Green Energy Failure Leaves Millions in North America ‘Freezing in the Dark’

Feb. 17 , 2021 (EIRNS)—Planned and unplanned electricity blackouts continue to affect millions of people and slam basic economic activity across the central North American continent, directly due to the years of implementation of the green energy policy of suppression of high-technology generation, and installation of so-called alternative wind and solar, low-tech swindles.

This has put the issue front and center, that the green insanity must stop. For example, the Kansas Senate Utilities Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Thompson (R-Shawnee) said on Facebook this week, “Wind turbines are frozen up. Solar is useless. This is why the expansion of renewables is dangerous for us going forward. We are putting too much reliance on sources that cannot meet our needs, especially in times like this.” He also said that nuclear energy “should be in the mix.” In opposition, greenwashed lawmakers are going from mad to madder. They are using the disaster to say there must be more and more coordinated low-tech energy, e.g.,. Kansas state Rep. Drandon Woodard (D-Lenexa) tweeted during this week’s emergency, “Long term: we MUST address an energy plan for the State of Kansas to encourage power storage, microgrids, and a move to renewable energy sources....”

In Texas, the former energy state, which is now ground zero for energy disaster, 26 people have died in the storm and lack of electricity. A new storm system is now on the move from this region, across the central states, on the way to the Northeast. As of Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 16, some 3 million people in Texas were still without power, and millions more in the 14 state-area in which energy is coordinated through the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) were enduring scheduled and unplanned power outages, due to the inadequacies of the system.

“Controlled rolling blackouts” were started Feb. 15 to attempt to allocate and reduce loads on the system. The SPP system covers all of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and parts of many more states from Louisiana up through western Iowa.

Texas is the number one state in the nation for volume of installed wind turbines (28, 843 MW). Also Iowa and Kansas are in the top five states, but they lead the nation in percentage of power which is wind-dependent. Iowa is 41% (10,201 MW capacity—intermittent, or not at all, as now), and Kansas is 36% (6,128 MW). They are now in bad trouble. One video supplied today to The LaRouche Organization by a Kansas farmer Tom Holthouse, a leader of the opposition to windmill power, was a panorama filmed from his front porch, showing his farmstead surrounded by a huge wind farm of hundreds of turbines. But in his own home and outbuildings the video shows they without power of any sort. His situation in Kansas is typical throughout large parts of the farm belt, up through Minnesota and elsewhere.

The respective utility companies are issuing statements trying to cast blame “equally” across all forms of generation—coal, natural gas, etc.—although they can’t cover up the reality of the motionless wind turbines, and snow covered, useless solar panels. In Kansas, Evergy issued a statement Feb. 15 telling Kansans: “All customers should be prepared for the potential for these periodic outages (20 to 60 minutes).... We’ve also seen some reduced capacity at wind farms because of icing conditions. Every form of energy generation has had some challenges because of the cold,” Evergy spokeswoman Gina Penzig said. She had to add, however, that Evergy’s Wolf Creek nuclear power plant has operated smoothly, with no problems.