Texas Power Crisis Caused by Poor Energy Policies

Summary

Extreme winter weather and poor statewide energy policies recently caused an enormous public health and safety crisis in Texas. This article analyzes what went wrong with Texas' energy infrastructure during Winter Storm Uri, including failures in natural gas generation, production, transportation, and storage; the failure of power producers to properly winterize natural gas, renewable, coal, and nuclear power generation equipment; and the integration failure that almost caused the complete collapse of the Texas power grid. These problems proved vast and dangerous during the recent winter storm, but they are solvable with responsible statewide regulation and oversight.