Tucker Carlson is definitely on
a mission to continue what
Rush Limbaugh had begun.
And Rush Limbaugh,
of course was announced dead
today at the age of 70.
He succumbed to lung cancer.
But if you feel that maybe that's
the end of disinformation, you'd be
wrong because Tucker Carlson has
been promoted at Fox News.
He's going to be expanding his
streaming role with Fox Nation,
which is the digital platform
for Fox.
Now, why is this such a terrible
update?
Because of the fact that we're
going to get more takes like
this on disastrous events in
the country.
>> So unbeknownst to most people,
the Green New Deal came to Texas,
the power grid in the state became
totally reliant on windmills.
Then it got cold and
the windmills broke because that's
what happens in the Green New Deal.
You're without power, millions
are still without power tonight.
Several have died.
Now the same energy policies that
have wrecked Texas this week
are going nationwide.
They're coming to your state.
Well, the Green New Deal has come,
believe it or not,
to the state of Texas, and
we're here with the report.
How's it working out so far?
The windmills froze, so
the power grid failed.
Rather than celebrate and
benefit from their state's vast
natural resources, politicians took
the fashionable route and
became recklessly reliant on so
called alternative energy,
meaning windmills.
So it was all working great until
the day it got cold outside.
The windmills failed like the silly
fashion accessories they are and
people in Texas died.
A lot more of them than died at
the Capitol on January 6,
by the way, just for reference.
Green energy inevitably means
blackouts and someday that may
change as technology progresses.
But as of right now and
the current state of technology,
that is true, green energy means
a less reliable power grid, period.
It means failures like
the ones we're seeing now in Texas.
That's not a talking point.
It's not a political slogan,
we're not taking money from
Exxon Mobil to say it.
Green energy is
the ultimate inside game.
A tiny number of people profit from
it ,from government subsidies and
regulated prices.
Everyone else gets a moral lecture
about climate change.
Michael Weber is a professor at
the University of Texas at Austin
and he specializes in energy.
That's what his expertise is on.
And he says Texas is a gas state.
Gas is failing in the most
spectacular fashion right now.
In fact,
the Texas Tribune gave us an in
depth look at just how the power is
divvied up, how energy is divvied
up in the state of Texas.
It's estimated that the grids total
winter capacity about 80% of it, or
67 gigawatts could be generated
by natural gas, coal, and
some nuclear power.
Only 7% of
Electric Reliability Council of
Texas is forecasted winter capacity
or six gigawatts was expected to
come from various wind power
sources across the state.
The point here is that Texas still
heavily relies on fossil fuels.
Yes, they have expanded wind energy
with what Tucker Carlson referred
to as fashion accessories.
What?
Are people making arguments that
wind turbines are sexy or
something?
I don't know.
But it's still a small percentage
of what's being used to generate
electricity and
power in the state of Texas.
And the real problem here is
something that I went
into in depth yesterday.
But before I repeat myself on all
of that, Nando, I wanted to give
you an opportunity to jump in and
talk about what's really going on
in the state of Texas.
>> Well, it's just those hippie
dippies in Texas that want to do
alternative wind power,
that this is what they get.
I mean, it's not like climate
change has anything to do with it.
It's not like the record low
temperatures are due to climate
change in the first place.
Yeah, I mean, it's just listen,
you gotta give Tucker credit,
in that he's a very clever,
clever man and he is able to spin
something like this into some sort
of liberal failure even though.
Texas is long been solidly
Republican.
And it's not like they would do
anything that is on the liberal
agenda just out of pure spite.
So not to mention the fact
that Texas is, like you said,
mostly driven by oil and gas,
especially gas.
But yeah, it's just you gotta
appreciate the hustle there because
to frame Texas as some sort of like
Greenpeace cop, government or
something, it's hilarious.
>> Yeah, I mean, look,
Tucker Carlson is just one of many
right-wing commentators who
regurgitated the same talking
points the fossil fuel industry
handed over to them.
I respect none of his hustle.
He's a clown, but
I hear what you're saying.
I mean, people,
I don't even know if this has
anything to do with Tucker Carlson.
His audience is going to believe
him no matter what, regardless of
how nonsensical his argument is and
that's the depressing part
about it.
But yes, you're right.
I mean,
again, the majority of their energy
comes from fossil fuels.
But also Texas is pretty unique in
just how far they've gone to
deregulate utilities and
specifically energy
companies in their state.
And so it's just a combination,
a cocktail of absolute disastrous
decisions here.
Because number one of course Texas
is run by politicians who do
not take climate change seriously.
And so they didn't think to maybe
ensure that the wind turbines that
they do have are equipped
with winterized equipment.
Basically equipment that helps
to deice the turbines in freezing
temperatures.
They didn't think to do that,
they're not regulated to do that.
So yeah, they froze.
But again, that's not really
the big problem here.
The big problem is also
the fact that these energy
companies didn't really care to
have energy reserves, right?
Because why would they?
There's no financial incentive to
do that.
There's no regulation ensuring that
they do that.
And so this was something,
honestly, I've only really seen it
talked about or written about, I
should say, by the Financial Times.
Because they wrote that
the Electric Reliability Council of
Texas had announced rotating
outages, right?
This is when things started to get
really bad at 1:25 AM local time on
Monday after the cold weather froze
wellheads and interrupted supply
to natural gas fired power plants.
And some wind turbines became
encased in ice curtailing
electricity output.
So they have less supply of energy
clearly.
But there is an increased demand
because people are cold.
They want to make sure
they're warm.
So they're turning their power.
They're using their heaters,
all of that.
And low supply, high demand.
People are going to get slapped
with insane bills.
And that's part of the reason why
they're doing these
rolling blackouts,
partially to prevent people from
getting slapped with massive bills,
but they don't have enough supply.
Generators are paid only for
the energy that they sell, not for
keeping capacity in reserve for
times of stress.
Electricity retailers compete
fiercely for customer business,
unlike utility monopolies that
operate in some other states.
Maybe these utilities shouldn't be
privatized, how about that?
Anyway, they can adjust prices
according to market conditions.
Wholesale electricity prices for
deliveries surpassed the grids
price cap of $9,000 per
megawatt hour in the early hours
of Monday this week.
Multiples above the average
prices of $25 per megawatt hour on
the Texas grid.
So it's just been a complete
disaster for
a number of different awful policy
decisions that lawmakers in Texas
have decided to go with.
And to blame it on wind turbines is
just so laughable.
But it also shows you Nando the way
that smart people do politics
because the second that this winter
storm happened and they had to
do the rolling blackouts.
They're like
the best defense is often.
So they immediately went out with
their talking points and
started punching people in the face
with allegations against renewable
energy.
And there's some portion of the
population that's going to buy it.
>> Well, yeah, I mean,
they're going to buy it and
this is true, by the way,
of almost everybody.
Is that they don't buy it because
he's punching to the team.
He's punching the team that
they don't like.
And we've sorted ourselves into
the teams and whatever it is to own
the other team,
is good in our book.
Liberals should do a little
bit more of that to be honest.
But, yeah, you mentioned about
the deregulation, is to me,
the key here, is that, when you
don't have a government mandated
kind of electricity supplies and
reserves and things like that.
It's in the interests for profit
companies to create just as much as
they need at any given moment.
And to not really plan for
contingencies, it's a huge cost
that they'd rather not have to deal
with.
Unless the state mandates it in
some way.
And that's to me the key aspect of
all this.
I mean, Texas has long
been a very right-wing state.
And this is what happens when you
implement right-wing policies and
you cut away government
regulations and all that.
But yeah, of course, the discussion
immediately gets framed around this
culture war issue of alternative
energies or whatever.
What's despairing about it is that
just because he's punching,
he's owning the limbs,
that's all that matters.
That's all that matters to them.
It's just there's fine one way to
own the limbs on this.
Even though limbs have nothing to
do with Texas, literally nothing.
They haven't been in power in Texas
in forever.
But let's just find
a way to own the limbs on this and
that'll be enough.
And yeah, I mean,
like I said, we're guilty of it as
well in some cases, but
we should be doing more of it.