{"id":1535744,"date":"2025-05-13T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1535744"},"modified":"2025-05-13T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T13:00:00","slug":"net-deadly-europes-blackouts-are-a-warning-for-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/net-deadly-europes-blackouts-are-a-warning-for-americans\/1535744\/","title":{"rendered":"Net Deadly: Europe’s Blackouts Are A Warning For Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Net Deadly: Europe’s Blackouts Are A Warning For Americans<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via the Washington Examiner<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

A massive blackout crippled\u00a0Spain<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Portugal<\/a> on Monday, April 28, grounding flights, halting transport, and leaving millions without power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The cause was \u201cunclear,\u201d <\/strong>the New York Times reported<\/a>, with \u201cno evidence of a cyberattack.\u201d<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Spanish officials\u00a0urged citizens<\/a>\u00a0to stay off the roads, European leaders said they were attempting to ascertain the cause of the mysterious outage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not yet have conclusive information on the reasons for this [power] cut,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Spain\u2019s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said in a national address.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, April 29, power was largely restored, but the Associated Press reported<\/a>\u00a0that the blackouts \u201cremain a mystery.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some pundits, however, observed a remarkable coincidence in the timing of the blackouts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSix days ago, the media celebrated a significant milestone,\u201d Michael Shellenberger\u00a0observed on Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpain\u2019s national grid operated entirely on renewable energy for the first time during a weekday.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Shellenberger was not the only person to claim that Europe\u2019s overreliance on intermittent sources such as wind and solar had left its\u00a0energy<\/a>\u00a0grid vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say there\u2019s a strong chance that the large amount of solar on the system created the conditions for this to be a widespread blackout and made it much worse,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Kathryn Porter, an independent energy consultant.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many saw this tragedy coming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

European lawmakers\u2019 infatuation with \u201cgreen\u201d energy, which is\u00a0not as green<\/a>\u00a0as its supporters would have you believe, has been causing problems on the continent.\u00a0Energy prices\u00a0have soared<\/a>\u00a0in recent years. As the average household electricity bill skyrocketed, many nations\u00a0scrapped energy taxes<\/a>\u00a0to help struggling (and angry) consumers.<\/p>\n

In their rush to go green, many countries (including Spain) over the last decade began to phase out not only fossil fuels but nuclear power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A tightening energy supply was exacerbated by the outbreak of the Ukraine War. Facing a full-blown energy crisis, governments began imposing regulations that forced Europeans into more Spartan lifestyles.<\/p>\n

Energy rationing, including limits on hot showers and swimming pools, fueled public anger and helped trigger the 2024 \u201cgreenlash<\/a>,\u201d as Green parties were routed across Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spain and Portugal were among the nations that resorted to energy rationing. A European Union agreement\u00a0tailored specifically for these nations<\/a>\u00a0was approved by lawmakers despite opposition from some regional authorities.<\/p>\n

The law, among other things, set temperature limits for public and commercial buildings (no lower than 80\u00b0F for cooling, no higher than 66\u00b0F for heating), required \u201cenergy-efficient\u201d appliances, and accelerated renewable energy projects. Meanwhile, the law\u00a0was accompanied by<\/a>\u00a0a plan to cut 13.5 percent of domestic gas for power generation.<\/p>\n

These actions didn\u2019t happen in a vacuum. It was all part of\u00a0Spain\u2019s plan to achieve net-zero emissions<\/a>\u00a0by 2050.<\/p>\n

Net zero was always a pipe dream, but it was\u00a0a lucrative one<\/a>\u00a0for politicians and their allies. <\/strong>Under the banner of fighting climate change, lawmakers funneled\u00a0billions of dollars<\/a>\u00a0into subsidies, grants, and contracts that\u00a0enriched<\/a>\u00a0a network of special interests, including renewable energy companies, consulting firms, and financial institutions.<\/p>\n

The climate ring\u00a0is now collapsing<\/a>, but the costs of the experiment are visible. Europe\u2019s\u00a0energy infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0has languished and is in dire need of investment. Meanwhile, historically low fossil fuel prices have\u00a0concealed the energy crisis<\/a>\u00a0Europe still faces.<\/p>\n

European leaders promise a full investigation into the outage, but they\u2019ll be reluctant to admit their own policies are to blame for the energy disaster.<\/p>\n

While pundits were\u00a0already quipping<\/a> about net zero\u2014\u201cNo iPhone charge, no Netflix, no Uber Eats, No Nothin\u2019!\u201d\u2014energy policy is no laughing matter. Blackouts kill\u00a0<\/em>people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those on life support are sustained by equipment that runs on electricity. In the absence of generators, dialysis patients go without treatment when machines lose power. Home oxygen concentrators shut off, leaving respiratory sufferers gasping for oxygen. Traffic signals fail, causing fatal collisions. Water pumps stop. Refrigerators go dark, spoiling food supplies and triggering foodborne illnesses.<\/p>\n

Americans should be paying close attention to developments in Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The government-manufactured incentive structure that encouraged European lawmakers to abandon more reliable forms of energy and replace them with expensive intermittent energy sources also exists in the United States, where lawmakers dream of a \u201cGreen New Deal<\/a>\u201d and\u00a0a world without fossil fuels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

None of this is to say there\u2019s no room for renewable energies in the global future. There is. Battery technology is rapidly improving. And solar energy at utility scale has shown\u00a0great potential<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the effort to purge fossil fuels from economies and reshape the global economy through heavy-handed regulations, wealth transfers, and centralized planning was always tinged with economic hubris, if not madness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe curious task of economics,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> the Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek observed, \u201cis to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Europeans receiving such a lesson now find themselves powerless.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 05\/13\/2025 – 05:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/net-deadly-europes-blackouts-are-warning-americans<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Net Deadly: Europe’s Blackouts Are A Warning For Americans Authored by Jonathan Miltimore via the Washington Examiner, A massive blackout crippled\u00a0Spain\u00a0and\u00a0Portugal on Monday, April 28,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1535745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1535745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}