South Australia in 2016; California last year; now, Texas. The recent blackout is a terrible ordeal for Texans but a political disaster for the Biden administration. The president had just signed an executive order making climate change the organizing principle of his administration. All coal and natural gas power stations are to be taken off the grid by 2035. To solve the climate crisis, America is to be powered almost exclusively by wind and solar, with a smattering of nuclear and hydropower.
As temperatures across Texas plunged, demand for heating surged. At 4 p.m. on February 14, Texas, with the most installed wind capacity of any state, was producing 9,101 megawatts (MW) of power. By 8 p.m. the following day, wind output was just 649 MW, a fall of 92.9%. Nuclear, coal, and gas generation fell too, but the wind drop-off was the largest in absolute terms and, with the exception of solar, in relative terms as well. As shown in the table, the drop in wind output accounted for 41.5% of the total fall.
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