Beto O’Rourke rips Gov. Abbott over claims blaming Texas blackouts on renewable energy
EL PASO, Texas -- Former El Paso congressman Beto O'Rourke, who has hinted at a run for Texas' chief executive position, ripped into Gov. Greg Abbott for his appearance on a conservative talk show that claimed wind turbines and solar energy were primarily to blame for power outages across Texas as the electrical grid buckled.
Abbott told commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday night that the current situation in Texas "shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America."
On Twitter Wednesday morning, O'Rourke said those false and misleading claims about renewable energy drew his ire.
"You’re the governor of a state where millions don’t have power, where people are literally dying of exposure, and you go on Fox news to talk about... the Green New Deal?" O'Rourke tweeted.
He continued: "You are the governor. Your party has run Texas for 20 years. Accept responsibility & help us get out of this."
In a fact check, the Texas state power agency told the Associated Press that gas, coal and nuclear plants actually caused nearly twice as many outages as wind and solar power.
On top of that, Electric Reliability Council of Texas data shows that while the state has ramped up wind energy in recent years, it still only relies on wind power for about 25% of its total electricity.
But with millions of Texas residents still without power amid frigid temperatures, the Associated Press noted that Hannity and Abbott were not alone in making claims that were unsupported by the state's own data.
You’re the governor of a state where millions don’t have power, where people are literally dying of exposure, and you go on Fox news to talk about... the Green New Deal? You are the governor. Your party has run Texas for 20 years. Accept responsibility & help us get out of this. https://t.co/G1Bai59nKc
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) February 17, 2021
“We should never build another wind turbine in Texas,” read a Facebook post from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. “The experiment failed big time.”
“This is a perfect example of the need for reliable energy sources like natural gas & coal,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana.
A viral photo of a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine was shared with claims it showed a “chemical” solution being applied to one of the massive wind generators in Texas. The only problem? The photo was taken in Sweden years ago, not in the U.S. in 2021. The helicopter sprayed hot water onto the wind turbine, not chemicals.
Other social media users, including Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, puzzlingly labeled the Green New Deal as the culprit. Boebert tweeted that the proposal was “proven unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable.”
But the Green New Deal is irrelevant, as no version of it exists in Texas or nationwide, said Mark Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.
“It’s really natural gas and coal and nuclear that are providing the bulk of the electricity and that’s the bulk of the cause of the blackouts,” Jacobson told the Associated Press.
ERCOT said that of the 45,000 total megawatts of power that were offline statewide on Tuesday, about 30,000 consisted of thermal sources — gas, coal and nuclear plants — and 16,000 came from renewable sources.
“It’s not like we were relying on it to ride us through this event,” Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin, told the AP. “Nor would it have been able to save us even if it were operating at 100% capacity right now. We just don’t have enough of it.”
The agency confirmed that wellhead freeze-offs and other issues curtailing supply in natural gas systems were primarily to blame for new outages on Tuesday, after severe winter weather caused failures across multiple fuel types in recent days.
Renewable energy is a popular scapegoat for new problems as more frequent extreme weather events strain infrastructure, according to Emily Grubert, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.
“It’s easy to focus on the thing that you can see changing as the source of why an outcome is changing,” Grubert told the AP. “The reality is that managing our systems is becoming more difficult. And that’s something that is easy to blame on the reaction to it, but it’s not actually the root cause.”
