Last week, millions of people in Texas suffered through freezing temperatures and the loss of power due to a winter storm which knocked significant electrical generation capacity offline. Texas’ electrical grid suffered a catastrophic failure in a period when demand was surging due to the need for residents to heat their homes.

Details of the technical and regulatory failures which led to this crisis have been covered by journalists and academics, and the essential summary of the complex situation is this: decades of deregulation, the independence of Texas’ grid from other states, and the avoidance of weatherization/winterization of electrical generation infrastructure due to cost concerns.[i] [ii]

The storm knocked around 46 GW (gigawatts) of generation capacity offline on Monday, February 15th, more than half of the grid’s typical generation capacity (82 GW).[iii] Of the total generation capacity taken offline by the winter weather, around 18 GW was from wind energy generation, compared to 28 GW from thermal sources, including natural gas.

Despite the fact that multiple energy technologies contributed to the failure, a narrative appeared in some media coverage that frozen wind turbines were to blame for the power outages. This narrative was picked up by conservative commentators and politicians, including the current Governor of Texas Greg Abbott, who stated “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary” during an interview on Fox News.[iv]

It is not surprising that politicians and commentators (such as Gov. Abbott or Fox host Tucker Carlson) seized upon the narrative that renewable energy sources were to blame, as they have long opposed efforts to decarbonize the United States’ energy systems. Beyond ideological or policy-based opposition to renewables, it is important to note that many politicians who perpetuated the false narrative about wind power being the source of Texas’ energy woes have benefited substantially from political donations from the oil and gas industry. An investigation into donations to Texas Republican politicians found that Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and Representative Dan Crenshaw together received more than $1.1 million from the oil and gas industry in the 2020 election cycle.[v]

One of the lessons to be drawn from this chapter, beyond the importance of preparation for extreme weather events caused by a changing climate, is that the process of decarbonizing the energy system is intensely political.[vi] This is something widely acknowledged within the academic literature, but often ignored in more technocratic debates about energy technology and innovation. We should remember that entrenched interests (such as the fossil fuel industry) will continue to push back against efforts to address climate change. Texas reveals that failure to invest in adaptation measures, as well as efforts to undermine public trust in sustainable energy sources, will have significant and long-reaching implications.

References:

[i] https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/power-outages-texas-canada-1.5920833

[ii] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733

[iii] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Epic-power-fail-Why-so-many-Texans-are-without-15958896.php

[iv] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/17/texas-abbott-wind-turbines-outages/

[v] https://earther.gizmodo.com/how-much-the-oil-and-gas-industry-paid-texas-republican-1846288505

[vi] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-texas-winter-storms-arctic-cold/

Image source: https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2021/02/17/texas-gov-greg-abbott-lies-on-fox-news-about-cause-of-the-states-power-outages

In unexpected and exciting news, the paper I wrote as part of my secondment with the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland, Energy Transition Pathways and the Covid-19 Pandemic: An analysis of the green recovery responses in Denmark and Ireland, was referenced by members of the Dáil Éireann, including by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications!

On 13 January 2021, TD Bríd Smith asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he had read the recent NESC publication entitled Energy Transition Pathways and the Covid-19 Pandemic: An analysis of the green recovery responses in Denmark and Ireland.

The Minister responded in the affirmative and noted:

the report’s observation that Ireland and Denmark have embraced the energy transition as a way to diversify their energy supply, and as an industrial strategy, and appear to be continuing along established trajectories towards decarbonising their electricity sectors. The report recognises the global disruption to economic and social patterns from the pandemic and highlights Ireland and Denmark as positive examples of countries continuing to decarbonise their economies while taking action to repair the damage from the Covid 19 pandemic.

Link to full exchange: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2021-01-13/98/

Link to NESC paper: https://www.nesc.ie/publications/energy-transition-pathways-and-the-covid-19-pandemic-an-analysis-of-the-green-recovery-responses-in-denmark-and-ireland/

I have the great fortune of being a part of the MISTRAL network, an international research and training programme made up of academics and Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) across Europe. One of the best things about MISTRAL is the opportunity to connect and exchange ideas with researchers from so many different backgrounds – we have researchers from across Europe and beyond working in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and Switzerland.

2020 has presented a series of challenges for our network – without the option of international travel, our opportunities for collaboration were more limited than expected. Thankfully, video calling platforms and online programs for collaboration have made meetings and discussions easier and more common. We had to postpone and change some of our planned meetings that would have been in person – a planned week-long meeting hosted by the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland was turned into a series of virtual meetings, and this turned out to be a great opportunity to learn from each other (thanks to the ESRs at St. Gallen for organizing it!).

One of the features of the MISTRAL network is the opportunity to do secondments – short term placements at industry, government, academic, or community organizations involved in the energy transition and the renewable energy field. The secondments are meant to benefit both the ESRs and the organization through a mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas. At the beginning of the MISTRAL program, the secondments were planned to be in-person placements at the various partner organizations involved. With the onset of COVID-19, these plans had to be revisited to ensure the secondments could go ahead even while in-person working was not an option. I was one of the first ESRs to complete a secondment during this period, and despite not being able to be there in person, I still gained a lot from my experience.

I completed a secondment with the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland (NESC), which advises the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) on strategic policy issues relating to sustainable economic, social and environmental development in Ireland. I worked under the supervision of Dr. Jeanne Moore, a Policy Analyst, on a research project related to my PhD research and the most pressing topic of the day: COVID-19. Working under Dr. Moore’s guidance, I conducted research and wrote a report on what the economic disruption from COVID-19 might mean for energy transitions in Ireland and Denmark. The full report is available here.

I am grateful that I took part in the secondment at NESC – despite not being able to meet in person or work from their office, I was still able to (virtually) meet nearly the entire staff and have discussions with other researchers and policy analysts based there. The informal and social aspects of working somewhere are certainly hard to replicate virtually, but I am happy that I was able to do my secondment somewhere that took the initiative to make me feel connected.

There are certainly challenges associated with this period of remote working and collaborating internationally can be particularly difficult. Mutual commitment from those involved is necessary to ensure everyone is connected as possible and able to benefit from each other’s insights.