During a Lower East Side press conference, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer mocked Texas for its deadly snow storm and says he hope they “learned a lesson” about significant energy issues and ignoring climate change. For millions who were left in the dark and cold for days and having to boil their drinking water, this is not what they expected elected officials to say. Dems couldn’t get any colder…
“The bottom line is, Texas thought it could go it alone and built a system that ignored climate change. It was not what’s called resilient, and now Texas is paying the price. I hope they learned a lesson,” Schumer said.
He talked about taking climate change into account when building power, referencing to Texas’ decision to stay off the country’s national power grid. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s largest utility company, went under fire for being unprepared for the storm that has killed more than 70 in the country, most in Texas. The power grid was “seconds and minutes” from a catastrophic failure that could’ve left Texans without power for months.
The problem with Schumer’s comment is that Texas has already invested billions into wind and solar. Over the past decade, Texas has become increasingly dependent on wind energy, closing three of their coal-fired plants. It makes up a small share of the state’s overall energy mix and accounted for 40% of the capacity shut down by the storm.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation had reported: “As temperatures dropped further Sunday night and electricity demand started rising, wind generation also began to drop, eventually bottoming out at 2% of installed capacity last night.” Solar panels don’t work with a couple of inches of snow on them and an icy storm can cause massive wind turbines to freeze up. The argument for replacing natural-gas electricity with wind and solar doesn’t work with unfavorable weather.
The left wants to use the threat of climate change to pass energy policies and remake the entire economy and government. Passing something like the Green New Deal, however, would make Americans more susceptible to power outages. The Green New Deal plans to virtually eliminate all fossil-fuel use in the United States over a 10-year period and replace most conventional power. 6.8 million jobs in traditional energy sectors would be wiped out and millions of acres of land would be destroyed building billions of new solar panels and a million new wind turbines.
If the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, blackouts will occur. But to the Dems, that’s not their problem. If anything, it’s a lesson.
