Fox figures make false claims about Texas power outages

• Some Fox hosts and guests have wrongly blamed the collapse of the Texas power grid on renewable energy and climate policies.
• Fox’s Tucker Carlson mistakenly claimed that millions of Texans lost power because wind turbines froze.
• Governor Abbott and former Governor Perry have falsely claimed the Green New Deal will cause future energy crises.
• Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.

While millions of Texans have suffered power outages due to extreme winter conditions, a large number of Fox News hosts and guests have misled their viewers by attributing the collapse of the power grid to the State to renewable energies and progressive climate policies.

Prominent Republicans, including the governor of Texas, former energy secretary to President Donald Trump, and prime-time Fox hosts, have assessed the problem with wind and solar power, from the Green New Deal and the administration of President Joe Biden for the failure of state infrastructure.

We have verified these claims.

‘The windmills froze’

“The windmills froze, so the power grids broke,” Fox opinion host Tucker Carlson said Monday evening. “It seems pretty clear that a reckless reliance on windmills is the cause of this disaster.”

Checking the facts: The majority of offline power sources in Texas weren’t wind turbines, but power plants running on fossil fuels, including natural gas. While Texas produces more wind power than any other state, state grid operator ERCOT expected wind farms to produce only 7% of its power in the winter.

The term “windmill” is also not quite correct. Windmills are used to grind corn and other grains into flour and pump water. Wind turbines generate electricity.

A Fox News spokesperson declined to comment on the matter, but pointed out to Insider Wednesday’s clarification from Carlson that wind power is not the majority of Texas’ offline power sources.

Also this week, Fox News contributor and former GOP congressman Sean Duffy falsely argued that the United States needs to rely on fossil fuel sources because renewable technologies are unreliable in bad weather.

“Windmills don’t work when it’s freezing and solar panels don’t work when it’s really cloudy and snowy. We need fossil fuels,” Duffy told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.

Checking the facts: Wind turbines have been producing power in the United States for at least four decades.

Wind turbines are perfectly capable of producing power in freezing temperatures if properly weathered. Because Texas rarely experiences such episodes in the Arctic, the state’s power producers simply have not invested in tampering with their equipment, including wind turbines and transmission lines. natural gas.

Experts say if Texas power producers had aged their equipment – something the federal government has recommended them in the past – the state wouldn’t experience such a severe crisis.

Offline solar panels have contributed little to statewide outages. And, like wind turbines, solar panels can operate in freezing temperatures. Heavy snowfall can limit the amount of electricity they produce, but generally any drop in production is only temporary.

Denying climate science

Carlson also said Monday that extreme winter conditions in Texas prove that “global warming is no longer a pressing concern” in the state.

Carlson is an outspoken climate science denier. In a December interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Fox host argued that climate change was made by “a mad narcissist[s]”who believe” that there is no God “.

Checking the facts: While climate change doesn’t make the winter colder, research shows it can make some weather events more extreme, including hurricanes and forest fires. Climate change can also alter the jet stream, which can cause polar air to plunge south. Ironically, relying on fossil fuels, which emit carbon, only worsens climate change.

Screenshot / Fox News

Blame Biden and the Green New Deal

Tuesday night, Carlson claims that the Green New Deal, a proposal put forward by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some of her fellow Democrats, is to blame for the Texas crisis.

“Unbeknownst to most people, the Green New Deal has arrived in Texas [and] the state’s electricity grid has become totally dependent on windmills, “he said.” The same energy policies that destroyed Texas this week are being enforced nationwide – they’re coming to your state. ”

Checking the facts: Green New Deal legislation was not passed in Texas or at the federal level and is not responsible for the growth of the renewable energy sector in Texas. Texas has a lot of wind power because Texas is windy, there is a lot of land, and wind turbines produce cheap power. In fact, some of the cheapest electricity in the country is in Texas, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

On Tuesday, Rick Perry, former Texas governor and energy secretary to President Donald Trump, argued that the United States must at least partially rely on natural gas, coal and nuclear power in order to avoid crises like the one in Texas.

“The key here is having the wisdom to have various sources of energy,” said Perry. “If this Green New Deal goes the way the Biden administration seems to want it to, then we’ll have more events like we’ve had in Texas across the country as we stifle the diversity we need to maintain.” this country goes. “

Republican state governor Greg Abbott made a similar point in a Fox interview on Tuesday night and called the Green New Deal a “deadly deal.”

“It just shows that fossil fuels are needed for the state of Texas as well as other states to ensure that we will be able to heat our homes in the winter and cool our homes in the summer,” Abbott said. to Fox News opinion leader Sean. Hannity.

Abbott subsequently revised his comments, noting that “every source of energy that the state of Texas has been compromised.”

J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo

Checking the facts: Wind turbines and solar panels produce energy intermittently, which oil and gas advocates often use to emphasize the value of fossil fuel power plants, which can usually start at any time. However, new technologies like batteries that last for days and high-voltage power lines can make the problem of intermittency obsolete. Other energy sources that do not depend on fossil fuels, such as hydropower and nuclear, are not intermittent.

The Biden administration did not approve the Green New Deal but proposed a nearly $ 2 trillion plan that would make the grid carbon-free by 2035 and reach net zero emissions by 2050. Energy renewable provided about a fifth of the country’s energy last year, according to the EIA.

Since taking office last month, Biden has signed a series of executive orders overturning Trump-era climate policies, including the return of the Paris Climate Agreement, the blockade of the Keystone XL pipeline and the rental stop at the Arctic National Alaska Wildlife Refuge.