Having lived in Texas for a few years I know a number of Texans right now that have not had power for nearly 48 hours with freezing causing a real terrible situation.

Much of this is caused because Texas has an isolated power grid with 3 interconnects to other states and 3 to Mexico - through what is known as ERCOT. ERCOT was founded in 1970 and covers most of Texas. Much of this was fueled by a secessionist attitude many Texas lawmakers take, as well as a want to avoid federal regulations. A push to deregulate even more was in the late 90s and much of ERCOT is powered by an aging and neglected coal and natural gas infrastructure.

I’ve seen a number of talking points saying that this is all because renewable energy such as wind and solar are failing Texas - which isn’t the case. Not only do modern wind turbines handle ice and snow through some neat mechanisms, most of the 80% power deficit has to do with the [natural gas, coal, and nuclear losing capacity][23. Natural gas pipelines froze, coal couldn’t be shipped, and nuclear plants did not have the abilities to prevent the cooling water reservoirs from potentially freezing.

This all ends up hurting the citizens of Texas - where rolling power outages turning into several day outages as ERCOT scrambles to make up for the shortages. Folks are cold, hungry, and don’t have water.

It’s a bad situation.