Texas leaders are confident the state's power grid will hold up during this week's arctic freeze, thanks to reforms made in the aftermath of the deadly February 2021 ice storm that left much of the state in the dark for days. Those reforms include weatherization requirements, increased power generating capacity and supply, and better transparency for the public. You can even track grid conditions in real time now.
While these changes were necessary and have so far proven effective, critics warn they don't go nearly far enough in fully shoring up the grid. "Governor Greg Abbott and the legislature and ERCOT have tried to make it so that if we have this extreme weather, we're going to be able to get through it, and a lot of changes were made to the grid---but it's still fragile," says David Tice, who has produced a new documentary film on threats to the grid called Grid Down, Power Up.
Tice warns that ensuring the grid can withstand extreme weather events is only a small part of overall grid security. Other threats to the power supply include hostile foreign actors, domestic terrorists, electromagnetic pulses or EMPs, and solar flares--which occur naturally on the Sun and could cause a major disruption in electricity on Earth. "All critical civilian infrastructure---which is our power grid, our water systems, etc. needs to be held to a safety standard similar to our military installations," he tells KTRH. "If our adversaries wanted to go after civilians, this is a vulnerable way they could get to us."
While the last legislative session focused on protecting the grid from weather, the next one will include a focus on these other threats. "Texas State Senator Bob Hall is planning legislation in this next session focusing on hardening or better protecting our power grid against these external threats," says Tice.
Texas is on its own power grid, but the rest of the country should also heed warnings to protect its energy infrastructure. Tice believes Congress missed a big opportunity to do that with the recent infrastructure bill. "This $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill...if it was dedicated to our bulk power system, we could provide a great deal of protection for our substations," he says. "This is so fixable."
"Because, when you think about infrastructure...what's more important infrastructure than our power grid?"