We are following breaking news. Millions of people and taxes are without power. Right now is this date looks to conserve energy and relieve stress on the electric grid from New York Times. I'm likeable borrow. This is a daily today, huge winner, storms have plunged. large parts of the central and southern United States, including much of Texas, into Adieu Thirdly, energy crisis: initially we Bobby outages would last may be a few minutes after we were told, but many people have lost power for hours a day longer with ruling blackout leaving to this day, powerless amid dangerously core temperatures, medical examiner in Galveston, requesting a refrigerated truck after reports of several cold weather related death, my colleagues Clifford Kraus and Brad Cooler on why what happened in text?

maybe a glimpse into America's future? It's Wednesday February. Seventeenth, hello, Clef, MIKE hey it's Michael Barb Cliff. Can you hear me, Michael our I'm? I'm just turn you're here services a little spotty which under the circumstances, makes total sense. I'm going to try to see if I can get a car cloud shoot in a different color yeah you're sat you're, starting to sound a little use during a sound a little bit better. Just as you moved good good, because I was in

car. And now I'm in my house and nominal floor by car is warmer than my house, but they sell coverage is better in my house: ok, How does that? It sounds really good. Wait till you guys are. You were just out inside your car, yes, because I was talking about He do that in the house right, because you dont have electricity, the current rise, so I just wanna go How are you doing what is working in your life, how meals? of clothing. Are you wearing? Are you ok I'll get going? how many layers? Well, I have an arctic ski jack so I'm wearing that very warm sweat pants over another pair of sweat pants. that's what I'm wearing, and I got my hood on from my Harker, which I got for a trip up to

The canadian Artic years ago I've been under blankets as well. So it's it's very, very cold in the house, nothing! I mean we had a week last night, I'm not sure why, but, since you have no water Many more there's no weak anymore. So that's the Good NEWS we had some problem put our eating downstairs, but now there is no need at all, so that fine- and you know, there's no electricity Part of this right now is no coffee,

we'll hugger down I'll, have some mild withdrawals from not having coffee and hopefully we'll get some heat by tonight. We haven't had hit since about four o clock this morning. We expected it because a lot of people didn't have power for a whole day yesterday, so have how pull does it in your house and how cold is it outside in his there? Much of a difference at this point, I'd be guessing, but probably about twenty to twenty five in my house right now, I'm getting colder while these earth you call this temperatures, I understand and thirty five years or throw so clever, We want to understand what has just happened in Texas. Very clearly, there has been a pretty epic failure of the state's electric power system.

And, as it happens, you're not a man in Houston without power sitting in a freezing. House. You are a times energy reporter, who very well understands how energy flows through an electric grid. So what do we need to understand about how Texans get electricity? Okay, so Texans get their electricity who many sources we have coal and nuclear and solar, and quite a bit of wind and also natural gas, which is the number one provider, but also the most unique thing about the Texas GRID is its independence.

from the rest of the country sort of? Why is Texas Energy Independence, as my senses in most states want to be connected to a larger national electric grid because it creates I believe the industry term is redundancy right, like some goes wrong. You can call upon another site, and you can ask them for electricity from their state and it means you have kind of backup systems. Monk grown have both the demand, the people and the supply of the very few do and so, if you're, a North Dakota and you ve got a lot of land in your producing a lot of weight energy, but you have a big population. You're gonna send that energy transmission law

two other space. If you are, you know New York and you want Hydro from Canada, you didn't bring it down. Taxes doesn't need do that text has got the supply and demand within its own borders, so that are worth Texas creates so much power that its view is. We don't really need to take power from anybody else. We can be self sufficient, so we will be self sufficient and will have cut ourselves off from the rest of the great yeah. That is true. Now there are exceptions. The exceptions are usually in the summer when the temperature rise very, very high and demand for use of air conditioners is very high, but of course that is not what happened today, this was not a story of high air conditioning usage, taxing the Texas Electric damn. So what exactly did happen

the last twenty four hours with this storm and this very unique diversified electric system that independent in Texas that has led us to this point. So I'm twenty four to thirty six hours, there's been an extreme situation. The Texan haven't seen in about thirty five years and that is intense cold sleep, an ice and snow across the entire state. Every county. From where taxes the Permian Basin, which is the center of the oil business, which is on the edge of the two hour desert, as well as in the northern prairies, around Dallas Fort Worth and down to San Antonio. All of these areas had

pictures in the low single digits, unprecedented poor thing, millions of taxes to simultaneously crank up their heap and this kind of certain demands during the winter across the state was never anticipated by the people who constructed the grid and what the Texas GRID Operators State was institute, rolling blackouts in which all communities. were heard last power to confer with much energy has passed. and how long do these rolling blackouts? Last at first, Regulators said that the interruptions with last like forty five minutes, but by the end, Monday. It became clear that there were interruption of twelve hours or more for some people

an entire day or even more than that, while so This point you have super high consumer demand rolling blackouts, and on top of that, unusually cold temperatures, snow and freeze rain right. So where does that leave the grid? It seems, like everything has gone wrong. There's been a freezing up of at least some of the wind turbines is going to freezing up of gas lines. There have been problems with the transmission even from the nuclear, as well as coal plants, so across the entire supply chain. There are problems, and so it appears to be. the system is not prepared to deal with prolonged periods of cold got it. So this is not a problem where one kind of aid

resource faltered or failed and those succeeded. It feels like this. Is a crisis in which almost all sources of energy failed yeah. Basically, the infrastructure of this thing is not prepared for these extreme conditions, and maybe if workers pre condition, one part of the state or another be would be sufficient, but but the fact that these conditions to the entire state and the state has one system Exactly like this is the perfect storm in more ways than one. Also, let me ask you: this class is this? The story of a visa, bad winter. Storm then up ended a reasonably good system, or is this The story of what turns out

I have been a pretty weak system that was appended by the kind of storm, that. We may end up seeing a lot more in the future because of climate change were appears to help. The storm is unusual to say, but it also underscores the fragility of the grid under extreme circumstances, but does another factor here and let me attend surely give us answers when this is fully investigated taxes system years ago was deregulated, meaning government got less and less involved in overseeing the electric system and handed over to the private sector, It had ended it over to the private sector and an open system to more competition. People have an abundance of choices and price

ranges and even packages for the electricity that they choose to prices for their residence? Is people like this they get there because of the deregulation and because of competition, more competition between utilities, people get their energy very cheap people like that until there is an emergency and then you see you get what you pay for got it. Whenever you hear people in government talk, what they want from an electric grid. They often say diversity, renewable, not one source, but multiple sources of energy. So recognising that what's happening in Texas is multi fact whirl and pretty complicated it. Click on the surface Texas has pretty advanced, perhaps even programme save energy system. Where there are multiple sources

looting, many renewables, but it turns out that that didn't really solve any of the problems in the last day or two I agree with that analysis. The problem is, is that no one source could compensate for the other sources when there were multiple problems with the transmission of the power from those sources to the consumers, and there were problems with the transmission cross the system and clear from your early understanding of the problem is one these factors bigger than the others is a deregulation. Is it this independent system that so unique. Is it not diversity. I think it's early to say there will be people who are critics of deregulation. That will say the consumers are getting heap energy, but you get what you pay for

and under normal circumstances the system works well, but as soon as there is an extreme event like this one, this system breaks the system needs to be come more. Muscular needs to be stronger To be more safeguards, there need to be more redundancies. I think that's what we're gonna find still early days in assessing what went wrong. I know this has been an infuriating interview for you, because you ve got to repeat yourself fifteen times, but I think we're going to finally end this torture session. For you. Thank you. Cliff stay, warm my pleasure, but once actually launched will also we lost during a cliff, are now and

Ah, sorry, clever, losing- and there were so close- will break back Verizon designed five g to make the things we do every day better. With the coverage of five g nationwide, millions of people can now work, listen and stream, and variety than five g quality and in parts of many cities Verizon has your white band, the fastest five g in the world. This is the five g that's built for you. This is five g felt right. Only from Verizon five g alter wide available only in parts of select cities, fifteen nation wide avail,

in twenty seven hundred plus cities and towns. Global clean based on opens we'll independent analysis should broadway he's got off the phone with Cliff Kraus, our colleague in Houston, cliff no rights about energy but a business activities, you write about policy and technology for the climate

dusk. So how are you in that capacity? Thinking about what just happened in taxes, so I think what s interesting about. What happened in Texas is that the grid operators in Texas had seen some severe cold saps before they saw them in twenty eleven. They summon twenty eighteen and they kind of assumed that was about as bad as it would get, and it turned out this winter storm was much worse. It affected far more of the state, is far colder and was outside what they had observed before it was outside historical conditions and when thinking about climate change, that sort of the big problem we face overall in that

so much of our infrastructure. All of our roads are sewers. Are dams were essentially designed with the climate of the past in mind, but we know them. That's now changing nets changing very rapidly, and that means a lot of what we had built may not work in the future. We have to plan differently, we have to reorganise so much of our infrastructure to prepare for those changes, and it's just a huge problem that climate change poses for not just this country, but all countries around the world who give you some examples of what you mean where the current info especially the energy infrastructure, now feels like it was developed a previous era. So I think one of the most vivid examples we saw pretty recently was he

doubts in California may have been seeing a growing number of severe wildfires and some of those linked to climate change. Some nice thing to the states forestry practices bite, grid operators there during the fire season. They have had to impose blackouts to avoid their power lines triggering large and catastrophic wildfires. So as the fire risk grows, The electric system that they have built has suddenly become incompatible with that risk right. There are literally turning off the power to avoid wins, knocking over

power lines that were then cause even more wildfires. That's right and you can look at examples outside of the power system, so we know that climate change is going to bring more frequent and stronger heatwaves across much of the world and particularly its expected to bring heat waves into places. They have never really experienced dangerous heat before. So. If you look at Europe, Europe has over the past twenty years, sword suffering from bigger and more dangerous. He ways we saw a big one in twenty nineteen. There is a really deadly one and in two thousand three and it's not just that a highway is hitting this place. It's that a lot of people aren't really adapted to the heat their homes may not have air conditioners early on cities had not set up cooling centres for vulnerable residents and, as a result, a highway vicious much much deadlier

in a place. That's not quite adapted for so that's another example of where the way we ve built in the past is no longer a good guide to what we might expect in the future. Written. Of course, Texas is the most recent example of this, but it was not heat, which is what we associate with excess. It was a deep freeze, yeah, and so this is what really interesting. By and large, we know that as the planet warms up, places like Texas are expected to get hotter on average and suffer fewer colder Days overall, but there is this interesting emerging line of climate science. Research that, I should say, is still pretty hotly debated, but the idea is that, as the Arctic warms up the jet stream this whether pattern. That's what keeps the icy air trapped in the Arctic

Chad Street can weaken overtime, allowing the icy air to escape into spill over into North America or Europe causing particularly severe winter storms, like the one we saw this week now again, scientists are still trying to figure out to what extent this is actually happening. There are some researchers who say we don't see any sign of polar vortex disruptions increasing over time. This might just happen, naturally, even in the absence of climate change, other research per se? Actually, maybe we are seeing an increase in winter storms, and perhaps this is linked to climate change, so this is a place where the jury is still out, but if it is true that suggests we may have to prepare for something we didn't expect in the past, so let me make sure

I understand this. Bread global warming might actually make it easier for very cold air to flow from the Arctic to a place like Texas, but because as you say, this is still a matter of scientific debate. It's not clear that the storm we saw this week was due to climate change, but it might have been influenced by a bright

so what's interesting here is that, even though we know many of the broad patterns that will result from global warming right, many places will get hotter. Wet places are likely to get wetter. Try places are likely to get drier. The seas will rise. There is still this really troubling on nerving possibility that climate change will throw a bunch of surprises at us that we so known fully understand and that are still very difficult to predict serve your Texas is one thing: if you are planning for increasing the heat and that's what you're expected you can build your infrastructure around back right. If suddenly, climate changes throwing you this uncertain, curveball were actually you may get these once a decade, maybe more fierce winter storms that becomes much harder to plan for

because your entire grid is not really delta. That possibility- and how would you plan for something that is very unlikely to happen, because it hasn't really happened? For right I mean. Is that even possible not,

for taxes, but for any part of the american or really the global power grid to be prepared for an era of by definition, unpredictable extremes, yeah, it's a huge challenge and suddenly experts. I talk to when I ask that this exact question laid out some general principles, so obviously improving forecasting to the best extent possible is really important, although it's never going to be perfect. Another is better scenario, planning really thinking hard about what can go wrong and how and where is this system likely to break and how can a break? But then there are also technological solutions to try to make the grid more resilient to extreme weather and climate change. So that might include things like expand

being grids so that they cover a wider part of the country. That way, if there is a failure in one area, it can be backed up by electricity. Another area written, for example, Texas, has an independent system and therefore was not linked in to those nay last year and I imagine there will be a lot of discussion about whether that system makes sense. Although Texas has always been resistant to connecting deeply with. Their grids and that there are other possible technical solutions. You know in California many homeowners have they investing in battery backup systems for when they might face rolling blackouts, but those tend to be costly. You have to invest. front and for many people it's worth it as a sort of insurance against blackouts in extreme events that my cause them to lose power. When you're asking people to have a backup batter, in their home. You seem to be more or less conceding that the overall,

infrastructure of a great and place is not up to the challenge. Yet you are essentially conceding that There are going to be a lot of unexpected things that happen. There are going to make it difficult to maintain the reliability of the grid, and people should be prepared for first right and in so is that where we are right now these cuts stop gap measures. You just mentioned because it is the idea of fixing the grid so that it can with. and these extreme climate events that are now becoming more and more common, it's gonna take awhile right. So in the meantime, you either deal with more blackouts or you by a battery and put it in your basement and hope for the best

That kind of where we are or what rate, I certainly hope not blackouts, could be hugely destructive, and you know I think everyone wants to avoid them as much as possible, both the utilities and obviously the people who rely on electricity for daily life. But it is clear that, as we see increasingly severe and often unpredictable, severe weather or power systems really are going to have to change, and if we don't make those changes, wellbeing, climate change will bring the changed force either we can adapt to changing conditions, prepare for increasing severe weather or, that whether will break the system right as it kind of justice in Texas, where we can finish our conversation with our colleague cliff because no electricity and no self service exactly

oh Brad. Thank you very much. We appreciate at any time thank you on Tuesday, the governor of Texas Ring abbot called for emergency reforms of the States Power grid, saying has been quote anything but reliable. The past forty eight hours would write back. You dont need to you're, about how much life at home is changed. You already know, but how ways to make life at home. A little better ego be make smart devices like motion in temperature, sensors, thermostats and a camera that are all connected through a service called haven and an app that connects everything it's a hands off smart homeowner, bring solution for eyes and ears when you're away and more comfort in situ

Eddie when you're home, imagine what your home could be added: goby dot com here's. What else you need today, in a statement on Tuesday former President Donald Trump lashed out at the most powerful Republican in the Senate, Mcconnell for a quote: lack of political insight, wisdom, skill and personality the personal attack came after Mcconnell voted to acquit trouble, but then critiques him in a spy. For his rule and inciting the riot at the capitol trumps remarks suggest that, after a period of silence during the impeachment trial, he plans to play an active role in republican party politics and in targeting lawmakers like Mcconnell, who he sees having betrayed him to these episode. Was

reduced by Michael Simon Johnson, Nina potluck, asked the child. Lady and Alexandria, Lee yeah, it was edited. My deep shock and engineered by Chris would that's it for the rail I'm likeable bar, see tomorrow. This pat cast is supported by the University of Pennsylvania, Fit Years ago. Pen researchers develop the idea to use messenger RNA to make a vaccine today. That technique has been used in several corona virus like means around the world. The University of Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of vaccine research for more than fifty years. It's all discovered, taught and made it pen. Visit penned today, DOT you pen, DOT Eu for more information,