Experts in the News

Last week's Texas freeze may only have been a minor test, but the state's added wind and solar power are creating a "more diversified and more balanced supply," said the Baker Institute's Dan Cohan. "Texas has been adding solar farms faster than any state has in U.S. history."

With recent cold fronts, natural gas supply in Texas has significantly dropped twice in the past month, but energy scholar Daniel Cohan said the data "looks like it would look in most previous years." Though no severe freeze has yet tested weatherization improvements, for now, the average Texan need not worry, he added.

While the $2.7 trillion infrastructure bill just "scratches the surface" of what's needed to fix the U.S. energy grid, it's "realistic" to replace the grid's fossil fuels with clean sources by 2035 or so — should we muster the political will, said Baker Institute Faculty Scholar Dan Cohan.

After February's freeze and statewide electricity blackout, Texas leaders "dropped the ball on not doing anything on [securing out-of-state electricity] transmission," said faculty scholar Daniel Cohan. "Even if we don’t become fully integrated with the national grid," Texas should at least have "more of those ties [which] could make us much more resilient."

“I shudder to think what things would be [like] if we were actually having a heat wave,” said Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar Dan Cohan, noting a similar call for conservation during a relatively mild April.