Wind Turbines Are Not the Cause of Texas Power Outages
The Claim
Wind turbines caused the Texas power outages.
News posted on
Emerging story
On February 16th, Senator John Cornyn tweeted a link to an article stating that “Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output.” That same day, Rep. Dan Crenshaw started a Twitter thread that aimed to inform the public of the reasons that Texas was experiencing power shortages. He named the #1 reason to be frozen wind turbines.”
Crenshaw’s thread received many responses from the community. The initial post received more than 4.2K likes.
Misbar’s Analysis
With Texas facing a recently deadly storm that has left half of its residences without power, many have turned to wind turbines as the potential cause of the power outages. This has led officials to do a formal review of the energy produced by wind turbines.
According to the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas, also known as the ERCOT, wind turbines only make up a small portion of the power provided to Texas residents. As such, these turbines cannot be considered the cause of such expansive failures. It’s estimated that more than 80% of Texas’ power is generated by coal and gas-fired plants, where an average of 7% comes from wind power sources.
This was also confirmed in a tweet by Jessie Jenkins, a professor at Princton who studies energy and the environment. He stated, “Those of you who have heard that frozen wind turbines are to blame for this, think again. The extreme demand and thermal power plant outages are the principal cause.” This post was followed by a graphic that displayed wind power production on February 16th.
Without a doubt, Texas is facing serious power outages leaving many without the daily essentials that power provides. However, this outage cannot attribute wind turbines as the cause. As such, Misbar finds this claim to be false.
