Episode 69: UH energy fellow/professor: Ed Hirs

For nearly a week in mid-February, most of the state suffered through subfreezing temperatures. Millions lost power and heat. When pipes burst and water systems shut down. Just this week, the New York Times reported that 111 people had died in the freeze, almost doubling the number of deaths officials had reported earlier. A month and a half since the freeze hit Texas, we’re still trying to make sense of what happened. A decade ago, University of Houston Energy Fellow, Ed Hirs predicted this failure would happen. He is an energy economics professor at UH and he’s with us today to help understand how the system collapsed, the fallout since then and what can be done to prevent this from happening again.