Former Republican Texas Gov. Ricky Perry told Fox News on Monday that adhering to strict political ideologies when it comes to energy could get people killed.
Perry, who also served as the secretary of energy in the Trump administration, made the remarks as his home state of Texas has endured harsh sub-zero temperatures this week, which has rendered some sources of green energy, such as wind turbines, inoperable because they froze.
“So the point is, you need to have a diversity of energy sources no matter where you are,” Perry told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “And [there] couldn’t be a greater example of that in the state of Texas right now. We got massive amount of wind farms out in West Texas, that are frozen up there just like a propeller on an airplane. They froze up last night, no wind out there. All of that wind energy was lost.”
“It’s incredibly important to have a diverse, I think you had a number of things that lined up for the perfect storm, if you will. But the point is, that’s what those of us in government are supposed to do, we’re supposed to try to look over the horizon, see the things that are the challenges,” Perry said. “Having a diverse base load of energy is incredibly important. We started taking coal plants off, we started taking nuclear plants off. And if this country is going to continue to grow is going to continue to have aced that it’s going to have to be competitive in the world, we’ve got to have an energy supply that is diverse, a baseload that, you know, when you call on it, it’s going to be there.”
“That means that fossil fuels have to be a part of that, we’ve got to use mean liquefied natural gas, I mean, natural gas is abundant in this country,” he continued. “We have stepped away from our nuclear energy compact fusion reactors, I’m telling you, we ought to be looking at all of the different ways to use fusion reactors. There’s some great progress being made in that field right now. And I don’t hear the current administration, I don’t hear the green New Deal talking about anything other than wind and solar. And those are fine. You can use them have them, have them out there. We certainly have that diversity in the state of Texas. But the point is, you better be thinking long term in this game. And there’s not enough people thinking long term.”
Carlson brought up how “weak politicians influenced by ideologues who don’t know anything about the practical world and don’t care. They don’t care about the effects of their policies, and their view is theirs. This is a moral equation. Fossil fuels are evil, alternatives to fossil fuels, except nuclear are good. Therefore, we’re doing that no matter how many people freeze to death.
And so why don’t we let people like that near the power grid is the question.”
Perry later hammered home the point that letting political ideologues control America’s sources of energy could have serious consequences.
“And that’s the point, I think that that we really need to drive home from the standpoint of having a group of people who are so bent on their philosophy, that they don’t really care about your future, they don’t care about your lives in those cases,” Perry said. “I mean, think about if we were in the AOC world, fast forward 10 years, and everything is solar, everything is wind. And you have this type of event, this type of, I mean, it’s nine degrees in Round Top, Texas, we’re the same latitude as Houston, nine degrees. And if you don’t have power, you’re gonna, you’re gonna die. I mean, there are countless lives that could be lost with this type of reckless adhering to a philosophy that, quite frankly, is not scientific.”
“We heard them time after time, we got to stick to the science, we got to stick to the science in this last election,” Perry concluded. “Well, the science tells us that if you have just wind and solar, it’s going to get awfully cold in the winter in places, and it’s going to get awfully hot in the summer. We’re using more energy in Texas today than we’ve used historically in the hottest time of the summer. Yep. You got to be planning ahead.”