Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

Post by red75prime » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 6:57 AM UTC

worldsayshi wrote: post #766

timhigins wrote: post #762

One guy simulated Australia's electrical grid for 3 years to show that the entire grid could run off of >98% renewable energy using the installed renewables with just a small amount of storage (e.g. 5 hours of average demand, ~10% of demand over the entire period). To me this indicates that in many energy markets where renewables are sufficiently built out, the only factor for why we aren't using them more is the sto…

It makes intuitive sense to me that a small amount of storage would make a big difference. Outside of peak use there has to be a huge amount of potential effect that never gets generated because lack of demand at that time.

Post by spacebanana7 » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 7:06 AM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #651

spacebanana7 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be mandatory for critical infrastructure like ATMs to have 24hr batteries installed. And some sort of power backup to maintain internet access as well - even if it's just a matter of everyone being allocated a small amount of starlink data or public wifi. These things have relatively small costs, but make the system much more resilient.

What do you do when the ATMs run out of cash? It's not an unlimited supply in them. You should probably just keep some cash on hand. And keep an FM radio and a few batteries on hand.

Post by bigbacaloa » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 7:11 AM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #319

This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…

Post by macrolime » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 7:21 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #844

rimeice wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2003 was over two decades ago. Most people didn’t have mobile phones let alone smart phones. I’ve been in Lisbon today and it’s surreal being 100% cut off from friends and family back home and a big relief power is back on, we’ve become very used to and reliant on seamless instant connection. Our mindsets and how we live our lives with that instant communication is totally different to 22 years ago.

> 2003 was over two decades ago. Most people didn’t have mobile phones let alone smart phones. Maybe it depends on the country, but my memory of 2003 is almost every non-elderly adult I knew (in my own upper-middle class milieu) already had a mobile phone. Not a smart phone as we understand the term today, but a lot of phones back then had primitive smarts that are now largely forgotten, such as WAP/WML browsers (whi…

Post by integricho » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

sebastiennight wrote: post #684

yannvon wrote: post #577

I experienced it first hand in Madrid. This was much scarier than I would have imagined. News travelled extremely slow: phone coverage was just barely enough to receive a couple text messages every 15 minutes or so. News spread on the street, I even saw a group of 20 people hunched around someone owning a hand-held radio in the streets. Just before power was restored, things started to get worse, as the phone coverag…

I think this is where F-droid and Briar have a (short-lived in this instance) chance to shine. Since Briar allows communication between phones without access to the Internet, and F-droid allows to direct transmit apps between phones as well. I wonder what similar solutions exist in the iOS ecosystem.