Geoversiv - Earth Intelligence

News Brief #4 Texas Grid Failure

February 19, 2021 Don Shelby Season 1
Geoversiv - Earth Intelligence
News Brief #4 Texas Grid Failure
Show Notes

This is a news brief - a look at the headline story of the 4 million people in Texas who have lost power as a result of a sudden, extreme cold snap.  It was a failure of the power grid, controlled and operated by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), once hailed as the Texas Miracle, it has failed repeated demands to harden the grid to withstand extreme weather events.  ERCOT is largely independent of any other power sharing agreements, so when power goes down in Texas, it cannot get capacity from other sources, as other states often do in power sharing agreements.  The conclusion we draw is that unusual weather events have become "usual" and grids must be made resilient to climate disruption.