The extreme cold, snow and ice blanketing Texas left up to 4.3 million without power in the state, which is more than what happened in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Laura, Katrina and Sandy COMBINED:
up to 4.3 million https://t.co/QoWQltGcMz
— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
Only Hurricane Irma with 7.5 million people without power is greater “weather hit to US electricity on record” (keep in mind, resources for Irma were pre-positioned to deal with power outages):
Texas closing in on FLA and Irma now
4.33 million total in Irma was 7.5 million, So this winter event now the 2cnd greatest weather hit to US electricity on record— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
Almost a million other Americans are without power, too:
Over 5.1 million electric customers are without power across the USA. With 4.3 million out in #Texas, as severe winter storms continue to cause significant impacts to the electric grid. Check out https://t.co/8cAFt3zGJe for #PowerOutage information! [2021-02-15 8:40PM EST] pic.twitter.com/x2LXUaTgKz
— PowerOutage.us (@PowerOutage_us) February 16, 2021
We shared Joe Bastardi’s tweets warning everyone that this was going to happen on February 11. Why didn’t the media take it more seriously?
NO SURPRISE TO OUR CLIENTS. KNEW IT A WEEK AWAY, WAS TWEETING ABOUT IT ALL LAST WEEK HERE FOR ANYONE THAT WOULD LOOK. https://t.co/XHNFDN5DPo pic.twitter.com/Qv04kYYXnm
— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state organization that controls the entire grid for Texas, thought they were prepared. They were not:
On Friday, “ERCOT said it had enough power to supply Texans and it was not implementing any emergency procedures.”
Texas’ power grid operator was not prepared, and appears to have been overly confident that they could manage this. THEY FAILED. https://t.co/JZ0CYiRznK
— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) February 16, 2021
Today will be another brutal day:
No changes, real ice storm problem east of I 35, between I 20 and I 10 in Texas and then northern LA pic.twitter.com/Ng8hK2nL2b
— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
One of the issues is that there is “virtually no wind” to drive the turbines:
virtually no wind in the west Texas wind field pic.twitter.com/SIMpiRSJ89
— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
Some tweets have tried to blame the power outages on frozen turbines, but the main driver appears to be offline fossil-fuel plants:
Wind has been producing ~1.5 GW less than ERCOT expected for a winter peak event, solar ~1 GW more than expected, & nuclear running 100%. Meanwhile, >30 GW of fossil plants, mostly natural gas, went down. So of course the narrative is — frozen wind turbines! ?♂️#RollingBlackouts
— Daniel Cohan (@cohan_ds) February 16, 2021
Oil prices have surged as the cold hit refinery plants in the state:
Oil Prices Hit New Highs Amid Texas Freeze https://t.co/lVgRWifHZv via @BreitbartNews
— Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) February 16, 2021
And the next shoe to drop will be higher electricity prices for consumers:
Another #electricity shocker in the making for some Texans: Big bills. One company is even telling customers they may be better off if they switch providers before the bills arrive. #texaspoweroutage #WinterStorm #txlege #electricrates #utilities #icestorm https://t.co/1U1gvEI21Z
— John Gravois (@Grav1) February 16, 2021
***
Join the conversation as a VIP Member