IW Long Reads: Burning ambition or crude awakening? Oil giants' M&A plans for renewables firms fuel energy transition debate

Tie-ups dominate as firms scramble for a piece of the zero carbon pie

'Hell freezing over' refers to something that will never happen. But when north Texas freezes over, it not only dominates the news agenda, but tries to hang that agenda on the renewable vs fossil fuel energy debate. Frozen wind turbines were blamed by high-profile Republicans for millions of Texans being left without power (despite wind power only contributing around 10% of the state's energy), while the 'energy island' state of Texas, which runs on its own grid, was also said to be naively underprepared for the historic bad weather to hit the US in recent weeks. While the energy sector was...