Dark Continent

Europe goes dark:

The blackouts are "widespread and pervasive," according to Ars Technica, and "trains are not running, airports are unable to operate, and businesses and schools have closed." Battery backups have kept cellular networks operating for the time being, so at least people can live-tweet the situation. It's a very 21st-century European situation when the local trains can't run, but everybody has their "Designed in California" iPhones in their hands. Spain hasn't gone cashless yet, but this report indicates that while a majority of older shoppers still use cash, younger shoppers rely on contactless payments. Sucks to be them with a cart full of groceries and no way to pay. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said today, “We have no answers, and we aren’t ruling out any hypothesis regarding the blackout." Cybersecurity reporter Ryan Gallagher was quoted on Bluesky saying that a cyberattack has been ruled out, and the problem is likely technical. Red Electrica operates Spain's grid and says the outage is due to "grid oscillation," caused by various power sources coming on and offline. Solar and wind power are more prone to causing or amplifying grid oscillations compared to traditional energy sources like coal, natural gas, or nuclear.

Going green has turned out the lights...