Probably still figuring thing out

Rec

No power uts there

that keep them going a short while - with emergency phone numbers mostly going through them now, I imagine there may be requirements for that. It also wouldn't surprise me that they might have to restrict data if it uses more power and they don't know when mains power will be restored.

One of my neighbors works with the utilities watchdog agency and can access them during power cuts.

No signs of cyber-attack, says EU, but ‘impossible’ to know when electricity will be restored

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/apr/28/ukraine-russia-zelenskyy-putin-trump-crimea-germany-europe-news-live-updates

What a mess

Two beautiful countries filled with good people. Both were run by fascist bastards and are now steady democracies — and members of NATO.



Hope they get the power back on, real soon. Life doesn’t require electric power, but civilization does.

Rec

coverage. I’m listening to Radio 5 on the Radio.net app. They speak fast, but as long as you understand context, you should get what they’re talking about.

Hopefully it comes up here: Radio Nacional España

Not only the trains and airports. Street lamps, all forms of electronic payment (except where generators kicked in).

This is one of the reasons my wife and I are totally against the so-called "cashless society." Not just because every single aspect of your life can be tracked by a control freak government (think Trump, or the formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe), but also because it leaves those who depend on electronic cash completely are at the mercy of incidents like this.

A couple of years ago, we were in a small grocery store in a small town on Cape Cod, MA, and their electronic card processing system broke down. There was a young mother in line wanting to buy $5 worth of feeding formula for her baby. She only had a card, no cash. Upon being told at the cashier that she needed to pay cash, she broke down in tears because she didn't even have $5 in cash. My wife stepped in and gave her the $5, also giving her a German-accented earful of that she thought of being 100% dependent on cards for money. The woman wanted our address to repay my wife who said, "don't be ridiculous, it will cost you more than $5 to send $5 to Germany." My wife said the woman could repay her by never again going out with so little cash on her that this could ever happen. Considering how traumatized she seemed, she might just have done it.

I hope no such situations occurred down in Iberia, but they are really into cards down there, too, and I'll bet that plenty of people were caught off-guard, although the people there are (in general) very friendly, and willing to help out people in need.

We really hope this was caused by extreme environmental conditions, because if this was a coordinated attack, and was a dry run for similar action on northern Europe, it showed how vulnerable a huge area can be to being shut down in an instant.

but all I can find looks like handwaving so far. Some scepticism here:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/848666/what-is-induced-atmospheric-vibration

One answer points to a paper "Diagnosis and Mitigation of Observed Oscillations in IBR-Dominant Power Systems" ('IBR' is "inverter-based resources" "such as solar photovoltaics, wind, and battery systems and inverter-based transmission, distribution, and load technologies" ), but that barely mentions temperature (just about the temperature of capacitors, a couple of times - nothing about weather).

This news report also seems sceptical:

but I know very little about these matters.

This week, zero electricity.

Hopefully completely unrelated.