized." Texas has refused to apply any mandatory standards telling power plants or gas suppliers to do this. And Texas has been specifically warned about the implications. 11/13

In fact, less disruptive power outages occurred during a big cold snap in 2011, producing a 400-page federal report suggesting that Texas winterize its grid. And Texas said, 'Nah, we're good.' 12/13

If I were a Texan right now, I would not be trying to blame any energy source for the debacle. All of them can freeze if unprotected. Instead, I would be looking pretty hard at the politicians who keep saying, 'Nah, we're good.' Whose interests are they serving? END