How Climate Change is Affecting America’s Energy Supply
Brandon Choi
March 13th, 2021
March 13th, 2021
On Feb. 11, 2020, massive winter storms unexpectedly devastated Texas, freezing roads, plumbing systems and electrical power, and leaving many civilians without electricity and human necessities in the midst of unforeseen frigid temperatures. Texans struggled to cope with these irregular circumstances, and many people were not equipped for the winter, leading to shortages in winter clothing, canned foods, and blankets.
This calamity affected Texas’s power grids the most as the energy generators in Texas were not built to accommodate such temperatures, consequently freezing the power grids and forcing them to shut down. The remaining electricity that was stored quickly expended as Texans cranked up their heaters for the impending storm. This crisis caused mass blackouts for more than four million Texas residents and left them with exorbitant electricity bills.
Due to the snowstorms hitting much more severely than anticipated, the government poorly managed the electricity crisis. Although Texas’s energy supply relies predominantly on natural gas storage and fossil fuels, due to the low temperatures, these gas-powered plants were forced to shut down, cutting off their energy production.
Although a variety of political and economic policies contributed to the mishandling of the snowstorms in Texas, the root cause of this turmoil boils down to one cause: climate change.
Climate change has played a significant role in the prevalence of natural disasters and the recent snowstorm in the midwest is no exception. According to Dr. Judah Cohen, climatologist for Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), “Severe winter weather is much more frequent when the Arctic is warmest. It’s not in spite of climate change, but related to climate change.” The icy catastrophe in Texas is not an anomaly to global warming but a direct cause of the rising temperatures in the arctic. The sudden arrival of natural disasters such as snowstorms in Texas is due to the rising temperatures in the Arctic. The increase in temperature has allowed frigid gusts of air that usually circulate the Arctic to sporadically escape to typically torrid regions such as Texas.
This signifies a new crisis posed by the unchecked proliferation of climate: energy shortages. Although nations can attempt to insulate their power plants and prepare for natural disasters, natural disasters will eventually intensify and push the limits of any defense mechanisms installed by governments, jeopardizing the entire national electric grid.
Unless grid planners anticipate and prepare for more extreme natural disasters, electricity grids across the nation will continue to go offline due to severe natural disasters. Preparing for these more unpredictable climates is also a costly expenditure, for it requires fortifying power plants as well as integrating back-up power grids.
However, experts suggest that there are many technical solutions that would help alleviate the issue of electricity shortages during unexpected natural disasters. For example, heaters can be annexed to wind turbines to prevent them from freezing during frigid weather. Power grid regulators can plan backup power reserves as insurance to power outages, requiring consumers to pay extra. Many power firms are reluctant to raise prices even in favor of more stable and efficient energy methods in the fear of losing out on customers.
Climate change has made it more difficult for power grid regulators to predict impending natural disasters. This has made preventing the climate change crisis even more urgent as the palpable effects of climate change are more apparent. Experts such as Emily Grubert believe that the cataclysm in Texas was yet another demonstration of the significant cost of pushing back climate change action. “We need to decarbonize our power systems so that climate change doesn’t keep getting worse, but we also need to adapt to changing conditions at the same time,” said Grubert, an expert on Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. “We can already see that the systems we have today aren’t handling this very well.” Thus, action must be taken against climate change in order for this issue to be truly solved.
This calamity affected Texas’s power grids the most as the energy generators in Texas were not built to accommodate such temperatures, consequently freezing the power grids and forcing them to shut down. The remaining electricity that was stored quickly expended as Texans cranked up their heaters for the impending storm. This crisis caused mass blackouts for more than four million Texas residents and left them with exorbitant electricity bills.
Due to the snowstorms hitting much more severely than anticipated, the government poorly managed the electricity crisis. Although Texas’s energy supply relies predominantly on natural gas storage and fossil fuels, due to the low temperatures, these gas-powered plants were forced to shut down, cutting off their energy production.
Although a variety of political and economic policies contributed to the mishandling of the snowstorms in Texas, the root cause of this turmoil boils down to one cause: climate change.
Climate change has played a significant role in the prevalence of natural disasters and the recent snowstorm in the midwest is no exception. According to Dr. Judah Cohen, climatologist for Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), “Severe winter weather is much more frequent when the Arctic is warmest. It’s not in spite of climate change, but related to climate change.” The icy catastrophe in Texas is not an anomaly to global warming but a direct cause of the rising temperatures in the arctic. The sudden arrival of natural disasters such as snowstorms in Texas is due to the rising temperatures in the Arctic. The increase in temperature has allowed frigid gusts of air that usually circulate the Arctic to sporadically escape to typically torrid regions such as Texas.
This signifies a new crisis posed by the unchecked proliferation of climate: energy shortages. Although nations can attempt to insulate their power plants and prepare for natural disasters, natural disasters will eventually intensify and push the limits of any defense mechanisms installed by governments, jeopardizing the entire national electric grid.
Unless grid planners anticipate and prepare for more extreme natural disasters, electricity grids across the nation will continue to go offline due to severe natural disasters. Preparing for these more unpredictable climates is also a costly expenditure, for it requires fortifying power plants as well as integrating back-up power grids.
However, experts suggest that there are many technical solutions that would help alleviate the issue of electricity shortages during unexpected natural disasters. For example, heaters can be annexed to wind turbines to prevent them from freezing during frigid weather. Power grid regulators can plan backup power reserves as insurance to power outages, requiring consumers to pay extra. Many power firms are reluctant to raise prices even in favor of more stable and efficient energy methods in the fear of losing out on customers.
Climate change has made it more difficult for power grid regulators to predict impending natural disasters. This has made preventing the climate change crisis even more urgent as the palpable effects of climate change are more apparent. Experts such as Emily Grubert believe that the cataclysm in Texas was yet another demonstration of the significant cost of pushing back climate change action. “We need to decarbonize our power systems so that climate change doesn’t keep getting worse, but we also need to adapt to changing conditions at the same time,” said Grubert, an expert on Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. “We can already see that the systems we have today aren’t handling this very well.” Thus, action must be taken against climate change in order for this issue to be truly solved.
