Bill Gates Is Right

Texas's power grid is strained after a rare arctic blast and millions are without power.@BillGates says that in order to get reliable power year-round, "we need to connect Texas and the rest of the country together with a lot more capacity so you use that diversity of sources." pic.twitter.com/e5VyQjealy

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) February 17, 2021

Dan Crenshaw, my Congresscritter, is a dumbass:

lmao pathetic spin: actually uhhh it is california’s fault!!! pic.twitter.com/GUmFtqrZWY

— Brian Tashman (@briantashman) February 17, 2021

Most of the wind turbines are in West Texas and the Panhandle, where they see this sort of weather on the regular. Turbines were not equipped with de-icers because "savings" and "let the market sort it out.". The market did. Electricity per megawatt hour in Texas shot up from $35 to $900.  This, of course, is why we regulate public utilities, and make them have excess capacity for emergencies, and plan for foreseeable events (turbines on the Gulf suffered from ice, too; but I can’t remember seeing pictures of snow on Galveston Island in my lifetime.  In the Panhandle and West Texas?  Common as tar melting in the blacktop roads in August.)

The GOP not in the Lege are going to spin this for all it’s worth.  The Lege is dumb, but it ain’t stupid.