Federal report on Texas deep freeze whitewashes green energy

 Wall Street Journal:

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The report focuses on the failures at natural gas plants, which experienced mechanical problems and fuel shortages as temperatures plunged and equipment froze. Texas’s grid regulators compounded these problems by mistakenly shutting off power to gas processors and plants.

According to the report, gas plants accounted for 55% of the power-plant capacity that failed during the freeze compared to 22% for wind, 18% for coal and 1% for solar. But actual power generation in Texas increased 400% for gas and 25% for coal in the week before the power outage. Solar and wind power fell 80% and 55%, respectively.

The solar industry hilariously tooted that solar “performed as expected during the February 2021 Texas blackout” and is a “predictable, reliable and affordable clean energy source.” Solar performed the worst of any source and produced less than 1% of state power during the freeze. But hey, regulators expect solar to be predictably unreliable.

FERC recommends weatherizing power plants, but the costs will be hard to absorb for fossil-fuel generators that run at very low levels except when they’re needed to back up green energy.

Here is the fundamental problem: Hefty subsidies allow renewable producers to pay to offload their power in competitive wholesale markets and still make a profit. This erodes the economics of baseload power generators and makes the grid less reliable. All of this is worth keeping in mind as Democrats pour more subsidies into green energy and attempt to regulate fossil fuels to death.
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President Biden should be begging U.S. gas companies to expand production to make sure Americans don’t lose power and heat this winter. But he won’t lest he upset the climate lobby, and if there are shortages or price spikes, Mr. Biden will blame fossil fuels.

If you are going to rely on green energy you better have a good supply of firewood handy to stay warm in extremely cold weather.  A good wood stove will provide heat even when the power is off which is what happens when you rely on wind and solar energy.  Europe is already suffering from its reliance on wind energy and California has trouble keeping the lights on with its reliance on wind and solar.  It looks like the Biden administration wants us all to be freezing in the dark with their war on fossil fuels.