How Extreme Cold Turned Into a U.S. Energy Crisis: QuickTake

Energy markets have never seen anything quite like this. In a matter of four days, an intensifying cold blast gripping the central U.S. froze natural gas pipelines, sent electricity prices skyrocketing to record levels and ultimately forced Texas’s grid operator to plunge more than 2 million homes into darkness in the first winter weather-related rolling blackouts since 2011. As electricity outages began spreading through a 14-state grid across the southwest, plenty of blame for the crisis was already being assigned.

1. What started this?

On the most basic level, the weather. A polar vortex-- a girdle of winds that ...