CLIMATE NEWS | SATIRE
Regulators Issue Final Report on Texas Outages, Conclude Discussions Effective in Delaying Change
Printed copies of largest-ever energy report issued to homes at risk of losing heat in 2022
HOUSTON — Dec. 9, 2021 — Federal and state regulators released a joint report today on the power crisis that crashed the grid in much of the South Central United States in February this year. The official document looked at power outages that left millions of Texans in the dark, triggered by a winter storm named Uri, a boy’s name meaning “my light”.
Consumer watchdog groups dismissed the report as inadequate. “While 427 pages sounds plentiful, there’s no way that this could burn long enough to get more than one or two good fires going in your hearth,” said Texans Without Power spokesperson Kendra Jefferson. “We requested wax-coated cardboard report covers for a reason.”
The report was released by regulatory agencies Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in conjunction with the energy commissions for Pipelines, Solar Heating and Texas Wind: PERC, SHERC and TWERC.
The report found that “freezing or fuel issues were behind most of the generator outages, derates or failures to start.” While it was careful not to call out any specific players as being at fault, it did find that media blame for the outages was powered by renewables. “When it comes to early and incorrect blame attribution, renewables were clearly in the lead.”
While the Public Utility Commission of Texas, PUCT, already had issued short-term recommendations to prepare for the 2021–2022 winter season, they handed the work of issuing longer-term requirements for generation owners to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, which in turn delegated it to the Future Utility Commission of Texas, FUCT.
Several prominent state regulators claimed they would need to study the issue for ten years before considering implementing any of the report’s recommendations.
“We can never move too quickly when it come to changing our energy system and protecting the interests of Texan electricity consumers,” said regulator Gord Olboy. “So we will never move too quickly.”
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