If you haven’t heard, green and renewable energy is supposed to be our future. It’s why government heads like President Joe Biden and others insist you do away with your gas cars, coal-burning stoves, and propane-heated homes.
But the fact is that renewable energy isn’t feasible right now.
A perfect example comes from Nebraska, where tornados and summer thunderstorms will likely ruin plenty of property.
And yet, the powers that be saw fit to construct and operate a massive solar farm in the area. That is, until baseball-sized hail destroyed it in just a few minutes.
As the Cowboy State Daily reported, a heaving thunderstorm moved eastward out of Wyoming, over the state line, and crossed paths with the Scottsbluff, Nebraska’s 5.2 MW Community Solar project.
Before the hailstorm, the project’s website touted it had over 14,000 solar panels “installed on trackers that will follow the sun throughout the day.”
But thunderstorms capable of producing hail and throwing them at 150 miles per hour just ensured those panels aren’t doing much of anything now. Images provided by local news outlets and such show what appears to be a total loss.
Solar panels destroyed by large hail north of Scottsbluff, Nebraska last night. #newx Photo Courtesy Matt Larsen #hail pic.twitter.com/2ND7BHmYlB
— Daryl Orr (@WxWyDaryl) June 27, 2023
Kevin Killough of the Cowboy State Daily wrote, “The hail shattered most of the panels on the 5.2-megawatt solar project, sparing an odd panel like missing teeth in a white smile.”
But smile or no smile, I’m not sure a project of this kind should have ever been built here.
As the Federal Emergency Management Agency says, this is one of the highest-ranked hail risk regions in the entire country.
And yet, someone decided to put out acres of mirrors was a good idea?
Come on, people…
Now, I’m not saying that solar power has its benefits, as does wind power. But both should be used strategically. Not just thrust upon the population as the only solution.
Just ask Texas what happens when those “renewable” energy sources come into contact with some of the same weather conditions they are meant to tame. Thousands were without power or heat, and hundreds were left dead in their homes.
BREAKING: Nearly half of Texas' wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, grid operators report 1/ https://t.co/Qfi25KN37n
— Austin Statesman (@statesman) February 14, 2021
Nope, I think I’ll just stick with my wood boiler.
