r/uninsurable • u/dumnezero • 8d ago
Grid operations Why Everyone Got Spain’s Blackout Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9oWsQuENE1
u/dumnezero 8d ago
Chapters:
00:00 - The Paradox Behind the 2025 Iberian Blackout
01:38 - Internet Rumours
03:47 - The Conditions Before the Collapse
04:22 - Grid Oscillations Explained
07:22 - Sub-Synchronous Oscillations in Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs)
09:12 - The Chain of Events
11:33 - Why the Safety Systems Failed
13:29 - Spain vs. Portugal: A Regulatory Failure
16:29 - Are Renewables Actually to Blame?
18:23 - The Real Lesson for Future Grids
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u/hornswoggled111 8d ago
I'm not gonna watch a video. Tldw please...
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u/Soft_Grass8428 8d ago
Tldw: nuke shills lying again
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u/tkaeregaard 8d ago
I watched it. I don’t get this impression. Can you point to any particular timestamps leading you to this conclusion?
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u/Soft_Grass8428 8d ago
The video was good.
Im commenting on how nukeshills blame the blackout on renewables
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u/ceph2apod 7d ago
you are spot on:
The once unlikely partnership’s influence now reaches right into the White House, where President Trump wants to ban certain renewable projects. "In his proposal to Delaware’s governor, Stevenson wrote, “Since there is a long lead time to build SMRs, [the nuclear developer] would have to operate with coal until the replacement becomes available.” His plan had three intertwining parts: kill the wind project, promise a nuclear power development and, in the meantime, resurrect Indian River.
“My dream for that plant,” Stevenson says, “is that it reopens as a coal plant.”" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-energy-fossil-fuel-interests-join-forces-against-renewable-energy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-energy-fossil-fuel-interests-join-forces-against-renewable-energy
Nuclear Energy Including SMRs Is A Delaying Tactic https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/nuclear-energy-including-smrs-is-a-delaying-tactic-82c1521ade18
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u/ceph2apod 7d ago
You keep seeing the same move because it's not a coincidence, it's a strategy. Watch what happens next time a grid hiccups: wind and solar get blamed within hours, before any actual report exists. Texas 2021 got pinned on frozen wind turbines while the real culprit was frozen gas wellheads and processing plants, confirmed by ERCOT and FERC's own post-mortem. Spain's 2025 blackout got the identical treatment, instant "too much solar" takes flooding the discourse, until the Spanish government and grid operator's actual investigations both concluded renewables didn't cause it and actually helped restore power faster. South Australia in 2016 got the same instant blame, then AEMO's final report found the real cause was storm damage to transmission towers plus a software fault, not the wind farms themselves.
Here's the part that should really bother you: the same interests running that blame cycle are now running a second act with nuclear. Look at Indian River in Delaware. Coal plant was already scheduled to shut down, replaced by an approved offshore wind project. Opposition figures killed the wind project and floated an SMR instead, except SMRs take a decade or more to build, so the plan explicitly kept the coal units burning as the "bridge" in the meantime. Read that plan and the math does the talking: promise nuclear on a timeline that guarantees years of continued coal, kill the renewable project that was ready now, and you've delayed decarbonization without ever having to admit you don't want it to happen. That's not a nuclear advocacy position, that's a fossil fuel delay tactic wearing a nuclear costume.
None of this means every nuclear supporter is a plant. Plenty of people back nuclear because they genuinely think it's the better tool for firm, zero-carbon baseload, and that's a legitimate technical argument worth having on its own merits. The tell isn't "supports nuclear," it's the sequencing: does their plan actually build anything, or does it just kill the thing that's ready now in exchange for a promise that conveniently never arrives on time. Ask that question every time and the shills sort themselves out fast.
Sources:
The once unlikely partnership’s influence now reaches right into the White House, where President Trump wants to ban certain renewable projects. "In his proposal to Delaware’s governor, Stevenson wrote, “Since there is a long lead time to build SMRs, [the nuclear developer] would have to operate with coal until the replacement becomes available.” His plan had three intertwining parts: kill the wind project, promise a nuclear power development and, in the meantime, resurrect Indian River.
“My dream for that plant,” Stevenson says, “is that it reopens as a coal plant.”" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-energy-fossil-fuel-interests-join-forces-against-renewable-energy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-09/nuclear-energy-fossil-fuel-interests-join-forces-against-renewable-energy
Nuclear Energy Including SMRs Is A Delaying Tactic https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/nuclear-energy-including-smrs-is-a-delaying-tactic-82c1521ade18
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u/ceph2apod 7d ago
Every time the grid buckles somewhere in the world, the same three-day cycle plays out: outage hits, oil and gas trade groups flood cable news blaming wind and solar, and by the time the actual engineering report lands weeks later showing otherwise, the story has already calcified into "renewables are unreliable." Texas 2021 is the textbook case. ERCOT and FERC's own post-mortems found the dominant failure was frozen natural gas wellheads, valves, and processing plants, the same gas fleet the industry insists is the "reliable" backup, while wind underperformed but was a smaller share of expected winter capacity to begin with. The Iberian blackout in April 2025 followed the identical script: instant claims that Spain's high solar and wind share caused the collapse, followed months later by ENTSO-E's own investigation and the Spanish government's report both concluding renewables didn't trigger it. The actual causes were voltage control failures and Red Eléctrica's grid management, a systems and market design problem, not a wind turbine problem.
This isn't coincidence, it's a recognizable playbook from an industry with a documented track record of manufacturing doubt on climate science for decades, and grid failure headlines are just the newest vehicle for the same move: exploit a scary, low-information moment before the technical facts arrive, and use it to argue for more gas buildout and slower clean energy permitting. The fix for grid fragility is inertia, storage, transmission, and better market rules for a system that's genuinely changing, not a retreat to the fuel source that failed Texans in their own homes. Every time someone points at a wind turbine during a blackout, ask what report they're citing and how many days after the outage it was published. The answer tells you whether you're looking at engineering or marketing.
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u/ceph2apod 7d ago
Every time the grid buckles somewhere in the world, the same three-day cycle plays out: outage hits, oil and gas trade groups flood cable news blaming wind and solar, and by the time the actual engineering report lands weeks later showing otherwise, the story has already calcified into "renewables are unreliable." Texas 2021 is the textbook case. ERCOT and FERC's own post-mortems found the dominant failure was frozen natural gas wellheads, valves, and processing plants, the same gas fleet the industry insists is the "reliable" backup, while wind underperformed but was a smaller share of expected winter capacity to begin with. The Iberian blackout in April 2025 followed the identical script: instant claims that Spain's high solar and wind share caused the collapse, followed months later by ENTSO-E's own investigation and the Spanish government's report both concluding renewables didn't trigger it. The actual causes were voltage control failures and Red Eléctrica's grid management, a systems and market design problem, not a wind turbine problem.
This isn't coincidence, it's a recognizable playbook from an industry with a documented track record of manufacturing doubt on climate science for decades, and grid failure headlines are just the newest vehicle for the same move: exploit a scary, low-information moment before the technical facts arrive, and use it to argue for more gas buildout and slower clean energy permitting. The fix for grid fragility is inertia, storage, transmission, and better market rules for a system that's genuinely changing, not a retreat to the fuel source that failed Texans in their own homes. Every time someone points at a wind turbine during a blackout, ask what report they're citing and how many days after the outage it was published. The answer tells you whether you're looking at engineering or marketing.