After receiving a negative Covid test, packing up all our stuff, and saying goodbye to our parents, most of us were able to move in to campus the second week of February. However, my friend Jaden had to wait until February 28th until he was cleared to arrive. He had sent his Covid test to VitalHealth back in the beginning of February like everyone else, but it never arrived. What was going on?

It turns out, a mere 2-3 inches of snow was standing in the way of his test being delivered. To northerners, that may seem like nothing, but in Texas, that 2 inches can make all the difference. That far south, people aren’t used to getting snow. There are no safety precautions like salt spreading in place or plows to clear off the roads. If it stays cold enough, the snow isn’t going anywhere. That is exactly what happened on Valentine’s day this year; a sweeping cold front descended down on the southern USA, stemming from an abnormal polar vortex breakdown. As many of you know, these temperatures were extremely cold for the area, leading to massive energy blackouts throughout Texas and leaving millions of Americans powerless, as everyone raced to find out what had happened and why.

Our energy use through the years has gone through a multitude of different changes and transformations, but one generalization that can be made is that over time, we have slowly moved away from non-renewable resources towards renewable ones. While no one argues with the potential benefits of these greener methods, but some do seek to blame these renewable resources for what happened in Texas. Many politicians and prominent figures have claimed that an overreliance on renewable resources like wind turbines and nuclear energy led to this disaster. The cold temperatures did cause the turbines to freeze, as well as trip the safety features in place at a few nuclear power-plants. As a result, the remaining energy methods (like natural gas) were put under extreme pressure, and ultimately had to be shut down in order to prevent a grid-wide failure. Numerous argue that if instead, Texas had relied more heavily on tried and true energy methods including natural gas and other non-renewable resources, there would not have been this problem. These methods have been used for decades in all kinds of weather conditions, and therefore hold the lowest risk for blackouts moving forward.

This brings up an interesting trade off between human security now and in the future. If we retreat our steps, and begin moving away from clean energy, we will surely exacerbate climate change until our oil and reserves run dry, leaving future generations simply out of luck. On the other hand, no politician will stay in favor by forgoing the needs of people today, living now. People will vote for what helps them best, as at the end of the day, they need warm temperatures and running water to survive.

Thankfully, a lot of the merit to these claims have been disproven. Renewable resources weren’t the true cause for the blackouts, but rather a lack of winterization systems in place. When these structures were built, no one imagined they would need to operate at full capacity in below freezing temperatures. Wind Turbines in Alberta Canada have been known to run without a hitch in the constant cold; Texas had just not taken the necessary precautions. While for now, this revelation does indeed solve our dilemma of weighing human comfort and security vs future humans comfort and security, but this problem will surely resurface. We can only hope that in the meantime, our energy systems are upgraded and insured against any seen, or unseen threat that may arise.