Tag: green energy

Could renewable energy be to blame for huge Spain blackout? How outage struck days after country’s grid ran entirely on green power for the first time

Widespread power outages hit several countries in Western Europe this afternoon, triggering chaos as rail networks, traffic lights and communications networks went down. 

The shocking blackouts, which struck around 12.15pm CEST have impacted millions of people with almost all of Spain and Portugal affected. 

Parts of France, Andorra and Belgium also suffered outages, according to the most recent reports. 

Several metro and rail passengers were reportedly stranded in Madrid and Lisbon, while the international airports of both capital cities and several other airports across Spain and Portugal were closed.

Spain’s state electricity network operator Red Electrica said on X it had begun to restore power in the north and south of Spain, adding it may take some time to bring the whole grid back online.

Some critics have claimed that Spain’s integration of renewable energy sources into the European power network could have triggered the blackout, though the cause has not yet been established. 

Renewable energy sources – wind, hydro and solar power – met the electricity demand for all of Spain for the first time ever on April 16, according to Red Electrica, which says it is leading an ‘ecological transition’ in Spain’s energy sector.

Other theories include a cyber attack, as analysts pointed out that Europe’s energy grid has suffered a substantial increase in cyber attacks following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, a fire in southern France is reported to have damaged a high-voltage powerline between Perpignan and Narbonne, which may also have contributed to the outages, according to Portugal’s national electric company REN.

Red Electrica is now working with two of Spain’s largest electric companies, Endesa and Iberdrola, to investigate the cause of the outages. 

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The Remarkable Rags-to-Riches Story of Stacey Abrams

By her own admission, Stacey Abrams has made a number of “personal financial missteps” in her career. Despite a history marked by bill collectors, tax liens, and ethics investigations, the Georgia politician and Democratic Party activist has managed to amass a small fortune – while working most of her career in the not-for-profit sector.

Financial records show that when she first entered statewide politics in 2018, she reported a net worth of less than $109,000. By 2022, the last year she had to publicly file a financial report, it had grown to more than $3.2 million. Abrams is probably even better off than that, thanks to her latest venture: Rewiring America, which uses federal funds to provide low-income people with free electric appliances. 

The green-energy startup hired Abrams as senior counsel in 2023 after she helped secure federal funding for the nonprofit by putting together an umbrella group that applied for and won grants totaling $1.9 billion from the Biden Environmental Protection Agency, according to a podcast interview she gave last year. Those funds were frozen last month by the Trump administration while it investigates the grant application and award process along with Congress. 

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Trump Admin Orders Halt to Offshore Wind Project Near New York

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said on April 16 that he had ordered a halt to the construction of a major wind project off the coast of New York “until further review.”

Burgum, posting to the social platform X on Wednesday, said he had consulted with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to direct the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to “halt all construction activities” on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. The Biden administration approved the project in 2023, with construction beginning last year.

The interior secretary accused the former administration of “rush[ing] through its approval without sufficient analysis.” He did not provide further details on potential faults identified.

“On day one, [President Donald Trump] called for comprehensive reviews of federal wind projects and wind leasing, and at Interior, we are doing our part to make sure these instructions are followed,” Burgum wrote in a follow-up post.

The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Equinor, a Norway-based company, was supported by President Joe Biden in his efforts to expand renewable energy projects.

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Boiling Point: Farewell to Ivanpah, the world’s ugliest solar plant

Sometimes, government makes a bad bet.

Case in point: the Ivanpah solar project. Maybe you’ve seen the unsightly, blindingly bright towers while traveling from L.A. to Las Vegas, in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada state line. Maybe you’ve read about birds getting fried to death as they fly through the sunlight directed to the tops of the towers by fields of mirrors.

When state officials agreed to let Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison buy power from Ivanpah roughly 15 years ago, they saw this type of technology — known as “concentrated solar power” — as the future of renewable energy. It was expensive, but it would get cheaper over time — and therefore it made sense to let PG&E and Edison customers pay for it through their electric rates, state officials decided.

Federal officials made a similar bet, helping finance Ivanpah through $1.6 billion in loan guarantees.

They were all wrong. Ivanpah’s concentrated solar technology, which uses sunlight to heat a fluid and generate steam, never worked as well as expected. Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight directly to electricity got super cheap. Ivanpah quickly became known as an expensive, bird-killing eyesore.

All of which led to PG&E’s surprise announcement this month that it had struck a deal with the plant’s owners to stop buying electricity from Ivanpah. Assuming that state officials sign off — which they most likely will, because the deal will lead to lower bills for PG&E customers — two of the three towers will shut down come 2026.

Ivanpah’s owners haven’t paid off the project’s $1.6-billion federal loan, and it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to do so. Houston-based NRG Energy, which operates Ivanpah and is a co-owner with Kelvin Energy and Google, said that federal officials took part in the negotiations to close PG&E’s towers and that the closure agreement will allow the federal government “to maximize the recovery of its loans.”

It’s possible Ivanpah’s third and final tower will close, too. An Edison spokesperson told me the utility is in “ongoing discussions” with the project’s owners and the federal government over ending the utility’s contract.

It might be tempting to conclude government should stop placing bets and just let the market decide.

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Reality Check: Towns And States Don’t Want Green Energy

Trump Administration actions to scale back renewable energy capture headlines, but citizens are also pushing back. Efforts to deploy wind and solar systems face a rising tide of opposition in towns, counties, and states. Mandates for electric vehicles and electric home appliances are being challenged. The combination of rising local opposition and Trump funding cuts threatens to end the transition to green energy.

The green energy revolution in the United States has run almost unopposed for the last two decades. Driven by the fear of human-caused global warming, federal regulators enacted an expanding array of incentives for renewables in the form of mandates, tax credits, loans, and subsidies. States added incentives to push for the adoption of wind, solar, electric vehicles, heat pumps, green hydrogen, and carbon dioxide (CO2) capture systems.

Twenty-three states have laws or executive orders requiring Net Zero electricity by 2050. Power companies have been forced to comply with state mandates. Since 2000, wind and solar have grown from near zero to about 16% of US power generation in 2024, wind (10.5%) and solar (5.1%).

Twenty-two states have electric vehicle (EV) mandates, requiring all sales of new cars to be EVs by a future date, such as 2035. Tightening CO2 emission standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) force manufacturers to sell an increasing share of EVs. Plug-in EV sales grew from zero two decades ago to 8% last year.

Climate policy advocates want homeowners to switch from natural gas and propane appliances to heat pumps and other electric appliances. In 2019, Berkeley, California became the first city to prohibit natural gas in new residential construction. Cities and counties in seven states now ban gas in new construction, including a statewide ban in New York.

The wave of renewable energy programs promoted and subsidized included electric vehicle charging stations, CO2 pipelines, and green hydrogen production facilities. But it’s becoming clear that many towns, counties, and states no longer support the green energy movement. A rising tide of opposition threatens the deployment of renewables.

Last month, the State House of Arizona passed legislation that would prohibit construction of wind systems on more than 90% of state land. The legislation would force new wind projects to be at least 12 miles from any residential property. The bill is being considered in the Arizona Senate.

Oklahoma is the third largest generator of electricity from wind in the US. But attendees at recent rallies at the state capitol call for bans on new wind and solar projects. Local residents voice economic, environmental, and health concerns about renewable systems.

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How Many More Ridiculous Green Energy Projects Will Fail?

The answer is all of them, in due time. Here are the latest spectacular failures.

Birds Fry Every Two Minutes

It took 10 years, and hundreds-of-thousands of dead birds, before the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California would meet its fate.

The Wall Street Journal explains in ‘A Prolific Executioner of Wildlife’

An Obama-era monument to green delusions finally faces extinction.

Longtime readers may recall a 2014 Journal editorial about California’s “bird-fryer” solar plant, a taxpayer-backed venture that was hell on local animals. Turns out it was also hell on electricity ratepayers. But as with so many politically favored green ventures, waiting for official acknowledgment of failure can feel like an eternity.

Now finally here in 2025 it seems the reckoning has begun. The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes in an editorial that “a major California utility —  Pacific Gas & Electric — announced that it will no longer buy power from the Ivanpah solar plant off Interstate 15 near the Nevada-California border. As a result, two of the plant’s three towers will shut down next year — and the third will probably follow.”

The plant might have functioned merely as the world’s most expensive backyard bug zapper. But it was just too lethal. The Review-Journal’s Emerson Drewes reported last month:

Federal wildlife officials said Ivanpah might act as a “mega-trap” for wildlife, with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds that fly to their deaths in the intensely focused light rays.

So many birds have been victims of the plant’s concentrated sun rays that workers referred to them as “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. When federal wildlife investigators visited the plant around 10 years ago, they reported an average of one “streamer” every two minutes.

Performance has proven so poor that PG&E has exercised its right to terminate the contract, about which negotiations have been completed; there is no doubt that towers 1 and 3 will cease operations within roughly a year. And it appears to be the case that Edison too wants out: “the utility is in ‘ongoing discussions’ with the project’s owners and the federal government over ending the utility’s contract.”

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Citizens Face $2,000 Energy Bill Increase as Dem Gov’s Green Energy Push Moves Forward: Report

One the country’s bluest regions is learning about the high cost of going green.

Customers of New York’s Consolidated Edison, the electric and gas utility that services New York City, is proposing a massive rate increase that would cost Big Apple customers paying utility bills almost $2,000 more a year than they did in 2020, the New York Post reported Thursday.

And the company blames energy mandates imposed by the New York state government, led by Gov. Kathy Hochul, for the hikes.

The proposed rates are being reviewed by the state Public Service Commission, the Post reported

And one former member of that commission told the newspaper the hikes are a sign that the state is headed in the wrong direction.

“We have to take a breath,” former Commission John Howard said, according to the Post.

“We’re not telling Mr. and Mrs. New York how much this transition to clean energy will cost them.”

The Post based its figures on customers using 600 kilowatt-hours per month — the average for New York state households, according to the electricity marketplace website Electricchoice.com.

Con Ed officials argued that New York City customers use less electricity than others in the state and claimed the Post’s figures were too high — that its proposal would amount to a hike of 15.7 percent, or about $46.42 to $289.41 per month, but there’s no denying that a rate increase is a rate increase.

And there’s no denying that New York’s Democratic-run state government has a mania for electricity mandates.

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The storm that shattered Ireland’s energy security

One of the most powerful weather events in Ireland’s history plunged the country into chaos last week. Bet you didn’t hear much about it, either, as it was hardly mentioned in the North American press. Still, the implications of its aftermath and what it reveals about the ‘green’ movement are a warning for any nation still gripped by obviously flawed climate ideology.

Storm Éowyn wreaked havoc across Ireland, with winds of over 100 mph downing power lines, flooding roads, and damaging renewable energy infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity for days in freezing winter conditions. Many people — up to 168,000 — are still without heat or light as of this writing, exposing the nation’s alarming dependence on electricity to meet basic needs.

More poignantly, the storm laid bare the vulnerabilities of renewable energy infrastructure. Thousands of wind turbines in the North Sea were forced offline because the power generated by the storm’s extreme winds risked overwhelming the electricity grid. “Constraint payments” were made to wind farm operators, compensating them for halting production — a cost ultimately passed on to consumers. This system, which guarantees profits for renewable energy companies regardless of output, highlights the flawed economic model underpinning Europe’s green energy push.

This inefficiency underscores a glaring and paradoxical tension: current energy generation systems being pushed under the banner of climate change are far from ready to meet the demands of extreme weather events, which climate activists frequently remind us are expected to increase.

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With all the detrimental effects of wind farms, how on Earth are they being approved?

I recently returned from Wales where once pristine green hills are now littered with (often stationary) giant wind turbines, in the name of saving the planet. On a farm near Llangollen, I met with a group of locals who are deeply concerned about the rampant escalation of these ugly, noisy, lethal and futile installations.

Farmer Tim Smith explained the issues to me in detail which I hope I’ve covered adequately below so that you too can grasp what is at stake, and see that wind turbines are yet another big lie to support the biggest lie of all – climate change.

For communities, it’s incredibly difficult to challenge decisions made by developers or government officials. Once more, in the case of this area of outstanding natural beauty, it seems that the Government has prioritised corporate interests over the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of ordinary people. With increasingly more wind farms planned for the area, the group expressed feeling angry, frustrated and powerless to defend themselves from these metal monsters.

“The system is set up to protect big business, not the little guy,” Tim said.

Climate Change or Climate Hoax?

There is growing scepticism about the climate change narrative that drives many renewable energy policies. Living in the UK, there is no doubt the weather is doing strange things – it’s been a miserably cloudy and cold year with hardly any sunshine whatsoever. But is this climate change or part of a climate hoax?

Devastating floods in Spain as well as the fires in Greece have raised questions about whether these events were genuinely natural or potentially orchestrated. This possibility only reinforces the need to critically examine policies that push for widespread wind farm developments, which are so obviously visual and noise pollutants. So why are they allowed?

Wind Energy as a ‘Solution’ to Climate Change

Wind energy is presented as a solution to “climate change,” yet its long-term effects on health, ecosystems and local communities are devastating and these effects are completely overlooked.

Tim, who has started a UK branch of the international Motvind advocacy group to raise awareness of the dangers of the wind energy agenda, explained that once turbines are installed there is no oversight at all. One of the group’s most pressing concerns is the health risks associated with wind farm noise, particularly the low-frequency infrasound emitted by turbines. This sound, often imperceptible to the human ear, can lead to a range of health issues, including sleep disturbances, chronic stress, and even motion-sickness-like symptoms. Some members of the group had experienced these symptoms. According to Tim, developers have refused to release the records of the infrasound data relevant to their local installations. In addition to infrasound, the turbines make audible sounds that also lead to increased stress, can drive people mad, or cause them to relocate.

The current regulations, such as the ETSU R97 guidelines, do not adequately address these risks. Although independent reports have been prepared by the Independent Noise Working Group to protect the public, these are simply ignored by the government and corporations alike. Thus, communities living near wind farms are left vulnerable to these health effects, with no sufficient protections in place.

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UK’s National Grid Admits It Doesn’t Have A Clue How To Reach Net Zero

A few weeks ago, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and his Head of Mission Control, Chris Stark wrote a public letter to Fintan Slye of the National Grid ESO asking for practical advice on how to deliver a clean power grid by 2030.

The letter asked Slye to set out a range of pathways to enable a decarbonised power system by 2030. For each pathway they asked for the forecast energy generation and demand mix and the underlying assumptions that need to be met for these to be deliverable. They also asked for the key requirements for the transmission network and interconnectors and for a high-level assessment of the costs, benefits, opportunities, challenges and risks as well as the key actions to be taken by Government, NESO, Ofgem and industry to enable delivery of the pathways.

Recently, Fintan Slye took to X to announce his initial response. Strangely Slye’s letter is not addressed to Miliband or Stark, but takes the form of an open letter to industry.

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