C38048 Day5 Texas blackouts raise climate warning

In scientists’ opinion, the havoc caused by the extreme winter weather in mid February in Texas did not come as a surprise. Ten years ago, energy regulators had warned that the state’s electric-grid operators were ill-prepared for an unprecedented extreme winter weather. Although the regulators have warned, the state was unprepared. When the storm came, the equipment froze at power plants and natural gas wells iced over. Many people are left without electricity. These are all the fallout of a sting of failures that didn’t take that threat seriously. Much of the electricity infrastructure wan’t hardened and some power plants even remained offline for scheduled maintenance. There failures tells us we need to accept that business as usual isn’t working in the face of this climate-changed world. We need to prepare more and think more. This kind of situation not only occurred in Texas, but also in the U.S. Recently, most of the electric grid in the U.S. shows the incapable of keeping up with the climate change. The planners calculate to ensure supply can match demand, but when the extreme weather comes, it can not solve the problem. And in 2020, when people are all paying attention to the COVID-19, there are many weather events occurred in the U.S., which broke the record. Now, it is very important to harden infrastructure and think holistically.