Former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson about the drawbacks of over-reliance on “green” energy, as Texans recently found out when an ice storm left millions without power.
The two also issued a strong warning about the deadly consequences of empowering environmentalist ideologues at the expense of real-world results.
As of Monday night, roughly four million Texans were without power, and wondering why they had been left in the dark while wrapped in layers of clothing and blankets.
“The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union,” said Hirs. “It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances.” https://t.co/whFrncNOlL
— Matt Pearce ? (@mattdpearce) February 16, 2021
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What Went Wrong In Texas?
According to a Fox News report, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, estimated that approximately 10,000 megawatts of Texas’ wind generation energy capacity was taken offline by frozen wind turbines.
Wind is the second largest source of energy in Texas, and about half of their wind capability went down in the storm.
Texas generates nearly one fifth of its electricity using renewable energy sources such as wind power.
ERCOT stated that “about 10,500 [megawatts] of customer load was shed at the highest point,” – or approximately the amount of power needed for two million homes.
They went on to say that “Extreme weather conditions caused many generating units-across fuel types-to trip offline and become unavailable.”
Fox Business also reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbott had received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Energy on Sunday to allow for increased power production.
The fact that the governor would have to ask permission from Washington to increase production may be the beginning of what went wrong.
NEW: The Public Utilities Commission now tells me that about 500,000 residential customers are having power restored at this time.
They said to expect even more this evening. https://t.co/mfi9SumNNJ
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) February 15, 2021
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Concerns About ‘Green’ Energy And The ‘Green New Deal’
In former Governor Perry’s interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday, Perry voiced serious concerns about extreme Green New Deal ideology while also promoting “the need for a diversity of energy sources.”
He pointed out that, while there many wind farms in west Texas, they had all frozen due to the weather.
Because of that, “all that wind energy was lost,” Perry said.
Governor Perry went on to say that it was the job of those in government to “look over the horizon and see the challenges that may lie ahead,” emphasizing the importance of a diverse energy baseload everywhere – so that no single source could be so disruptive.
In explaining to Carlson what went wrong, he pointed to a number of factors. Texas had taken coal plants and nuclear plants offline. He explained that if the U.S. was going to continue to prosper, fossil fuels would have to be included in a number of reliable, diverse energy sources.
Perry also emphasized the use of natural gas, of which Texas itself is the largest supplier in the nation, and compact nuclear fusion reactors.
He also emphasized that wind and solar can be good additions, as is the case in Texas – but that they are not an end-all, be-all.
Perry and Carlson also blasted ideologues who are more intent on pushing their utopian beliefs than the outcomes for real people.
“Fast forward 10 years in an AOC world where everything is solar and wind, and you have this type of event. I mean, it’s 9 degrees in Roundtop Texas… You need power. There are countless lives that could be lost with this reckless adhering to a philosophy, that quite frankly, is not scientific.”
“The science tells us that if you have just wind and solar, it is going to get awfully cold in the winter, and it’s going to get awfully hot in the summer.”
Perry also said that they are using more energy right now during the cold snap in Texas than the hottest time of most summers.
Rick Perry On Freezing Texas Temps: Letting Green Energy Ideologues Control Our Energy Could Get People Killed. https://t.co/W9cJccfM8B
— Jack Blaine (@JackBlaine3) February 16, 2021
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How Are People Coping?
Like elsewhere in the southern U.S., many homes in Texas are not insulated for the kind of weather now gripping the Lone Star State.
As of Monday, Houston police said that at least two deaths had been attributed to the freezing temperatures.
Many more people were resorting to using dangerous methods of trying to keep warm, such as sleeping in cars with the engine running, and even using charcoal grills.
Because of this, several people were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning. Some store shelves were being emptied out and there were some reports of price gouging for basic supplies.
The extreme cold is unusual for Texas, but it had been predicted and there had been time for officials to prepare, according to the Houston Chronicle.
More than two million households in Texas have had power outages during this historic snow storm, according to the people who run the Texas power grid. https://t.co/n7dvU02nPE
— KTXS News (@KTXS_News) February 16, 2021
Watch the complete interview with Tucker Carson and former Gov. Rick Perry below: