A special edition on the Spanish black-out, and what to do if it happens here
I WAS in Spain when it suffered a nationwide power outage just over a week ago, hitting Portugal and parts of Southern France, Belgium and the Netherlands as well. There are now many stories and speculation as to why.
After a 12-hour blackout, it took quite a while for the country to come back to life. It brought back childhood memories when my parents kept a box or two of candles and a camping stove in a box specifically for dealing with power cuts, which were something that they expected and prepared for.
Today everything runs on electricity. When the electricity goes off, your life turns upside down. That’s what Net Zero promises, but the mad people in charge seemingly will not be happy until we are starving and freezing.
Take the Green party in Spain: they are cock-a-hoop that renewables worked so well! The same Greens whose removal of flood defences on an EU diktat caused so much misery and suffering in the floods in Valencia before Christmas.
What they ignore is a 50-year-old grid infrastructure that cannot cope. A fire destroyed a connector on the border with Southern France and Spain. The connector was situated on top of a mountain. I doubt very much if this connector was the sole cause of what happened. That much of Spain’s electricity infrastructure crosses mountains however leaves the network vulnerable to intense solar flares, which can cause surges and overloads. This is what seems to have happened, not that you would know from the MSM.
So what do we know about the sudden drop-out in the Iberian electricity grid? Most ‘alt’ coverage has pointed the finger at renewables. And for good reason.
Redacted’s Clayton Morris says it was not atmospheric anomalies or solar flares as many claimed. He turns to the problem of solar panels which provide huge spikes and falls in output depending on cloud passage. You can watch his report here.
The Conversation goes into further details on the technical issues of solar (in)capability. Current evidence, the article states, points to a problem in the synchronisation of the grid: ‘All sources feeding power into the grid must be synchronised at the same frequency, 50 Hz . . . [but) . . . variable renewable sources, such as solar photovoltaic, do not have this capability. They generate direct current which is converted to alternating current at 50 Hz, but they cannot react automatically to frequency variations.’
The full article is well worth reading.
It reminded me of a Global Warming Policy Foundation paper I read a year or two back on the fragility of the European grid which patently hasn’t been heeded by anyone in authority. It warned that the European grid was increasingly unable to supply enough power to meet demand and therefore unreliable. I quote from the author’s summary explanation:
‘The network frequency is the key measure of the health of the grid. Measured locally, but of supra-regional significance, it is the first indicator of an imbalance between supply and demand. It must be kept within very narrow bounds; a failure to do so would lead to damage to infrastructure or even the complete shutdown of the system. Frequency deviations – incidents – happen for many reasons, but have become more common as the share of wind and solar on the grid has increased. Renewables are not dispatchable – their output cannot be increased minute to minute to meet a shortage of supply – so from a grid perspective they are unreliable. The impact of their widespread deployment is clear from the fact that frequency incidents have increased from 33 hours in 2020 to over 52 hours in 2021, an increase of more than 50 per cent in just one year.’
When, I wonder, will the EU’s politicians wake up?
Reporting on the Spanish blackout, the Greek social and political commentator Alex Christoforou expresses scepticism about the authorities’ claim that atmospheric phenomena were the problem. He too has woken up to the EU’s grid problem and hubristic policy which is to connect all of Europe and have the EU in control of the whole grid. Had Spain had been further integrated into the EU network, its local problem would have collapsed the entire European grid, he says.
The Jolly Heretic asks what the Spanish blackouts revealed about Generation Z. He discusses the issue of ‘delayed gratification’ made very real for young people who expect everything to be instant. Will younger generations be able to problem-solve and have the resilience to cope? DEI incompetence and the decline in intelligence over time doesn’t help you cope with ureliable electricity supply. It’s a fact of life in many parts of the world.
So how are we going to learn to cope here? First you should understand that going dark even for a short time needs thought and awareness. Here’s my check-list of things you should know:
- You can’t use a lift and shouldn’t in case the power cuts when you are in it;
- Water and sewage stop working if they rely on pumps, especially so in apartment blocks;
- Traffic lights do not work and no one knows what to do except approach with extreme caution;
- Cash machines are switched off. Online transactions stop as bank websites go down;
- Supermarkets often do not have generator backup, so their chillers and freezers and products therein are at risk;
- Petrol stations? Forget it, the petrol has to be pumped up from underground tanks (which is why petrol pumps are called that);
- Electric trains stop, often in the middle of nowhere as travellers on Spain’s high-speed network found out;
- Underground trains stop in dark tunnels, or dark stations, with escalators that no longer work;
- Electric garage doors do not work, trapping cars in communal garages until someone can prise them open;
- Alarm systems do not work – a huge opportunity for thieves, and the longer an outage lasts the more desperate people will become. Invest in better locks now;
- Mobile phones work but only until the battery dies, then they cannot be recharged. Turn on low power mode as soon as you can. Keep off power hungry social media.
Here are my snippets of advice to make life easier in case such a disaster hits you – planning is everything:
Cash: you need to make sure you have cash to hand. At least £1,000, better £2,000. It has to be hidden in case thieves break in. You might not have that much available to you to start with. So put a little in the fund each month or each week.
Mobile phone: get a small battery pack from a phone shop and keep it charged up. Don’t forget to ‘cycle’ it every so often by using it and re-charging.
A car charger socket with two USB ports that fits in your car cigarette lighter can be a lifesaver. Leave it in the car. Make sure you have a cable that fits your phone and the USB socket on the charger. Keep it in the car with the charger.
Fill your car fuel tank. Don’t let it go below half full. That way your car always has some fuel and can get you out of trouble for a while. Filling it from half eases the financial pain of filling it up too.
Make sure you have a plentiful supply of drinking water in case the water goes off or becomes tainted. Packs of 1.5 litre bottles are a good idea; depending on the size of your family you might need a stack of these. Remember to use them and when re-stocking, put the new ones on the bottom to keep your supply turning over. Start off with a pack or two of 6 bottles, and see how the consumption goes with everyone told to use it for all drinking. Then you can work out how much you will need to keep in stock. A two-week supply is good.
Candles are a good idea but are a fire risk, so make sure you have good stable candle holders. Get a torch that can be a lantern. Don’t forget spare batteries or a cable and a charger suitable for it. Don’t forget a supply of lighters, the ones with a small wand are best.
A gas BBQ with a griddle is good as you can cook all sorts on it. Don’t forget a spare gas bottle and keep it safe, best outside, out of the rain but not in an enclosed space.
A gas-powered camping stove using a small canister of gas can be invaluable for boiling water and food.
Canned food: Tuna, salmon, or anything else you like to eat is good. But do remember your microwave will not work. Again it needs to be food that can be used regularly to keep your stock turning over rather than forgettable storage.
Check to find where you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Places like this are likely to be in business even with no electricity.
Add your own advice below the line! What wake-up call this has been.
