Do Renewables Have a Future without Baseload?

On April 16th, in Spain and Portugal, both wind and PV combined to generate 100.63% of total electricity demand – a first in Spain’s energy history. Seven dts later 50,000,000+ spanish. Portuguese and some French people were left with NO power for at least 11 hours, and some for more rthan a week.
Red Energie first claimed it was a cyber attack, then moved on to some undefined cosmic atmospheric event.
Then they claimed the four nuclear plants failed, when they were offline because the Government pricing methods prevented them from opening. Spanish Politicins had already been warned of the danger of closing down nuclear plants (read coal in Australia) during high renewable input
Don't forget the failure of the French Interconnector ( that means a powerline fell dowm). France provides a max 4% of Spaiins electricity.
Eleven hours later, hydro kicked in. and so did gas. Does that mean if we extract the black colour from coal and oil, it would be as safe as gas? Apparently Turnbull's uphill solar also helped, but I wonder where it got the electricity in the first place given the early AM failure of the grid.
Anyway, as expected thr real solution is to kick the can down the road.
Get more batteries. Adelaide did that =problem solved.
Melbourne and Sydney have already had brushes with failure.
Broken Hill had a failed interconnectorand and after a week of failure, repaired an old disused coal generator.
In Australia they are not only shutting down baseload generators, they are demolishing them as soon as they are deemed useless.
We will be Spain. Batteries is nothing more than the wet dream of believers

As CLarice said in Silence of the lambs "I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn’t run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn’t run."

We are the lambs.

Comments

      • Lol did someone vote for Dutton

        How's that turning out for ya bud

        • -1

          Lol, were there only two options on the ballot?

          • +1

            @eek: Just matching your two-party simplistic views ;)

            And that would be my response?

          • +1

            @eek: You're absolutely right there was a myriad of choices. But as always,post the election, the 35 desperadoes who actually voted for Duttos derroes, will deny in around the water cooler and in the smoko room, pub bar for the next 3 years.
            They'll be throwing marshmallows at an emboldened ALP govt and their advocates, to no avail.
            I doubt ALP supporters will gloat though, unlike the pre egg hatching right wing audience members out there.I hope Taylor becomes leader & Joyce the deputy again. Then next election Albo can dig a mass political grave a week out from his 3rd victory in a row.

  • +16

    Honestly, why is everyone getting so worked up about a highly technical problem that is grid stability when there aren’t even that many experts in the industry that truely understand it. Why is it becoming so politicised?

    As others have mentioned ‘baseload’ is becoming irrelevant. Generation has already become so much more embedded in the distribution network and rooftop solar is already having a massive effect on minimum demand. Minimum demand is rapidly approaching zero almost everywhere, which means there is no ‘baseload’ anymore. Pretty much all traditional ‘baseload’ generators also really struggle to run at a reduced output and too much generation is as equally or more dangerous as too little is.This is the major driver for solar backstop initiatives in many states to be able to limit distributed solar on really sunny days with too little demand.

    What you should be mentioning instead is grid stability requirements. This would include inertia, N+1 fault tolerance, fault current to load ratios, frequency support, voltage control, etc. These massive blackouts are not being caused by a lack of generation. They are caused by a fault on a network that has not had the above requirements sufficiently considered and designed for.

    Yes, traditional ‘baseload’ generators can provide many of the above requirements, but so too can many other technologies including grid-forming inverters on dc coupled wind turbines and batteries, synchronous condensers, hydro, etc. The problem is that many of these technologies are new to the industry and require a lot of engineering and development to get right when many operators just assume everything will operate the way it used to. Even just to define what the requirements for a grid forming inverter should be is not an easy task.

    None of this means we shouldn’t or can’t make the transition. The writing is on the wall when the price of renewables and batteries is collapsing whilst the price of any major civil project in this country such as a new coal generator is going through the roof with major cost blowouts.

    • -7

      when there aren’t even that many experts in the industry that truely understand it.

      Because of this maybe. People in modern Australia rely on electricity to live (cook, refrigeration, see at night, earn a living with power tools or computers, shop, drive, etc). Australia's electricity grid is regarded one of the most complex engineering systems in the world. But sure let's just have a fiddle and tinker around with the system that is/was working by shutting off all the baseload power AND let's shaft ourselves if anything does go wrong by demolishing all the baseload plants so we don't even have backups just in case anything does go wrong. What could go wrong, right? Why would anyone in Australia care about this? "She'll be right", right?

      And all with huge costs to the taxpayer and directly to consumers, not to mention the envrionmental costs with cutting down world heritage forests to install pfas forever chemical coated wind turbines, or messing around with whale migration and other marine life by installing them out at sea. Why would anyone care? Why should anyone care?

      • +4

        Which state govt of fed party has committed to 'switching off base-load power? Do tell.A few links would be dandy.

      • But they can't compete. You will struggle to justify an expensive coal plant. expensive to build and to run. A plant that you need to continue to purchase fuel for. expensive fuel. polluting fuel.

        envrionmental costs with cutting down world heritage forests to install pfas forever chemical coated wind turbines

        citation needed. teflon and related products "pfas" are commonly used in all of industry. That's not a specific criticism to wind turbines and a bit of a red herring. Just a random example -> https://www.sulzer.com/en/shared/services/steam-turbine-coat…

    • "Why is it becoming so politicised?"

      You have a lot to learn about climate change deniers( progress anchors)
      Have you slept through 4 decades?
      They are just raising any topic they can to bag renewable energy and action on climate change. Relevance Deprivation Syndrome is real.They don't seek solutions, they live off creating faux problems.

      We haven't even seriously considered thermal (solar or terrestrial geothermal) The amount of light pollution at night could probably be harnessed by ultra sensitive photo-voltaics of some kind to bolster battery storage.

      • terrestrial geothermal

        Now that's something that could give reliable baseload electricity.

        The amount of light pollution at night could probably be harnessed by ultra sensitive photo-voltaics of some kind to bolster battery storage.

        That must be what Albo meant, right?

      • loadrunner knows and was lamenting that. You have a lot to learn about the difference between requests for information and rhetorical questions.

        • Taken. But you have even more to learn about forums. One mans rhetorical question is the whole forums opportunity to consider an answer with some meat on the bone,rather than stare into the abyss.

          Whatever happened to geo thermal?

          • -1

            @Protractor: Most of the supply is in the middle of nowhere and is uneconomic for exploration, electricity production and distribution. South Australia has some that's near people but it can't compete with solar, wind, and batteries on price. There are some projects aiming to use the heat directly but they're small scale. Geothermal, hydrogen electrolysers, solar heat capture etc, are all fun to think about but we have the solution in wind and solar pv, we just need to get on with it and build appropriate distribution and firming and solve the engineering issues loadrunner talked about. Fortunately the biggest obstacles to this just had a thumping election defeat

            • @danwylie: Geothermal, hydrogen electrolysers, solar heat capture etc are specific base-load builds though. Lithium and other battery chemicals mean continuous mining. If geothermal stacked up where our iron ore mines are it could benefit entire regions. Geothermal is something the ALP should get the CSIRO to revisot exploration wise and feasibility wise.Any of those tech products just need to have justified end use, so they don't need to exist near populations. The WA goldfields is another prime opportunity for those techs you mention. They have energy drams all the time. The idea is these techs at a scale that can top up renewables.

              • @Protractor:

                If geothermal stacked up where our iron ore mines are it could benefit entire regions.

                How would geothermal help iron ore mining?

                • @tenpercent: Multiple reasons, energy supply or supplement to consider smelting(steel production coupled with gas which in WA are adjacent) and to power desal to stop them pissing the last of finite aquifers up against the wall washing rocks and wetting haul roads. The Pilbrara is a region where multiple energy sources could combine for nett output gains. And frankly ,responsible industries like mining should have contributed to that and supplying their own water supply and network decades ago. But the Ginas and Twiggies have sucked the ground water relentlessly. It's now coming home to roost and they are the ones who aren't suffering the fallout.Surprise ,surprise.

  • +2

    e car is a huge power bank. I hear that all future cars will have the facility to supply power to the house as they do in EU

    • +1

      this is the way. its even distributed all over the network so reduces transmission infrastructure requirement

    • Some EVs have an onboard inverter to power AC appliances but are usually maybe only rated to 2-3kw. You'd need some kind of massive inverter connected directly to your EV battery pack. Is it possible to access the main DC lines on an EV battery pack without voiding the warranty? (I'm not sure - assuming it's drawn through the the BMS it should be safe).

      You'd also need a change-over switch at your switchboard - like if you had a petrol/diesel backup generator to cut off connection to power grid and use your EV's battery pack.

  • +2

    Gas. Gas has always been the solution to renewables transition.

    Coal is useless because you can't ramp it up and down at short notice as renewables come on and offline.

    We'll use gas generation to fill in the gaps until we build out our fully renewable grid. This problem has been solved for literally for decades.

    Coal is dead.

    • Coal is dead.

      How are you going to smelt iron and steel?

      • +2

        You knew what they meant.

        • -3

          I think they didn't even consider smelting and other non-electrical generation industrial uses for coal.

      • +2

        Coal"s days are numbered for steelmaking too. Steelmakers are already looking to decarbonise away from feeding coal into blast furnaces. Direct reduced iron using natural gas and eventually green hydrogen, then fed into electric arc furnaces is looking like being the winning technology but it's still got a way to go before hitting full industrial scale.

      • +3

        I'm genuinely curious as to what your specific objection is.

        Are you a coal miner? A farmer who doesn't want transmission lines built on your land? Don't believe climate change is real? Just opposed on ideological grounds?

        Not passing judgement - just interested.

        • He belongs to the Graeme Bird club

        • -5

          No specific objection, just a plea to the lambs on their way to their belief system.
          Religious people say they are going to heaven. The rest say WTF.
          Well, at least one is a belief system with no answer, except by those at the top whose only interest is perpetuating their narrative to support their respective beliefs.
          Same with your football teams, driven by a belief system, and nothing else, except following the narrative of each club.
          And politics the only belief system that is corruptible from the top down at its core.
          Finally we have socialists, on one hand, whose followers believe that their side's leaders have their interests at their hearts, but end up destroying societies
          On the other hand, we have the individualists most of whom believe in personal growth, and bringing society with them.
          Refer to the industrial Revolution, barely 200 years old, that politicans couldn't touch for the first hundred. and have pillaged it since.
          Do you know how much "Tax the Rich" actually delivers to the poor. First it reduces jobs as working capital is stolen on a false promise, the wheels of productivity start grinding to a halt. Read any history book for the finale

          • +2

            @Clickbait:

            working capital is stolen

            capital needs to be spent to increase productive. The rich hoarding it is going to do squat. You give the poor $100, every cent is spent in the economy. Give it to the rich and it goes on a pile. Maybe being spent years latter. In which time the $100 given to the poor will go through the economy many times over.

            • @Wort: Or in language OP can understand, the rich parasites are fly blowing the lambs

      • +4

        Oh, I see you're still going with your rant. Where do you get such energy?

        • It's his belief system. The great God Deniermort.

    • -8

      A big Gas power station was built in Melbourne about 50 years ago, to cover peaks.

      Now the thing operates almost full time to cover the renewable failures.

      • +3

        BS it's covering the massive increase in consumption, inc everybody running AC to live in 24/7 climate controlled houses. We have increased energy consumption because we decided to electrify everything and get every electrical bling item we can imagine.The average kwh per house must be 10 times what it was even 20 years ago.What's more it proves we should have adapted all coal power to gas 3 decades ago. We'd be humming now as we transition further away from the Neanderthal coal junky cave folk, who are still wilfully polluting websites with mythology and fake science

    • -1

      It is not a transition, we will always require something like Gas, Coal or Nuclear power. All you have to do is open the NEM thing at pretty much any time in the night and see the despite all the money we have thrown at it that renewables are only meeting like 5-20% of demand (it is highly variable), mostly from wind. We can keep building this stuff everywhere but without any way to store it we are cooked without something like Gas, Coal or Nuclear.

      Gas isn't a transition technology, it will be used for forever if we don't have anything else to rely on.

  • What unit of measurement is a dts

  • +1

    The paradigm your selling is a dead parrot>
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-05/andrew-constance-conc…

    • -1

      "you're"

  • -2

    No.

    Unfortunately, Australia is going to need several Spain/Portugal scale incidents in order to wake up from our sleepwalk.

    • OK Boomer

    • +2

      This is unfortunately correct.

      • +1

        We have way more renewables than most places pro rata, and had a few disasters (like SA) The biggest prob is the coal fired capacity /reliability and transmission. Coal fired has dished up a lot more problems than renewables has delivered solutions in the last 2 decades.Coal has only hung on so long because the CFMEU has a power-base in the industry, and because the LNP are ideological climate change denying dinosaurs.And because the LNP pollies have shares in minig in and around coal and nuclear, hence the policy scams. If Albo gets a third term it won't be a problem any more. No more nukes, and a transition leaving the infantile debate behind in the rubbish skip where it belongs. I wonder what the climate trolls have as a plan B?

        • +1

          We have way more coal/oil/natural gas/uranium than most places pro rata too.

  • Hrd to rd…..
    Formatting sucks

  • +3

    What is clear to me, many people are using the term “baseload” incorrectly.

  • +2

    Absolutely yes, but in Australia renewables are a money making scam that will just drive up power prices.
    The bests thing we could do for the environment is burn our own coal and gas and export less. (Particularly Gas, look into just how much energy\greenhouse gas emissions are required to liquidly and transport the gas overseas). It's a metric crapton. Ships burn the dirtiest fuels out there.
    Back in the day the power station was co-located with the coal mine, that removes a lot of time, cost and greenhouse gas.

    Let's face it, it's going to get burnt, let's burn it as efficiently as possible.

    • Unfortunately it's not something greenies and labor are interested in. Everyone hated the plan to use Australia's local natural gas + nuclear. Maybe Labor will throw more money at us and say they have fixed the rising cost of electricity and sweep it under the rug. It's inevitable we will see a continued increase in cost of energy production in Australia at the expense of the economy. It's what the democracy has voted for so we're all along for the ride to find out where green energy will take Australia.

  • +2

    Has Spain's problem been actually attributed to renewables yet ?

    • +4

      No - not by the people who are actually figuring out what went wrong. The investigation will probably take a week or two.

      But of course there has already been an avalanche of fossil fuel lobbyists, vested interests and keyboard warriors who have immediately jumped on the bandwagon, publishing articles about solar panels turning the frogs gay or whatever without any evidence whatsoever.

      The exact same thing happens every time there is a car fire that might have been an EV.

      • I love how the idiots are now calling coal 'reliables' even though they break down all the goddamn time.

  • This incident is a strong indication that we’re entering a period where space weather is going to be a much bigger threat than most realize. What stands out is that this event didn’t coincide with any significant solar flare or geomagnetic storm. NOAA data showed low solar activity at the time, yet we still saw signs of plasma penetration, sharp TEC and F-layer spikes, and what looks like geomagnetically induced currents impacting the grid.

    This shouldn’t be possible under “normal” conditions, but it’s starting to happen more frequently. The most likely explanation is that Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, and it’s doing so at a worrying pace. A weaker magnetic field means less protection from even mild solar wind, which is now capable of disturbing the ionosphere and triggering ground effects that can lead to blackouts.

    On top of that, more stable and controllable generation sources are being phased out in favor of renewables. While renewables have a critical role to play, they currently don’t offer the kind of baseline reliability needed to handle major load shifts or sudden disruptions like these. The grid is getting more vulnerable at the same time external threats are increasing.

    All of this is happening while most of the focus remains on climate change. Climate change is real, but it’s part of a larger natural cycle, not something we can fully control. Meanwhile, space weather, something we have almost no control over, isn’t getting the attention or investment it deserves. The result is that we’re less prepared for disruptions like the one in Spain, and unless priorities shift, these kinds of incidents are only going to become more common.

  • +3

    I believe in nuclear energy. If Australia doesn't want to develop one, we will be left behind. Germany has already opened their eyes using nuclear due to energy crisis.

    • +2

      We've had decades of anti-nuclear propaganda, and it's probably going to take decades to fix it. (Dutton way underestimated how hard it would be.) By then, we'll be left behind. But at least nuclear should be be more affordable by the time we're ready to catch up.

      We are going to need a lot of energy in the future. One day we'll recharge EVs in 5 minutes.

      • +1

        I only hope people will not be disappointed in the future of the left behind. Similar case with NBN Fibre vs Hybrid back in 2010, when the govt decided to install the hybrid.

    • +2

      Not going to happen.Move on.

      • +1

        I believe it might happen when the blackouts/energy crisis are real in Australia and it will be too late. Unfortunately, I am not a policymaker, so I can only hope for.
        Based on my research, the crisis could be as early as 2027. Not too far away.

        • TDLR I wish the grid would shit itself

  • There is a type of solar panel that works at night, but it still needs research.

    Energy is everywhere you look; In Lak'ech.

    • +1

      I don't know where Lakech is so I can't look there.

  • +4

    The problem in Spain was the grid.
    They were warned about the instability of the grid with all the renewable energy coming online but did not upgrade.
    It was not the renewable energy in itself, but a requirement to bring the grid up to scratch.
    Australia became aware of this issue when the power went out in South Australia (which was also a grid failure, not renewable energy) a couple of years ago, and so for the last couple of years our grid is being quietly upgraded to remove this problem.
    I don't really care which energy we use, but on all rational economic analysis nuclear is a dollar short and a day late.

  • Username of OP is extremely relevant

  • +1

    I think the ALP plan is to have renewables with a baseload of fossil fuels (mostly Gas)

    There is no point disucssing nuclear anymore as it is clear the Australia people dont want it - we do have the 'land' to have a almost fully renewable grid so it isnt the wrong decision to try persure a mostly renewable grid but it has 'never' really been done before - that doesnt make it impossible

    I will note i support nuclear and i support the idea that Australia could be the next Saudie Arabia due to our high uranium reserves but we would need a major change in mentality to the energy and to nationalise the reserves we have like Saudie Aramco do but i dont think the governments on either side have the ability or brains to do so

    • +1

      Forget sides and nationalism.
      If nuclear was commercially viable; why have 0 energy companies/consortiums (who have a huge sway in australian politics) pushed for nuclear energy? Why do we need to nationalise it to make it a reality?

      Commercially it does not seem viable for civil advanced nuclear energy in Australia; our energy providers have made this clear time and time again. Current energy providers have also indicated that their investment in coal is limited possibility due to intrinsic support from large investors in the form of super funds who have indicated a distaste for fossil fuels and inclination to pull funding if going that route.

      Coal in US - 3.2c to 14.22 c per kwhr
      Solar in US - 6.0c to 10c per hwhw
      Advanced Nuclear in US 11.8 to 19.2kw/hr (LCOE claims 9.9c/kwhr but is disputed)
      Wind in US 4 to 6c per kwhr
      Gas in the US 12.6c/kwhr

      • If nuclear was commercially viable; why have 0 energy companies/consortiums

        [ARPANS Act 98] - Australia has a longstanding moratorium on nuclear power - im not saying you are wrong but it is actually illegal for a company to try and make nuclear a viable business

        I agree with your overall point why the hell would we nationalise it - it would be cheaper and more effienct if we let the market deal with it and just have a proper regulation over an out right ban.

        if it is safe and viable then like private business do it as the government is fairly hopeless at maor projects no matter who is in charge most things go over budget and with long delays - we are a capitalist nations let the big business take the risks if it works they get rich we get cheaper power and if it doesnt it is on the business and its investors

        I know there are subsides but renewables are 'making their way' into house grids mostly in a free market - it would be interesting to see what adoption would be like without subsides but with the ability to 'sell the power into the grid' at a reasonable profit. - i actually think this would encourage lots of micro solar farms as it could be a viable little business for people with larger lots of un-used land

  • +2

    Look, the grid is going to go to shit. Both in reliability and cost. That's 100% for certain.

    Home solar and batteries are pretty much your only option if you don't want to be part of 3rd world Australia.

  • +3

    I do so love people who have become electrical engineering experts by blindly consuming then parroting a right wing tosser throwing out fossil fuel company rhetoric deciding that they have the REAL answers to complex system issues.

    Renewables won. People with more education in their toenail clippings than the garbage that latches on to today's buzzwords (won't somebody think of the baseload!) have been studying this problem in depth for decades. Everybody who disagrees is free to go live in a cooker cabin in the woods burning petrol in a generator.

    • +1

      Pretty sure the houses in the suburbs with the most solar panels are owned by cookers. Hypocrisy is strong with these ones Luke.

    • Love unbridled misplaced confidence.

      On which metric have renewables "won" and if so why are fossil fuels still being consumed for electricity generation more year on year?

      • -1

        Good point. Renewables are chaotic in nature. Renewables rely on the grid to be much larger, this is the expensive bit. Coal, oil, gas and nuclear don't need a larger grid! They also have inertia, renewables (except hydro) don't so instantaneous fluctuations possible. The east coast grid is the most complicated machine in the southern hemisphere. Simulations are very difficult, and making it larger with chaotic instantaneous events make it almost impossible to manage. Just be prepared with a home generator as this situation festers.

  • Will be right. We killed off heavy manufacturing decades ago and anything left, their days are numbered, we should have enough wind and solar to make our daily cappuccinos.

  • Quote from ABC article previously linked>
    ANU associate professor Rebecca Colvin says the election results backed a growing body of research that shows support for renewable energy is high in both regional and metro areas.

    But she said that many Australians believed support in regional parts of the country was much lower than the reality.

    "There is heaps of evidence that most people in Australia, whether they're in the city or the country areas, want to see action on climate change and are supportive of renewable energy," she says.

    "And that, in general, most people also underestimate those levels of support."

    Many of the 30,000 Your Say respondents highlighted nuclear power and the Coalition's anti-renewables stance as a vote changer."

  • +1

    "We will be Spain. Batteries is nothing more than the wet dream of believers"

    OP as someone mentioned, the engineering community are still coming to terms with the technicalities of this so I don't know how any of us can really opine on the topic. But your statement there caused me to find a very good explanation of what happened in Spain and as the article linked below so eloquently explained, it's not he source of power that is the issue but how that flow of power is controlled. We are going through seismic shifts in society this century. The great wheel has turned, so to speak, and we're not going back. And because of that, our knowledge is also increasing exponentially. This is neither bad nor good, it just is. I don't think this is an argument for or against baseload - power is power, all of us just want it to work and not pollute the planet to a point that it's unliveable. Whatever the best way to achieve that is, is what we'll end up with.

    And as a hippie tree-hugging leftie, I don't take too much issue with natural gas supporting the grid. I do take issue with giving it away virtually for free then buying it back as a premium. I do take issue with not keeping enough in reserve to support us first. I also trust the engineering community to figure this out.

    Anyway, link below, try to get off the Internet for some time and outside for a bit.

    https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-spain-power-outage.html

  • +1

    they literally have to. fossil fuels are a finite resource.

    • Photons from the sun are a finite resource too.

      • +1

        Yeah when those run out we’ve got other problems

  • EV cars have the potential to change the game. They have 5 to 10 times the storage of a house battery and are just sitting around most of the day. They can also transport power. If you live off grid drive the ute into town charge up and dump the power instead of using a generator. Powerlines down ditto. Factories with their roofs covered in solar can get their morning use from workers and then return it from their solar during the day.
    The problem is that there is no money in it for the power companies and we don't make cars. We should make batteries. Maybe a massive sodium battery plan using Chinese technology. Oh we can't. America will get upset and we wont get those submarines we have on layby.

    • Knowing politicians, State govts and power companies will eventually team up to make compulsory annual? inspections a thing (another tax) and/or licensing rooftop solar over a certain size. I mean you can't argue that some pp have taken advantage and are virtual urban mini power stations

  • Next post>
    Do Trump cafes have a future without paying customers?
    https://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/sydney-maga-c…

    SICUSO !

  • You may be required to take personal responsibility for your energy supply. Stop relying so heavily on government support for energy and pull your own weight. Such heavy subsidies are as bad as welfare. All for what? So you can run your AC instead of opening the windows and switching on the fan. No need to be a leaner anymore but be a lifter. As far as I know diesel generators don’t need EGRs and DPFs.

    • Nice thought.

      Except when power is needed in a hospital, roads, flood pumps, trains, street lights, defense, communications … … …

      • Thanks! Hospital and roads also huge expense to the tax payer. But if you cannot tell I’m poking fun and cannot stand renewable energy denials. The Spain and Portugal thing was down to poor controls.

  • The 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout as labeled by Wikipedia is still not officially explained.
    Considering it also affected places like Greenland, France, Morocco and Andorra that name is far more informative.

    Otherwise reminds me of the "Spanish Flue" that actually started in the USA and had nothing to do with Spain.

    But back to the blackout, it seems (not official but my opinion) that the interconnecting bits did not work fast enough. All renewables were still producing, Nuclear power plants were purposely disconnected and the others also failed.

    The grid failed as an interconnected network. Did not reconnect.
    The Smart Grid is still an unfulfilled panacea.

    • -4
      1. Greenland?
      2. Spanish Flu. There are two viable alternatives that I know of, one is that the invention of aspirin, led to massive deadly overdoses.
        The second wa that during the duration of WW1, new varieries of the flu developed for which there was little immumity around the world.
        I accept that it may well have originated, but wouldn't it be more likely that it radiated around the world from soldiers returning frm Europe?
      • So the ABUSE of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) caused the blackout?
        Or the soldiers from WWI did?

        Confused now.
        Very.

  • -5

    The history of climate change, Back in the 60's and 70's, industrial growth and pollution was outdoing society's regulatory framework, and big industrial cities looked similar to China's a decade ago.
    At the same time the theory of running out of oil was gaining traction.
    So, never missing an opportunity, OPEC decided to restrict output and dramatically raise Prices, feeding the flames of shortages, This also gave birth to alternative energies.
    All together, this added to the righteous fear of pollution, population growth, food shortages, other resource depletion.
    This also gave birth to alternative energies.
    Research into fossil fuels shoed that Oil, coal, and gas released aerosols and particulates into th eatmosphere, and might cause Global Cooling
    Global Cooling was seriously adopted and the scientific evidence is there for all to see in 2004 movie "The Day after Tomorrow". Yes only 20 years ago we were all going to freeze.
    But by then"scientists" had discovered climate models and algorithyms, and endless invokeable variations that proved the carbon dioxide everyone of us expires every minute of every day, will destroy us.
    They cahnged fro Global warming to Climate Change because every time they said "Look at me" to the lambs, some were not silent

    • Can I just ask, what is it you want? Go back to the OPEC cartel?

      • -4

        No, I only want a few responses that reflect a grain of individual intellectual rigour, but all I get is repeats of the latest pop song, like everyone is listening to the same channel

        • I hear you but where would you like things to be heading?

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