PrintSpain's big blackout came less than week after it went full green on electricity
Spain and Portugal achieved net zero on Monday, but not the way anyone would want to achieve net zero: By going back to the cavepeople times with no electricity.
According to the New York Times:
A major power outage hit Spain and Portugal on Monday afternoon, abruptly shutting down daily activities, halting trains and subways, cutting off traffic lights, closing stores and canceling or delaying some flights.
Hours after the power shut off around 12:30 p.m. Central European time, stranding tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula, officials remained at a loss as to the cause, though several denied any foul play.
“At this point, there are no indications of any cyberattack,” António Costa, the president of the European Council, wrote on X after communicating with the leaders of Spain and Portugal, who both assembled emergency meetings. “Grid operators in both countries are working on finding the cause and on restoring the electricity supply.”
Their whole society was disrupted, and no one knows exactly why as of yet.
According to Politico Europe:
The massive blackout that left the Iberian Peninsula in the dark on Monday appears to have been sparked by the unexplained disappearance 15 gigawatts of power from Spain’s electricity grid.
“This has never happened before,” said a grave-looking Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at a press conference late on Monday evening. “And what caused it is something that the experts have not yet established — but they will.”
He added that “no hypothesis has been rejected, and every possible cause is being investigated.”
How does anyone "lose" 15 gigawatts of electricity, accounting for about 60% of Spain's consumption at the time?
Sure, they are looking into a cyberattack, or a terrorist act, or a rare weather event involving magnetic fields, or maybe some bad maintenance, and they should. But they have gone remarkably quiet lately, making one think of the one possibility they might want to be quiet about.
The blackout was unprecedented, and it happened just shortly after this happened:
For those keeping score at home:
— Will Hild (@WillHild) April 28, 2025
April 22nd: Spain brags about hitting 100% renewable power.
April 28th: Spain has the nation's largest blackout in history. pic.twitter.com/S6wsaHEePK
They went completely to wind and solar and as a result, got this.
Spain launched an experiment on April 16th to generate all power for the entire Iberian Peninsula only through renawble energy sources such as wind, solar and hydro.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 28, 2025
Today, their power grid collapsed leaving Spain, Portugal and France with the largest blackout ever pic.twitter.com/NcevenHYYE
Michael Shellenberger, who's an expert on science matters, thinks this is the most likely case as do a lot of us, given the sudden reticience of public officials:
Renewables don't risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it's clear that too little "inertia" due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. pic.twitter.com/FbuX1oSVcs
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 28, 2025
They have reasons to be reticient -- having promoted green energy for years, forcing Spaniards and others to give up their fossil fuels, for the greenie 'wave of the future.
That wave, as it turns out, involves begging Morocco for an electricity bailout and living like cave people, without even access to their own money.
If authorities, who promoted this greenie model can't admit this, then Spain will have many more of these "net-zero" days. This is the green future the left has been promoting around the world, and it's primitive.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
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