The Truth About Houston’s Power Outages

Hurricane Beryl barreled through Texas this week, with the harshest, eastern half of the storm traversing directly through the state’s biggest population and industrial center of Houston, home to as many as 6 million residents in the greater metropolitan area. That was Monday and Tuesday, and as we reach the end of the work week, people in the media are wondering why as many as 1 million residents were still without electricity service as of Friday?

Climate alarmists want to blame it all on the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful climate change boogeyman, and for once they’re at least partially right. How about that?

Some others want to place the blame on the state’s beleaguered grid managers at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), but that is really a misdirection.

At least this time, we haven’t seen anyone (yet) trying to falsely blame it all on the natural gas system, or making the hilariously absurd claim that wind, solar, and the state’s miniscule fleet of stationary battery facilities somehow “saved the day.” Thank goodness for small blessings.

The reality is that the lingering power outages in Houston can honestly be attributed to three main factors: