Story at a glance
- During an interview with Sean Hannity Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) decried the proposed Green New Deal and said frozen wind turbines and loss of solar power thrust Texas into the blackout situation.
- In an interview with Yahoo Finance Wednesday, Gates said the governor’s claims were flawed.
- “Actually, the main capacity that’s gone out in Texas is not the wind. It’s actually some of the natural gas plants that were also not ready for these super cold temperatures,” he said.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday pushed back against a statement made by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in which he blamed recent widespread power outages in his state on a failure of solar and wind energy sources.
Millions of Texans have gone days without power this week as massive winter storms brought freezing temperatures and devastated the state’s power grid.
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During an interview with Sean Hannity Tuesday, Abbott decried the proposed Green New Deal and said frozen wind turbines and loss of solar power thrust Texas into the blackout situation.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and nuclear as well as solar and wind,” Abbott said Tuesday.
“Our wind and solar got shut down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis,” he added.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance Wednesday, Gates said the governor’s claims were flawed.
“In terms of the current situation, you know, he’s actually wrong. The wind turbines, you can make sure they can deal with the cold. It probably wasn’t anticipated for the wind turbines that far south. But, you know, the ones up in Iowa and North Dakota are — do have the ability to not freeze up,” Gates told the outlet.
“Actually, the main capacity that’s gone out in Texas is not the wind. It’s actually some of the natural gas plants that were also not ready for these super cold temperatures,” he said.
Gates went on to say extreme weather events will become more likely due to climate change as normal wind patterns are broken down, allowing cold fronts to go further south more frequently.
READ MORE ABOUT THE TEXAS ENERGY CRISIS
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AOC AND TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT FIRE AT EACH OTHER OVER DEADLY WINTER STORM, GREEN NEW DEAL
TEXAS DEEP FREEZE CAUSES ELECTRICITY PRICES TO SPIKE 10,000 PERCENT
EMERGENCY EVACUATIONS NOW TAKING PLACE IN TEXAS HOSPITALS BECAUSE OF FREEZING TEMPERATURES
FIRST POWER, NOW WATER: TEXANS TOLD TO BOIL, CONSERVE WATER AS STATE WARNS OF SHORTAGES
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