A ferocious winter storm struck the southern plains states with exceptional ferocity over the weekend.  By Monday, millions of Texans found themselves without power.  Contrary to what one might expect, the energy problem wasn't primarily because of downed power lines. Instead, in a state that has a quarter of America's proven natural gas reserves, the power went away because Texas has turned to wind generation — and the generators froze.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's write-up about Texas's State Energy Profile:

Texas is the top U.S. producer of both crude oil and natural gas. In 2019, the state accounted for 41% of the nation's crude oil production and 25% of its marketed natural gas production.

As of January 2019, the 30 petroleum refineries in Texas were able to process about 5.8 million barrels of crude oil per day and accounted for 31% of the nation's refining capacity.

That's the good news.  That's the kind of news that helps make a nation energy independent so that it has a constant flow of energy and is not dependent on despotic, hostile foreign powers for its energy needs.

But then there's the bad news from the same report:

Texas leads the nation in wind-powered generation and produced about 28% of all the U.S. wind-powered electricity in 2019. Texas wind turbines have produced more electricity than both of the state's nuclear power plants since 2014. 

That's all very nice and green — although no greener than clean-burning natural gas — but the problem with green energy is that it works only when the wind turbines are turning or, in the case of solar energy panels, when the sun is shining.

In Texas, the turbines aren't turning.  Instead, they've literally been frozen stiff:

Millions are without power in Texas after a historic winter storm blasted the state over the weekend, creating freezing conditions that have made the roads dangerous and knocking out nearly half of Texas' installed wind power generation.

Texas grid operators who spoke to the Austin American-Statesman said freezing rain and historically low temperatures caused wind turbines in West Texas to freeze to a halt, knocking out some 12,000 megawatts of energy production. Wind farms in Texas typically generate up to 25,100 megawatts of energy, almost half of which is currently out of production as the state works to thaw out the turbines.

Germany is currently having a similar problem because its winter storms have not only frozen their turbines, but they've also blocked sunlight from reaching the solar panels that generate necessary energy since Germany made the decision to "go green":

Germany is held up as the world's solar and wind capital by "renewables luvvies" but Germans are freezing through winter due to "millions of solar panels blanketed in snow" and turbines sitting idle, according to Rowan Dean.

[snip]

"But as we speak millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and 30,000 wind turbines are sitting idle because there's no wind.

"Freezing Germans shivering in their lederhosen's are desperate for coal fired power to heat up their wurst and sauerkraut."

Now that winter is coming (contrary to the environmentalists' ludicrous predictions that we'd never see snow again), it turns out that green energy is really blue energy — for that's the color people turn when they're freezing to death.  In summer, it will be red energy, as people bake thanks to Biden's energy policies making air conditioning prohibitively expensive for all but the well-to-do.

The history of the world, as much as anything, has been the history of people finding energy sources that allow them to produce food, trade, and avoid freezing or boiling to death.  In the 21st Century, we finally have abundant supplies of such energy sources, and the leftists are insisting that the only way to "save" us is to return us to a premodern era of malnutrition, disease, darkness, and deadly cold and heat.

I'll leave the last words to Tucker Carlson because he says them so well:

Image: Dallas in the snow.  YouTube screen grab.