By Jo Nova
The cause of the mysterious oscillations and the big Iberian blackout is still a mystery, and it will take six months before the world has forgotten, sorry, I mean before the official report is finished.
In the meantime, baffled Spanish grid managers, who couldn’t possibly speculate on the cause, have cranked up the nuclear power and the gas, and reduced solar generation for no reason in particular. It’s all very odd, because gas is more expensive, and sun is free.
The Minister accidentally called this “Strengthened Mode” . (Didn’t they used to call it pollution?).
Lest we forget — in the hours before the crash, solar power was providing 60% of the energy, while nuclear power was covering 11%, and gas was just 3%.
Net Zero Spain leans on Nuclear, Gas to keep the lights on after historic Blackout
By Oliver JJ Lane, Breitbart
Spain is running its national power grid in “strengthened mode”, using more nuclear and natural gas in place of the renewables it vaunted before last month’s historic blackout, but still hasn’t said what started the outage.
Bloomberg energy industry journalist Javier Blas, who is Spanish, further notes in a digest of Aagesen’s remarks that she also said — without elaboration — in her address to Parliament that the grid operator was now running the system in “strengthened mode”
The people deserve no hypothesis, says the Minister (covering her #$%)
[Minister for Ecological Transition and Energy Sara Aagesen] said: “The government is working with rigour and not making hypotheses, because that is what the Spanish people deserve. Rigour and truth”.
Per the latest data, in recent days, more reliable traditional generation is being used more, with nuclear responsible for between 14 and 23 percent, and natural gas-fired plants accounting for up to 25 percent at times.
It’s just bad luck, you know, that these mysterious oscillations hit Spain. And thus, they have to use CCGT gas turbines for a while, because they can “adjust more promptly to mysterious oscillations”. It’s just a quirk:
Spain Boosts Costlier Gas Power to Secure Grid After Blackout
By Thomas Gualtieri, Bloomberg
Still, energy regulator CNMC head Cani Fernandez told lawmakers that the system is currently working with more expensive backup mechanisms that would adjust more promptly to unwanted oscillations. That’s a good description of CCGTs versus solar.
“It seems that Red Electrica wants to have tight control over the generation mix to stabilize it” said Javier Pamos, an analyst at Aurora Energy Research. “Combined-cycle plants are being included in it even though there are hours of the day when they wouldn’t be necessary as renewable production is enough to cover demand.”
The output of combined-cycle gas turbines, a more steady generation technology than solar, jumped 37% in the two weeks after the outage, compared with the two weeks prior, data from power grid operator Red Electrica show. Their average share of Spain’s power mix increased to 18% from about 12%.
On May 15th the Spanish Government claimed that there were mysterious oscillations right across the continent:
Spanish government provides further details in blackout update
PV-Magazine
Two oscillations in the system variables detected at 12:03 pm were observed, lasting five minutes, during which strong fluctuations in voltage and frequency occurred.
The second, at 12:19 pm, lasted three minutes. This, according to Aagesen, “is more common within the European system, comes from the center-east, and oscillates with respect to the European synchronous system, which, in turn, oscillates with respect to Turkey. The system operator acted to dampen these oscillations.”
After these oscillations, demand was 25,184 MW at 12:30 pm, at which time there was 3 GW of pumping.
Portugal is now blaming France, saying that because France runs on nuclear power it’s been very slack about building interconnectors to Spain. The unhappy Iberians have said for years that Paris was “resisting” the flow of cheap (but unreliable) energy “to protect its own nuclear power plants and maintain its control over the European energy market.” (Which, of course, it was.)
France is 68% nuclear powered, and the last thing they’d want is surges of useless solar and wind power that the nuclear plants would have to dance around. Unreliable solar and wind generators don’t provide France with anything it doesn’t already have, but the surges would make French nuclear plants operate in a less efficient, more expensive mode.
The EU set a target of 10% electricity swaps between countries by 2020, but at the moment it’s only 3% between Spain and France.
Portugal Scapegoats France After Iberian Blackout
By Javier Villamor, European Conservative
France’s electricity grid operator (RTE) denies any obstruction.
Portugal’s Energy Minister, Maria da Graça Carvalho, has not hesitated to describe the lack of interconnections with France as a direct barrier to the European single market. According to Lisbon, systematic delays by the French government in expanding electricity infrastructure across the Pyrenees have contributed to the energy isolation of both Spain and Portugal, multiplying the impact of the recent system collapse.
Portugal has announced that it will take the case to the European Commission, requesting formal intervention against France for violating the principles of the EU’s internal energy market. The EU had set a target for member states to have electricity import capacity equal to 10% of national generation by 2020 and 15% by 2030. However, the connection between Spain and France barely exceeds 3%.
So the Spanish and Portuguese complaints are undoubtedly true — naughty France.
If only the Iberians had been selling something France actually wanted, it wouldn’t be so hard to make them build the interconnectors.
Image by Greg Montani from Pixabay. | Tunnel by Jo Nova
An engaging overview of the recent outage in the Spanish region.
It’s engaging because in the first two paragraphs there’s special treatment of the official stories; sarc.
The “cause” of the blackout and the inablity of the “baffled” griddies to explain things are highlighted for what they are: duplicitous dissemination in order to hide the real cause of this crash.
For politicians to pretend to ignore the fact that billions of people are using alternating current and nobody knows how it’s generated is almost beyond belief.
There’s money flowing in them there wires and it mustn’t be stopped.
“that is what the Spanish people deserve. Rigour and truth”
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MFGA by France.
Self interest dictates that they don’t hook up connections to Spain and Portugal.
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I speculate that an electrical grid based on random weather-dependent wind and solar generation is a metastable system in which very minor fluctuations can be rapidly amplified to a catastrophic level. Much like the Butterfly Effect of chaos theory.
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It’s never a good idea to directly connect random sources of power to a formerly stable electrical grid.
It should only be allowed via a battery system to ensure a stable and predictable supply. But, of course, that would be infeasibly expensive, even more so than the inherently expensive nature of wind and solar.
However, if Leftoids want to buy wind and solar electricity because they believe their own lies that it’s cheaper and good for the planet then let them. Smart metering is able to allow a consumer to purchase only solar and wind electrons. In Australia Red Energy already does this with what they claim to be renewables.
But the Thinking Community shouldn’t be forced to pay for the lies of the Left. Let us buy coal, gas, real hydro (not SH2) and in proper countries, nuclear electricity.
Let the Left pay for their own ignorance and lies. Don’t force thinking people to subsidise their electricity. If they are right and it really is cheaper, then why wouldn’t people buy it anyway? Others wouldn’t neee to be forced to buy it, market forces would do that.
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Maybe someone in the background hit a little red button as a test run of what could happen to any country now. O but Australia must go net stupid err zero!
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China has already done that for us with the master off switch in solar panel inverters.
Albanese (PM) just needs to call his comrade Emperor Xi to ask him go try that.
(Jo reported on Chicomm back doors in solar inverters a few days ago.)
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I have watched in amazement for two decades as politicians and politicians alone decided that they have to cripple Western democracies with this utter nonsense. And the money flows to China. The UN is driving these societies over the cliff, on behalf of their friends. The Wuhan Flu was obviously from Wuhan, but China controls the WHO.
Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US are just victims. 5% of the world’s populations. And their leaders are all complicit, active and willing and devious participants in the robbery. Or just cowards. It’s not just ‘misinformation’, its all lies, non science, “The Science”, science perverted.
And the IPCC, the UN political committee is a total disgrace. Apparently there is no prediction of crisis at all in the last report, but who cares? The anti carbon dioxide steamroller is crushing everyone. Whole countries have blown up their means of production.
The fact that it is not true is just ignored. And anyone who speaks out is also ignored or crushed, so you have only a lot of old retired scientists crying out that it is a total fraud. And everyone else is intimidated into silence. As with DEI, ESG, BLM, Covid, LGBITQAA++, Gaza, Trump.
And in all this the UN has acted faithfully as a willing agent of China. And Hamaz, Hezbollah, ISIS, Houthis as agents of Iran.
Meanwhile Russia and Ukraine have agreed to start ceasefire talks. And the leaders of Hamas are history. Thanks to Trump. Drill, baby, drill.
As for man made CO2 driven Climate Armageddon, the atmosphere has almost zero fossil fuel CO2. 2.0%. So there never was a problem. That was proven in 1958. Fossil fuel CO2 goes straight into the ocean, as was also known in 1958.
Why are politicians deciding science? Why isn’t there a Royal Commission? Why are all the massive and illegal climate payments cunningly hidden from the public?
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TdeF – Lunacy in Australia – Carbon war: it’s the offset firm versus green activists
A major carbon player has joined dozens of corporates walking away from the federal government’s flagship carbon offsets scheme.
Industry giant GreenCollar attacks green activists as big business abandons carbon scheme
GreenCollar, the country’s largest environmental markets investor, abandoned the government scheme, known as Climate Active, on May 5, marking one of the highest-profile corporates to shut the door on the offset program as the sector battles integrity accusations.
Pressure is now growing on the federal government to scrap the program after dozens of big businesses walked away. The rift over carbon credits, bought by polluters to offset their emissions, threatens to derail a key plank of Labor’s bid to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
The co-founder of GreenCollar, James Schultz, said the government program had become too risky for businesses, with activist groups tarring the carbon credit scheme as a greenwashing front for fossil fuel producers. “Climate Active has been attacked and attacked and attacked. Here is our best opportunity to actually change things around, and we’re blowing it up,” Mr Schultz said.
“The debate has been entirely captured by a group of organisations that want to paint everything through a lens of good and bad. Offsets supporting fossil fuel industry equals bad.”
GreenCollar, backed by Canada’s $400bn Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, develops carbon projects, including revegetation, soil carbon development and savannah burning, to reduce carbon levels on behalf of Australian companies and investments. The company has 300 projects and manages more than three million hectares of land across Australia.
Labor is already juggling a raft of contentious calls on the broader issue, with green groups telling new Environment Minister Murray Watt he has a mandate to block Woodside Energy’s $30bn North West Shelf gas plant extension in Western Australia.
The Climate Change Authority is also weeks from finalising its advice on an upgraded 2035 emissions-reduction target, which will be more aggressive than Labor’s current 2030 pledge to slash emissions by 43 per cent.
Parents for Climate, a registered charity, last week successfully argued that EnergyAustralia’s promotion of its Go Neutral product gave consumers the impression they were meaningfully reducing emissions
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This all proves yet again why politicians and Leftist activists shouldn’t be allowed to make scientific and engineering decisions, especially designing power grids, a fundamental infrastructure element of modern Civilisation.
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Thought the main photo (at top of post) was the new statue of ex-Caesar Andrews from Vicdanistan, then realised it was just another blob of bronze covered in seagull guano.
First Spain, then Victoria?
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They know. They are just pretending lest the truth get out, and voters get Red Pilled.
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Don’t forget it was fake conservative Howard that set Australia on the road to economic destruction with expensive and unreliable electricity when he introduced the Renewable Energy Act, signed us up to Kyoto and allowed random generators to connect to the grid.
Also see https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/07/wind-turbines-are-not-windmills-and-john-howard-is-not-an-environmentalist/
Just think if the billions of dollars literally thrown to the wind on “renewables” had been spent on something feasible and useful like drought proofing and flood proofing Australia and irrigating desert areas. We probably could have done that for much less than this wind and solar insanity.
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How is SA coping?
Yesterday NEM reported 2pm generation in SA was solar 74%, wind 21%, gas 5%.
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Flinders Island is on 100% diesel @ 07:45.
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