Forget the Alamo. Remember the frozen sensors and pumps and pipes in the Texas power grid.
Those were the major causes of the last big power outages in the Lone Star State, on Super Bowl Sunday in 2011. And they seem to be a big part of the problem in the current outages, the end of which Gov. Greg Abbott was unable to predict at a press briefing on Wednesday night.
Abbott did say that he has sought and received federal disaster aid and assistance from FEMA—and he sounded as if he were glad to have the feds as partners. Never mind that just three weeks ago he was down in Odessa talking as if he were declaring war on Washington, D.C. If the battle cry of the Alamo was “Come and take it!” Abbott goes by “Come and fake it!”
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In videos of yesterday’s briefing in Austin and of the Jan. 28 event in Odessa, Abbott is wearing what seems to be the same blue-grey zippered jacket with a governor’s emblem on the breast.
But in Odessa, Abbott may as well have been wearing a logo for the gas industry as he sought to demonstrate that the millions the energy industry has poured into his campaigns over the years was money well spent.
“Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington, D.C.,” Abbott declared. “President Biden’s embrace of the Green New Deal is a job-killer in Texas.”
He was sitting in an oil company facility with an oversized oil truck serving as a backdrop. He produced and signed an executive order embossed with a big gold seal. He read the text aloud:
“By the authority invested in me as governor by the constitutional laws of the state of Texas, I direct every state agency to use all lawful powers and tools to challenge any federal action that threatens the continued strength, vitality, and independence of the energy industry.”
His last major executive order had been a mask mandate that he finally implemented only after thousands had died of COVID-19. He was now mandating that the many facets of state government challenge federal efforts to regulate oil and gas interests in Texas.
“Each state agency should work to identify potential litigation, notice and comment opportunities and any other means of preventing federal overreach within the law,” he said, adding “That will arm Texas to be prepared to fight back."
He was clearly seeking to sound as if he were championing Texas freedom rather than just shilling for the industry that has long considered the state its fiefdom.
“We will not let cities use political correctness to dictate which energy source you use,” Abbott said.
On Feb. 15, millions of Texans suddenly had no energy source at all. Abbott’s initial response to the power outages that left so many in frigid darkness was reasonable enough.
“The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen,” he tweeted. “This includes the natural gas & coal generators. They are working to get generation back on line.”
But then he went on Sean Hannity’s show and signaled where his true loyalties lie. He was again his masters’ voice as he suggested that the failure of wind and solar energy sources are a major factor in the outages.
“So this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott said. “It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas, as well as other states, to make sure that we’ll be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.”
During Wednesday’s briefing, an insistent reporter caused Abbott to back off the Hannity remarks, saying he had simply been asked about renewable energy on “one TV show.”
“I responded to that question,” he said.
He noted that he had given “two dozen or more” other interviews regarding the crisis.
“I have repeatedly talked about how every source of power that the state of Texas has has been compromised... because of either the ultra-colder temperature or because of equipment failures,” he said.
He reported that the legislature intends to begin investigating the outages next week.
“That will begin a process where we fully evaluate exactly what was done and maybe what was not done,” he said.
He indicated that the process will be much the same as the last time Texas experienced such outages, a decade ago.
“We want to undertake the same type of review that was done in 2011, maybe reevaluate some of the decisions that were made in 2011,” he said. “We want to make sure we are capable of ensuring the state will be able to withstand cold spells like this time.”
He did not seem to grasp that the very fact it had happened again meant they had not fully learned the lesson of the previous outages.
The legislature had indeed held hearings immediately after the outage of 2011. The result was Senate Bill 1133, which required power providers to periodically file winterization reports. The reports seem to have disappeared into the bureaucracy with little result.
A more intensive and extensive investigation was conducted by an agency that Abbott has spoken of as an enemy, the Federal Regulatory Administration. The results are contained in a report titled “Outages and Curtailments During the Southwest Cold Weather Event, February 1- 5, 2011.”
The federal report—which also covers events in neighboring states—indicates that sensors containing water were one of a number of significant factors in the loss of power sources in Texas. The continued presence of such sensors would be a good indication that Texas has been too much of a lone star. So would any of the other factors.
The rest of the 2011 report seems to constitute a recipe for preventing such outages in the future. But somehow the fiasco was repeated, only far worse.
One of the lesser factors was the failure of wind-driven turbines. Even here the report suggests a remedy.
“Although manufacturers offer a ‘cold weather package’ that allows a turbine to continue operating in colder temperatures, it does not appear that the package is used in the Southwest,” the report notes.
The first wind turbine tower went up in Texas in 1999, when the future champion of the Green New Deal, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, was 10 years old. The state had been the country's leading producer of wind energy for more than a decade when AOC arrived in Congress.
But wind still accounts for no more than 7 percent of the state’s power supply.
“Gov. Abbott needs to get off TV pointing fingers & start helping people,” AOC tweeted after Abbott faked it on Hannity. “After that, he needs to read a book on his own state’s energy supply.”
Or maybe he could read that August 2011 report by the feds.
