Nationwide electric network blackout - Spain, Portugal, parts of France and Italy without power.

I'll be the first tinfoil hatter.

This is a test to see what happens when power goes out across a continent like Europe, or a country like America. They have threatened that there will be a yuge cyber attack or the power grid will fail.

Remember that conference they had after covid where they discussed plans for what would happen if the power went out? I memba. They just want to see if a power outtage effects the rich and elite.
 
I'll be the first tinfoil hatter.

This is a test to see what happens when power goes out across a continent like Europe, or a country like America. They have threatened that there will be a yuge cyber attack or the power grid will fail.

Remember that conference they had after covid where they discussed plans for what would happen if the power went out? I memba. They just want to see if a power outtage effects the rich and elite.
A month or two ago, there was a country-wide blackout in Chile. Only a few hours, but it's something that just doesn't happen there.

I've long held that Chile is not a real country, but a sandbox where they test shit out that they want to implement on a larger scale in the US or Europe. Since it is (or was, anyway) the only reasonably developed country in South America, it can work as a microcosm and a useful test subject.

For instance, the US Summer of Love and the protests across Europe, notably France, were preceded by the Chilean "2019 social explosion".

Keep an eye on Chile. What happens there is likely to happen again, but bigger, in real countries.
 
I'll be the first tinfoil hatter.

This is a test to see what happens when power goes out across a continent like Europe, or a country like America. They have threatened that there will be a yuge cyber attack or the power grid will fail.

Remember that conference they had after covid where they discussed plans for what would happen if the power went out? I memba. They just want to see if a power outtage effects the rich and elite.
Yeah, that and Klaus Schwab writing a piece in the midst of the lockdowns talking about the need to prepare for "a cyberattack with COVID-like characteristics"

As far as this, I'll throw in for unreliable green generation plus deferred maintenance but the blame goes to Putler
 
Not many know this but the UK came very close to running out of power supply this past winter. IIRC, it was somewhere around 450MW away from demand exceeding supply and for context the total consumption is usually in the tens of Gigawatts.


I think supply was only met by bringing in extra from Denmark. I'm happy to Tin Foil Hat as appropriate but Europe's energy supplies are integrated and I see nothing unbelievable about some cascading problem affecting all three countries. Around 20% of the UK's energy needs today are met by imported energy from France, Norway, Belgium and others.
 
Reuters has apparently stated that the outage was due to “extreme temperature fluctuations” and is a very rare scenario.
That's fucking bullshit, but I'd expect nothing less from reuters.

My bet is that it's Germany interconnectors pulling more than the grid can handle. Most of western europe is sat right under a high pressure system, meaning there's virtually no wind across most of the continent right now. Germany's heavy reliance on wind and its lack of conventional supplies (because they turned off all their nukes and mineral fuel generators), means that when the wind stops blowing, Germany starts leaning heavily on its neighbours. With the same high blocking over Iberia as well, meaning their wind generation is also stilled, there isn't enough production to meet demand.
 
Some people are wondering if it’s a cyberattack, is there any evidence of this?
How in the fuck do you have to set up your entire country's powergrid that a single cyberattack can literally cause your entire country to black out???

Is there a big red button somewhere that says "turn power off" for the whole of spain???
 
That's fucking bullshit, but I'd expect nothing less from reuters.

My bet is that it's Germany interconnectors pulling more than the grid can handle. Most of western europe is sat right under a high pressure system, meaning there's virtually no wind across most of the continent right now. Germany's heavy reliance on wind and its lack of conventional supplies (because they turned off all their nukes and mineral fuel generators), means that when the wind stops blowing, Germany starts leaning heavily on its neighbours. With the same high blocking over Iberia as well, meaning their wind generation is also stilled, there isn't enough production to meet demand.
There's a few nuclear power plants in Eastern Europe, one of which is having a 3rd reactor built (which has been expanded to a 4th and 5th reactor) because western Europe (and Ukraine) need more energy.
Germany are running on nuclear energy but don't want to admit it.
 
A month or two ago, there was a country-wide blackout in Chile. Only a few hours, but it's something that just doesn't happen there.
Yeah, that was a very strange day, electricity went off for the whole country at the same exact time luckily the cellular radio towers had generators for a couple of hours, after that there was no internet or way to communicate with anyone except by radio. It actually reminded me a lot of the 2010 earthquake.

This is me desperately trying to get a 9V radio to start using 1.5V batteries, it didn't work.
desperation.webp
 
How in the fuck do you have to set up your entire country's powergrid that a single cyberattack can literally cause your entire country to black out???
Electrical grids are surprisingly fragile. The need to constantly balance production and demand means that there's always a bit of a mismatch between the two. If you're on the low end and a generator unexpectedly drops out, you can get a cascade of failures as different parts of the grid attempt to either compensate for, or isolate from the sudden increase in demand. The imbalance will grow wider as the grid divides, knocking more generation offline in an attempt to re-balance. Breakers at substations start dropping to prevent the fluctuating supply damaging their transformers. A well-designed grid can contain the issue, but if you've got a grid already wildly imbalanced by unreliable green supplies and poor maintenance, it becomes a question of when rather than if you'll see a total cascade failure.
 
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