“So why has this recently become a problem?
Back in the 70s it was really cold”
Not exactly sure but my guess is the capacity just has not kept up with population growth demand. Many reasons for that including increasing government energy regulations.
We had 250 million back then.
The last nuclear power plant build was Watts Bar, finished in 1996 with additional capacity added in 2015.
They should have been building a whole lot more than they did.
We could have helped out our Aussie and Canuk friends...they have the largest and third largest uranium reserves.
Quite a few coal plants have been shut down, and solar and wind are unreliable.
That said, this last system had plenty of sustained cold wind! Sheesh!