544 views In mid-February of this year, a series of severe winter storms swept across the United States, due to the jet stream dipping particularly far south, stretching from Washington State to Texas, and running back north along the East Coast, allowing a polar vortex to bring exceptionally cold air across the country, and spawning multiple storms along the jet stream track. This weather phenomenon resulted in record low temperatures throughout the state of Texas, with temperatures in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio falling below temperatures in Anchorage, Alaska! In Texas, this led both to dramatic increases in electricity demand for heating, and – at the same time – drastic reductions in electricity supply, as natural gas, nuclear, and wind generating facilities faced a variety of restrictions. This severe supply-demand imbalance on the Texas electricity grid resulted in what has already come to be called the “Texas energy crisis of 2021,” which according to my most recent podcast guest, William Hogan, was of “unprecedented” scale, scope, and duration.