it’s complex - read the comments too:
17 Feb: WattsUpWithThat: The Day After Tomorrow: Renewables Fail Edition
Guest: “The best laid plans of mice and men…” by David Middleton
Note: I had originally titled this post, The Day After Tomorrow: ERCOT Fail Edition, and ERCOT did fail. But I changed the title because, even though the failure was system-wide, wind power totally failed, solar never showed up, while natural gas, coal and nuclear power were all that prevented the entire State of Texas from freezing in the dark. Despite these facts, some in the media are reporting that wind power saved the day, while fossil fuels and nuclear power failed...
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/17/the-day-after-tomorrow-ercot-fail-edition/
17 Feb: Climate Depot: Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw on frozen wind power: ‘Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us’ – ‘If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse’
Rep. Crenshaw: ‘Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance. Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.
‘Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most? Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.’...
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/02/17/texas-congressman-dan-crenshaw-on-frozen-wind-power-bottom-line-fossil-fuels-are-the-only-thing-that-saved-us-if-we-were-even-more-reliant-on-the-wind-turbines-that-froze-the-outages-woul/
17 Feb: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: Claim: Wind power failure ‘not main culprit’ in Texas blackouts – Reality check: Oh yes it was
https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/02/17/claim-wind-power-failure-not-main-culprit-in-texas-blackouts-reality-check-oh-yes-they-were/