A Perfect Meme for the Next 24 Hours

NOW

Current Temperatures Across Kansas...

...range from +8° to -4°F. Those aren't wind chills, but actual temperatures. I'm using Kansas as an example because the majority of our energy capacity is wind. School is out for tomorrow in most areas because of the extreme cold.

The meme below is literally true:

Or, a miner with a geiger counter. We have a nuclear power plant in the eastern part of Kansas. Our energy company, Evergy, recently canceled plans to close a coal plant because they are learning that wind and solar don't cut it and demand in our growing region keeps rising. 

It is snowing at my house and any solar panels in my area would be partially covered before sunset. Kansas and Iowa are two of the four states with the most 'green' energy (percentage basis). Even if someone cleared off the solar panels, there was very little sunlight as clouds cover most all of both states. 

To our south, although it has picked up in the last five hours, in Texas' ERCOT region wind was operating at a mere 10% of capacity during the morning. At one point, wind dropped to just 4.5% of capacity!

Tuesday Morning

This is the 7am forecast wind and temperature will be colder than -10° in much of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa with below zero lows into north Texas. But, while you may have to be able to read a weather map to follow the wind barbs, here's the bottom line: south of I-70 winds just about everywhere will be too light to turn the wind turbine blades!

Hopefully, everyone will have power tonight and tomorrow. But, the fact is that wind energy often fails when needed the most because it is a meteorological fact that winds are usually calm or nearly calm when it is extremely hot and extremely cold.