The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a warning to Texans on Sunday, requesting voluntary conservation of power on Monday from 2 PM to 8 PM. “Conservation is a reliability tool ERCOT has deployed more than four dozen times since 2008 to successfully manage grid operations,” the organization noted. “This notification is issued when projected reserves may fall below 2300 MW for 30 minutes or more.” It’s a nice precautionary measure that has clearly been successful in the past, but the average summer temperatures of the late 2000s seem like a distant memory compared with what’s to come, thanks to climate change.
According to The Washington Post, the whole country can look forward to a suite of extreme weather events and a longer summer season, with both wildfire season and hurricane season expected to be above average in their own respects. Climate change will only bring more extreme weather, which Texas has already experienced this year. The state recorded one of its hottest spring seasons this year, and experts believe that 2022 could be among the hottest years on record. ERCOT’s Sunday warning certainly tracks with Monday’s weather, too.
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According to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Fort Worth, North and Central Texans will experience extreme heat, while NWS Houston noted similarly blistering temperatures for that region. Given ERCOT’s horrendous response to Winter Storm Uri in 2021, Texans are understandably wary of what could happen if the grid simply cannot meet customer needs. Even experts are concerned with what’s to come. “I can’t give a probability, but I would certainly have a plan of what to do if the power goes out,” Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M University, told E&E News recently. “One of my worst-case scenarios is for power to go out during a heat wave. What would people do then?”
Well, if you’re Sen. Ted Cruz and dealing with an extreme weather event in the state you serve, you get out of town. To the shock of no one, the Republican apparently skipped out on flash flood warnings and set his sights on a vacation in the Bahamas for the Fourth of July weekend. Actor Craig Robinson blew up Cruz’s spot during an appearance on The View. Cruz sat across from Robinson on that flight then spent four days in the Bahamas. He’s so far been silent about the extreme heat his state is currently facing, but could very well just be on a flight with no Wi-Fi. Y’all know how hard it is to stay connected when you’re fleeing the people you serve over and over again.
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