The 2021 Power Catastrophe was decades in the making, especially after 1999 when ERCOT with the PUC blessings established a “market based” power generation regime.  Independent power producers (IPPs) are paid only for power they generate, not for investment in weatherproofing or maintenance.  As a result, many plants simply shut down when it’s not economic to generate power, and shut down when the weather gets extreme as it has been this week.  That’s exactly what happened this week; when fuel gas supply skyrocketed due to demand, power generation became uneconomic because most contract prices for power are fixed.  Rather than operate at a loss, the IPPs shut down, knocking over 4 million Texans off the grid.  That result is unacceptable, and everyone, including Greg Abbott and John Cornyn know it.  Rather than take responsibility for the catastrophe that they helped create (along with Rootin’ Tootin’ Rick Perry) they immediately called for an “investigation” into their own goddam actions and decisions that they made.  The other thing they did?  They lied that the problem was caused by “frozen windmills” and solar panels.  Cornyn even retweeted a picture of a helicopter deicing a wind turbine IN SWEDEN, claiming it was in Texas.  Abbott got on Fox News, and told the same lie that renewables don’t work and the Green New Deal would destroy the economy.  That’s correct – Cornyn and Abbott are politicizing a crisis where Texans are dying to score cheap political points. Cruz, of course, when called out for mocking California last summer during the wild fires, characteristically crawled back under his rock.

Here’s a map of current power outages nationwide.  Have a look at this, knowing that the same weather that affected Texas also crossed the western United States and is currently moving into the eastern United States:

Notice anything interesting?  There are no extended power outages outside of Texas in the areas managed by ERCOT.  The line across the Appalachians is where the storm currently is and where power will be quickly restored.  Texas, not so much.  This is a massive failure in public policy caused by decades of mythological and magical thinking that the “free market” cures all ills and that the federal government is always bad.  Neither has ever been true and never will be.

So, when your Republican friends start howling about “frozen windmills” stop them in their tracks and call bullshit.  Because it’s bullshit.