In February, as extreme winter weather in Texas brought the state’s power grid to the brink of collapse, the state’s largest electricity producer failed more than a dozen times in 12 hours, leaving millions of Texans without heat and electricity for days.

Elizabeth Wilson, the director of the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society and a professor of environmental sciences, explains why this failure took place and how it can be prevented from happening again.

“With the changing climate, we actually need to transform not only how we make energy but how energy connects with the rest of society—how energy connects with health care, how energy connects with transportation, how energy connects with education,” says Wilson. “And what we’re trying to do here at the Irving Institute for Energy and Society is make sure that we’re asking societally focused questions for our energy systems of the future.”