Plunged Into Darkness: Uncomfortable Truth About Spain Blackout

Day 0: The Great Blackout

What happened on April 28, 2025, in Spain, a member country of the powerful European Union, is, in my opinion, one of the most important events from which we can learn as a global community. Setting aside the understandable concerns and the multiple theories that may arise regarding what happened, my analysis focuses on a more fundamental reflection about the complex interaction between our advanced technology and the changing dynamics of our planet.

The peninsular electrical grid experienced an unprecedented event that left a vast area without power. While the exact technical causes that led to this massive collapse are still under deep investigation by experts and Red Eléctrica (Spain's grid operator), and determining all the factors involved is a complex task, a plausible hypothesis that I consider, from my point of view and based on existing information and the dynamics of the current world, is that we witnessed a clash or interaction of forces so powerful within the system that it resulted in a catastrophic instability.

To provide an example that many can understand and visualize: What happens when, perhaps at the mouth of a river or in an estuary, currents of fresh water (less dense and with a different flow rate) collide forcefully with those of seawater (denser and subject to tides and large oceanic masses)? At that meeting point, they don't mix smoothly immediately. A boundary forms, a transition zone where the two water masses, with distinct properties and forces, collide. When this collision is particularly strong (due to a large river flow, a spring tide, intense winds), a visible phenomenon of turbulence, powerful eddies, and great instability is generated in that zone. It's a "clash" of different systems that, under great pressure, creates chaos at their point of union.

Something similar, in an electrical and energy analogy, could have occurred in our complex grid. Our electrical grid manages energy flows from various sources (the "currents"). My hypothesis suggests that a particularly powerful encounter or a "collision" of these energy "currents," potentially magnified by a significant electricity peak derived from the large and growing generation capacity of renewable energies (wind and solar, which demonstrate their enormous potential), interacted so intensely with the existing conditions in the grid that they created a point (or several points) of extreme instability. This energy "clash," similar to turbulence in water, could have triggered a cascade of failures that the system could not contain, leading to collapse and a massive blackout.

It is important to note that the renewable generation capacity is constantly increasing, partly in response to climate adjustment. I prefer to call it climate adjustment because it is a reality that the climate presents increasingly less predictable patterns with accuracy, unlike short-term weather. This climate adjustment brings with it new phenomena, such as stronger winds and more intense solar energy impact, potentially magnified (like through a magnifying glass effect) by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This can influence generation peaks and, according to this hypothesis, contribute to creating those high-force energy "currents" that, when interacting with the rest of the system, could generate instability under certain conditions.

Another equally important point that this event allows us to see, and which we must take as a red alert, is that the general population does not know how to subsist or survive during unexpected crises. The daily dependence on technology has limited subsistence skills in the face of phenomena of this nature and others. The culture of prevention, sadly, is practically absent in most people. Even knowing that months earlier the European Union suggested acquiring a basic survival kit as a preventive measure, the vast majority of the population was not prepared or did not consider this precaution necessary. Those who were able to remain relatively calm in their homes were those who had basic items: a battery-powered radio, some canned goods, a flashlight. It is crucial, in the face of any crisis of this kind, to have at least a 12-hour period of autonomy to assess the situation and wait for information. Let's understand that complete answers will not come immediately, even less so in anomalous situations that have never occurred on this scale before.

These events, although disruptive, must be used so that humanity can anticipate and learn. That is why, from the scientific community and infrastructure management, there is much to study and new prevention and resilience measures to generate.

The world is changing, and with it the way we live, interact, and how we obtain everything from food to raw materials. In many cases, technological advancement does not always seem to consider the deep respect owed to Mother Earth and that everything in nature has a reason for being. While science seeks to understand and improve our lives, it is our application of technology that sometimes advances without fully considering its potential systemic and environmental repercussions. Therefore, if all of humanity manages to learn from this experience, if we are capable of extracting the necessary lessons, we can move toward a harmonized future where the quality and comfort of life are not put at risk, while also ensuring the protection of our ecosystems, biosphere, and, ultimately, our planet.

My final comment is that what happened in Spain is not a case for fostering conspiracies, but for generating infinite and urgent reflections.

What do you think? What reflection did the great blackout of Spain 2025 leave you with?

#SpainBlackout #Blackout2025 #April28Spain #GreatBlackout #PeninsularBlackout #ClimateChange