Fox Information correspondent Sarah Alegre joins Fox & Mates Weekend from Nashville, Tennessee, to debate sweeping energy outages throughout the U.S. as accrued ice from a winter storm takes down energy traces.
A lethal and historic winter storm that has impacted a 2,300-mile swath of the nation with snow, ice and energy outages has prompted strikes to ramp up energy manufacturing from coal, whereas placing it and different fossil fuels within the highlight as dependable vitality sources amid the fierce climate.
Winter Storm Fern induced life-threatening energy outages throughout many elements of the South, whereas the Northeast was hit with heavy snow. Different areas have confronted ice and freezing temperatures.
The inclement climate induced over 800,000 energy outages within the South as ice accumulations from freezing rain toppled timber and knocked out energy traces. As of Monday afternoon, energy outage monitoring web site PowerOutage.us confirmed over 229,000 outages in Tennessee, greater than 152,000 in Mississippi, almost 114,000 in Louisiana and over 45,000 in Texas – whereas Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia all had between 15,000 and 36,000 outages.
Vitality Secretary Chris Wright issued emergency orders to permit vitality operators within the energy grid areas of the Mid-Atlantic, New England and Texas to run their power-generating sources as wanted to make sure grid stability no matter environmental permits or state regulation.
Coal energy vegetation are serving to to maintain the ability grid through the ongoing winter storm. (Natalie Behring/Getty Pictures)
“As Winter Storm Fern brings excessive chilly and harmful situations throughout the nation, sustaining reasonably priced, dependable, and safe energy is non-negotiable,” Wright stated in making the announcement.
Wright additionally issued an order to Texas grid operator ERCOT to leverage energy from backup turbines at knowledge facilities and different industrial websites to ease the pressure on the remainder of the grid.
“The earlier administration’s vitality subtraction insurance policies weakened the grid, leaving People extra weak throughout occasions like Winter Storm Fern,” Wright stated. “Due to President Trump’s management, we’re reversing these failures and utilizing each out there software to maintain the lights on and People secure by way of this storm.”
MORE THAN 1 MILLION AMERICANS LOSE POWER AS MONSTER WINTER STORM SWEEPS ACROSS THE US
Coal has performed a key position in powering the vitality grid throughout winter storms, when renewable sources like wind and photo voltaic are much less out there. (Justin Merriman/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
Efforts in current many years to scale back reliance on fossil fuels like coal in addition to cleaner-burning pure gasoline in favor of renewable vitality sources like wind and photo voltaic. The extreme winter storm has proven the vital position that coal and pure gasoline can play in supporting the vitality grid by offering secure baseload energy when wind and photo voltaic sources aren’t producing sufficient energy.
The PJM Interconnection, the most important energy grid operator within the U.S. that serves elements of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest areas, was supplying energy produced from gasoline (41%), nuclear (27%) and coal (24%) on Monday – whereas renewable vitality sources like wind and photo voltaic have been supplying lower than 5% every.
MASSIVE WINTER STORM STRAINS US POWER GRID AS OPERATORS SCRAMBLE TO AVOID BLACKOUTS
Winter Storm Fern disrupted 1000’s of flights across the nation. (Charly Triballeau/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
A report printed in November by the North American Electrical Reliability Company assessed the reliability of the electrical grid forward of the 2025-2026 winter and famous that coal performs a key position in supporting the grid throughout winter storms.
“[Bulk power system] stakeholders throughout North America word a number of fuel-related points which are being monitored coming into the winter season,” NERC wrote.
“For instance, whereas coal represents a waning share of the general useful resource combine, it continues to play an vital position in assembly demand throughout excessive climate occasions, and oil inventories at dual-fuel gas-oil turbines reduce dangers associated to pure gasoline deliverability in infrastructure-constrained areas, particularly through the winter.”
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“Notably, it’s infeasible or prohibitively expensive to stockpile pure gasoline regionally at energy vegetation, and this exposes the BPS to the chance profile of the constituent methods that comprise the provision and supply of this just-in-time gasoline,” it continued.
