Fairly: Blackout in Portugal and Spain. The electric darkness highlighted beer drinking on the deck
People on the Iberian Peninsula experienced a somewhat long blackout. The blackout in Portugal and Spain showed thousands of everyday activities that are not feasible without electric blood in the veins of our civilization. In recent years, it turns out that the comfort of our consumer life is not always a given. Although Spain is a world leader in renewable energy sources, blaming problems on photovoltaics and windmills may be shortsighted, just like the boundless faith in their green energy.
Everyone knows it, but we can't just imagine it. Electricity powers almost all the achievements of our life. Although we can easily do without a microwave, it's worse with non-functional mobile networks and the internet, and it's the worst in a stuck elevator.
People in Spain and Portugal found out what hardships await a person without a single kilowatt of electric energy. In both countries, the power went out for almost two days. In some regions, the outage was shorter and lasted only half a day.
Blackout: Portugal and Spain. Not even a petrol pump is working
"Here, practically even trains cannot be replaced by buses, because once they run out of diesel and their tank is empty, they can't refuel again. At the gas station it would not even be possible to pay, except in cash. But the pump isn't working. Simply nothing that runs on electricity is working. The funny thing is, that now as they solve that a person with an electric car will be screwed in a crisis, normal cars cannot cope either,"
"For an idea of everything that relies on electricity," Martin, living in Spain, told Seznam News.
There's basically no substitute for our technology without electricity. Even an internal combustion engine won't last long during a sudden blackout. The catastrophic scenario that has been talked about for some time now in fear of unstable energy sources has been confirmed. For example, a hundred years ago, electricity was a rare occurrence in Czech villages.
The only sources were often hydroelectric power plants built by the conversion of old water mills. Their electricity, with a bit of exaggeration, was only enough to light the gamekeeper's lodge. Blackouts at these power plants were certainly more frequent than in the case of Spain, but our ancestors did not perish miserably. After all, the Spaniards managed in the new conditions as well.
"Massive power outage in Spain and Portugal! The internet is not working, payments are not being made, and flights are canceled. Media: Chaos reigns in the media! People are panicking! What really happened: We just took blankets, beer, and we all had a great time together,"
written by Alex Socoloff, founder of a design start-up.
Czech electricity has problems even without a blackout
An involuntary witness to the blackout pointed out that life can also be lived away from the services of our technological assistants 24/7. It's good to realize this. Electricity problems can occur anywhere and anytime, even in our basin. Experts argue that we cannot expect extreme temperature fluctuations, which were probably behind the problem, but that does not mean that we cannot have problems with electricity.
Spain in its energy mix relies on renewable resources, it is also the only country that managed to cover 100% of its consumption from this source. This situation only occurs on certain days of the year, but even so, Spain is unique in this regard. Perhaps a large number of photovoltaics and wind turbines involved in the system could have played a role in the blackout.
Can we be happy that the vast majority of energy in the Czech Republic is produced from fossil fuels? A two-day blackout missed us, but a sudden increase in electricity prices due to the recent energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not. To this day, increased electricity prices bother many.
By coincidence, they have cheaper electricity in Spain (approximately by half) and the closed gas pipelines from Russia did not significantly impact the country. Dependence on fossil resources that we don't want to mine and we also don't want to live either with asthma or cancer, which their combustion brings us, is increasingly seen as a dead end. Perhaps, therefore, we are facing a future similar to that of the Spanish with all the pros and cons that the Spanish and Portuguese have experienced in recent days. Including beer drinking on a deck.
Sources: original text, commentary, X, Seznamzpravy.cz, Aktualne.cz
