As Biden pushes for the use of clean energy and the elimination of fossil fuels, existing sources of clean energy continue to fail.
Nearly half of the wind turbines in the state of Texas froze decimating power supplies. This is one of the many risks that come along with relying strictly on clean energy as it currently exists.
The Austin American Stateman reported:
“Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.”
In the City of Austin, wind power takes up 19% of energy production. Causing major complications and exposing obvious flaws in relying on such an unpredictable source of power.
This is not the only concern when it comes to wind power. Many skeptics of fossil fuels also site the devastation of wildlife populations (specifically birds) that come along with oil spill.
Oddly enough, wind turbines kill almost the same amount of birds yearly as oil spills. Near 500,000.
Clean energy is certainly a great thing to explore, but is still in its adolescence. America and the world are not ready to abandon traditional methods of energy production just yet.