"The real reason for the blackouts is that wind and solar are unreliable and shouldn’t be included in reserve margins, but the advocates of wind and solar, with the media’s support, have tried to muddy the waters by pointing to other reasons for the blackouts.
Ocasio Cortez said Texas would be fine if they implemented the green new deal.
... from the media: “Republican leaders have found a way to shift blame onto renewable energy and use the statewide crisis to spread lies about proposed climate legislation.”
The media has reported, for example:
Nuclear plants shut down due to frozen water lines.
There was insufficient gas for natural gas turbines.
There should be a connection between MISO and ERCOT to provide electricity from MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)
The fundamental reason for the disaster, however, is that there were insufficient reserves of baseload power, i.e., coal, natural gas and nuclear.
With adequate reserve margins, the problems with the nuclear plants and with inadequate gas for natural gas power plants, would not have resulted in the extensive blackouts that occurred in Texas.
If reserves, using baseload power only, i.e., coal, natural gas and nuclear, had been at the 13.7% level, nearly 10,000 MW of baseload power could have been lost without seriously disrupting the grid,
... Texas historically had reserve margins of 13.7%, but in 2019 the margins from baseload power were 6% and forecast to fall to nearly zero in 2020.
... The claim that MISO could have provided power to ERCOT, if there had been a link between the systems, was false, because MISO didn’t have enough power to share.
The area covered by MISO was also suffering from freezing weather.
... Coal saved the day in the MISO geographic area:
... The fact remains, it is virtually impossible for all our electricity to come from renewables, as required by the Green New Deal."