Power Failure: The Cost of Green Dogma
29th April 2025
The Iberian nations of Spain and Portugal were thrust into chaos yesterday as a massive power outage swept across the entirety of their territories, leaving tens of millions without electricity.
Major cities, among them tourist destinations of international repute—Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville, and Valencia—all ground to a halt. Airports shut down, trains stalled, traffic lights failed, and hospitals scrambled to maintain critical operations on backup generators. The Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended. Supermarkets had to close to prevent panic buying. Ordinary people were left stranded in elevators and metro tunnels, navigating pitch-black stations with phone torches. Passengers had to leave stranded trains on foot. Authorities reportedly had prior warnings, yet failed to act decisively.
By evening, partial power was finally restored—Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica reported meeting 43% of demand—but full recovery could nevertheless take hours, if not days. Meanwhile, Portugal’s operator warned of potential disruptions that might last for up to a week. On Monday evening, Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, asked people to stay at home the following day, fearing the city would still be unprepared to return to normal.
This spectacular, wholly unprecedented blackout, described as a “50-year, if not 100-year incident,” exposed a deeper flaw: the catastrophic consequences of left-wing energy policies that have recklessly prioritised renewable energies while dismantling reliable alternatives like coal and nuclear power.
UPDATE: Grid Overload: How Solar Sparked a Continental Power Crisis