Last month, millions of Texans lost power after heavy snowfall and historic low temperatures hit the region. Soon after, the term frozen turbines caught on and was repeated by officials, politicians and cable news hosts in an effort to blame renewable energy.
Texas commissioner of agriculture wrote in a Facebook post, shared thousands of times, that we should never build another wind turbine in the state and that more gas, coal and oil infrastructure should be built. To heck with green energy or climate change, he wrote.
That comment and many others were misleading and without context. The Texas Tribune and other local outlets reported the reality, which is that most of the Texas grid s winter capacity is generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power sources which also failed amid the storm. Though turbines also went offline due to the severe weather, wind only accounted for a small portion of the state s forecasted winter capacity, according to USA TODAY.