GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  Key   Points ·       Spain and Portugal experienced a mass electrical outage on a grid largely powered by wind and solar energy. ·       The blackout occurred when solar power was nearly 60% of total generation, with wind turbines providing another 9%. ·       Two separate power generation losses destabilized the electricity system, disconnecting Spain’s grid from the wider European grid .   This week’s  blackout in Spain and Portugal  confronted authorities with an unprecedented event: the first mass electrical outage on a grid largely powered by wind and solar energy. Spanish officials said Tuesday they still didn’t know what caused the outage, which left much of the Iberian peninsula without power for hours and disrupted everything from factories and trains to ATMs. Power supplies were largely back to normal by Tuesday morning.  The moments before the blackout, at around 12:30 p.m. Monday, wer...

  The Texas Legislature is considering bills that would increase requirements for renewable energy facility siting and generation reliability, raising concerns from the sector about how this legislation could reduce deployment during a time of increasing energy demand. “With energy demand rising fast, Texas needs every megawatt it can generate to keep the lights on and our economy strong,” said Daniel Giese, the Solar Energy Industries Association’s Texas director of state affairs,  in an April 15 press release  following the Texas Senate passing one such bill,   SB 819. SB 819 would “represent a significant change to renewables development,” even after the Senate “scaled back some of the more rigorous requirements,” law firm  Vinson & Elkins said in an April 21 blog post .  The bill would require “create a siting regime for most new or expanded solar and wind projects,” Vinson & Elkins said, requiring developers to “apply for and receive a per...

  April 28, 2025     Francis Menton   Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands. Is this related to the increasing penetration of intermittent generation from wind and solar facilities? For years, many in the climate skeptic community have warned that expansion of intermittent renewable electricity generation on the grid will, sooner or later, lead to frequent blackouts. The reason for the warning is easy to understand:  The grid has some rather exacting operational requirements that the intermittent renewable generation technologies cannot fulfill. Primary among these requirements are, first, minute-by-minute matching of electricity supply with electricity demand and, second, grid-wide synchronization of the frequency of the alternating current.  When wind and solar pro...

  Less than two years ago, climate activists in Spain celebrated after a utility announced it would close the country’s largest coal plant, the 1,468-megawatt As Pontes facility. According to an activist at Beyond Fossil Fuels, the closure of the coal plant was demonstrating “how much renewables are  outperforming fossil fuels on price, energy security, and desirability .” Earlier this month, renewables looked good. On April 16, Spain’s electric grid ran on 100% alternative energy. And on April 21,  as David Blackmon noted on his Substack earlier today , solar production in the country set a new record of 20,120 megawatts, which,  for a few hours,  met nearly 79% of demand. That was last week. Today, Spain, Portugal, and other parts of Europe were hit by a massive blackout that Red Electrica, Spain’s state grid operator, is blaming on a " very strong oscillation " on the electric grid. The outage has resulted in “transport chaos” as traffic lights went dark and ...

  April 28, 2025  4:04 PM Sometimes, coincidences are just coincidences, but the timing of these two events is not helpful for those advancing the case for renewables, or, come to think of it, the electrification of everything. Here’s the first. PV Magazine  (April 22) : Spain’s grid ran entirely on renewable energy for the first time on April 16, with wind, solar, and hydro meeting all peninsular electricity demand during a weekday. Five days later, solar set a new record, generating 20,120 MW of instantaneous power – covering 78.6% of demand and 61.5% of the grid mix. Wind was around 45 percent of the total. Here’s the second. The  New York Times:  Spain and Portugal were hit by a major power outage on Monday, bringing to a halt daily activity throughout the two countries, with businesses shutting down along with trains, subways and airline flights. Officials did not say what caused the outage, which affected tens of millions of people across the Iberian Penin...

  Talking to legislators from   New York, Washington, Massachusetts, and New Jersey   about what’s under threat, what’s safe, and the strain of it all. Emily Pontecorvo   April 23, 2025   State lawmakers around the country are negotiating budgets for the coming year amid unprecedented uncertainty. Any decisions they make now about how to spend state money may need to be revisited after Congress finishes its  budget reconciliation bill , which could hollow out Medicaid, the largest pot of federal funds that most states receive. On the climate and clean energy front, the Trump administration has been trying to claw back money allocated to states for electric vehicle charging, home energy retrofits, electric school buses, utility bill assistance, and more. Even longstanding tax credits that states rely on to transition to renewable energy are at risk. On top of all this, the president has  threatened to sic his attorney general on states  with ambiti...

  Germany has invested so many hundreds of billions of euros in its green energy transition over the years that no one can tally the precise amount. Yet the share of wind and solar power in the country’s energy mix in the first quarter of this year managed to fall—by a lot. There’s a lesson for the U.S. here. Renewable sources made up  some 47% of electricity consumption  in Europe’s largest economy in the first three months of 2024, the energy trade association BDEW reported Thursday. That’s down from 56% in the first three months of 2024. The drop comes despite Germany’s continuing build-out of renewable generation. The country has added 872 wind turbines with a capacity of 4.3 gigawatts since April 2024, yet wind-power output fell 16%.  Ouch. You can guess what went wrong. February and March were unusually wind-free, onshore and offshore. A lack of rain meant hydropower underperformed. March was sunnier than usual, which helped to boost solar-electricity output co...

CAWTILE- CITIZENS AGAINST WIND TURBINES IN LAKE ERIE  has some exciting  BREAKING NEWS and pleased to announce that     the Erie County Legislature passed a resolution Opposing wind turbines in Lake Erie  TODAY at the legislative session , with a vote of 10 to 1.   CAWTILE IS PLEASED   with the leadership standing together in consensus  to protect Lake Erie , our Residents of Erie County and our environment ! CAWTILE is hoping that you would  announce this today on your show, as you have spoken out frequently with members of Cawtile , Sharen Trembath, Dave Adrian,  Patti Meckes  and Jim Hanley.  As you have mentioned  frequently  that “The Princess” has  lakefront property and we know that she will be so happy to hear this announcement! CAWTILE  thanks you for ALL the positive support  over the last few years !   As you know, the main focus is protecting our drinking water from ...