As rolling blackouts and power outages due to the nation’s recent deep freeze continue to plunge Texas into catastrophe, Governor Greg Abbott appeared on Sean Hannity to lay the blame on solar and wind power. He did what Republicans these days are wont to do. He lied, and made the issue political.
Said Abbott: “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. … 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 for the state of Texas and for other states.”
Here’s what energy officials said hours earlier, via the Texas Tribune: “An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, was offline. Nearly double that, 30 gigawatts, had been lost from thermal sources, which includes gas, coal and nuclear energy.”
Also: “Heather Zichal, CEO of the industry group the American Clean Power Association, said opponents of renewable energy were trying to distract from the failures elsewhere in the system and slow the ‘transition to a clean energy future.’ … ‘It is disgraceful to see the longtime antagonists of clean power – who attack it whether it is raining, snowing or the sun is shining – engaging in a politically opportunistic charade misleading Americans to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with restoring power to Texas communities,’ she said.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made the correction on Twitter.
Tucker Carlson is spewing the conservative lie as well.
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