The letter “Oil Saves Lives” praises fossil fuels for keeping people alive during the recent polar vortex. As usual, the truth is more complicated than that.
On January 31, at the peak of the deep freeze, 23 percent of coal plants — nearly one in four — froze and stopped operating. Many gas plants stopped operations because their supplies were cut off, as often happens during times of peak usage, in order to conserve resources (in fact, this is a method companies use to maintain profits, but that’s another story). Thousands of Americans in the Midwest experienced power outages.
Coal, gas, and nuclear sources are known to freeze up during extreme cold. However, studies show that we have the technology to supply 80 percent of our power using solar, hydro, and wind. The storage of these technologies would more than balance our use of fossil fuels during periods of high demand. These technologies are commercially available and affordable throughout the U.S., and their cost has fallen sufficiently to be competitive with fossil fuels.