BLACK OUT IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, FRANCE: A WARNING (UPDATE)

The blackout in Spain, Portugal and parts of the south of France will not have come as a great shock to those who have been paying attention. In California power failures have been an issue for some time, even before the great fire. Given the unstable nature of green power sources, experts have been warning for years something like this was bound to happen. As civilians without the specialist knowledge about power grids, we shall have to rely on people we trust with such authority not to tell us info war mumbo jumbo. But relying on common sense alone, you'd think of solar flares, hacks by hostile powers or failing green energy. Mike Walsh is the War Room's go to guy for everything connected to power. His money is on the last. 

April 28, 2025 War Room: Dave Walsh: This Is The Risk Of Relying On Variable Nature-Based Energy Sources.

As Bannon remarks, those ruling over us want unstable wind farms and solar pastures, and energy gulping data centers, and cutting edge AI complexes, that are using ninety percent of the total energy we are using right now! 

And centralization (for better control)...what could possibly go wrong, you might ask?



April 28, 2025 Alex Christoforou: Blackout. Carney wins. Elensky, ceasefire manipulation. Vance, Ukraine win weird idea. F18 overboard.

Another man who has earned his credentials in recent years is journalist Michael Shellenberger. He posted this thread about the blackout. 

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

For easy reading, here's the entire thread in a threadreader page (link). For good measure, here are a few excepts:

"No one has ever attempted a black start on a grid that relies so heavily on renewables as Iberia,” noted @JKempEnergy . “The limited number of thermal generators will make it more challenging to re-establish momentum and frequency control."

"In a traditional power grid dominated by heavy spinning machines — coal plants, gas turbines, nuclear reactors — small disturbances, even from severe weather, are absorbed and smoothed out by the sheer physical inertia of the system.

The heavy rotating mass of the generators acts like a shock absorber, resisting rapid changes in frequency and stabilizing the grid. But in an electricity system dominated by solar panels, wind turbines, and inverters, there is almost no physical inertia. Solar panels produce no mechanical rotation."

"And if you are a politician blaming the weather for blackouts, fires, or floods, the voters should fire you. Seriously! You're only advertising your own incompetence!"

Blackouts are very dangerous. These are not the kind of interruptions we are used to in Greece. If an entire grid fails, the whole of society comes to a halt. It can easily cost hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

With all our technology you'd think our civilizations are more robust. But as it turns out, we have become peak fragile. This is now where we are! 

By the way, you would not believe what some critics have to say about Spain's PM. I can't even repeat it here. 

The media insisted for days that renewables weren’t to blame for the blackout in Spain, even though anyone with a basic understanding of the electrical grid knew they were. Finally the media is starting to tell the truth. https://t.co/5qyZLpammm pic.twitter.com/WYIgl4bkXm

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 1, 2025

- More on Spain, energy, data centers, Artificial Intelligence -