Texas grid collapse no fault of wind power: Extreme weather exposes atomic shortcuts

Google Earth Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott jumped on Fox News to blame President Biden along with wind and solar power for the state’s electric grid collapse during this latest round of climate-crisis extreme winter weather. But that was false information Bloomberg reports. According to Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid manager, more wind was online than forecasted and was the least affected. All energy generators on the grid were hard hit, including nuclear power, but the blizzard exposed energy politics and energy lobbyists, not renewable technology, as the chief culprit. South Texas nuclear power plant was one contributor to the grid collapse when it failed to winterize its steam turbines, to save money, and frozen feedwater pumps caused a reactor SCRAM. 

Other extreme weather and climate-related events can contribute to the automatic shutdown of nuclear power stations and destabilization of the electric grid including ice buildup on offsite electric utility lines which provide 100% of the power to all reactor safety systems. A power grid distruption to the nuclear power station will cause the reactor to SCRAM and reactor cooling systems and a subset of safety systems will be powered by onsite emergency generators. Reactor cooling water systems are also vulnerable to extreme weather and climate related events. Ice buildup around cooling water intake systems will also cause reactors to power down or shutdown. To the other extreme, extreme or prolonged heat will cause reactor cooling water temperatures to rise with ineffective cooling capacity causing reactors to power down or shut down as will falling reactor cooling water intake levels affected by prolonged drought. Similarly, high winds can take down electrical grid lines causing an automatic SCRAM. Once hurricane wind levels exceed Category 1 (74 mph), reactor operators are required to manually shutdown the reactor before offsite power is lost.

More potential adverse impacts from the nuclear industry taking risky economic short shortcuts during construction and operations to increase profit margins by shaving safety margins and electricity reliability have included flood protection around power reactors and earthquake upgrades for critical systems, structures and components.