Normal Accidents. Again.
Debate is swirling about the cause of the Great Spanish Grid Failure of 2025. One major driver of this debate is an almost crazed desire to shield renewables from any blame. Spanish PM (and Socialist knob) Pedro Sanchez (who barely managed to get elected, perhaps due to a lack of help from Napoleon Dynamite) is especially crazed, given that Spain had become Exhibit A in the greatness of renewables, and that he has been a huge supporter of them.
All sorts of theories have been bandied about. For his part, Pedro is going with Induced Atmospheric Vibration, in which extreme temperature variations caused frequency fluctuations. (Which the grid could not handle, ahem ahem.).
Every electrical grid is a complex, highly interconnected physical system with myriad feedback mechanisms, and is characterized by “tight coupling” (everything must work together in a specific sequence or the system collapses). Indeed, the electricity grid is arguably the most tightly coupled major system in the modern world.
This is the kind of system in which “normal accidents” occur. I’ve written about them several times (hence the “again” in the title).
Normal accidents mean that there are myriad combinations of events, each one of low probability, that can combine to cause a systemic collapse. Though any individual combination may have a low probability, the vast number of possible combinations means that the probability of collapse is non-trivial.
The ex post forensics of the Spanish collapse–if not fatally compromised by politics, which is a big if–will no doubt establish a one-damn-thing-led-to-another causal chain. It is quite possible that not all of the links in this chain will be related to renewables, which no doubt Pedro and others will seize upon to vindicate their baby.
But recall from my earlier discussion of normal accidents that these links are necessary conditions–absence of any one of them would have prevented the collapse. The more links in the chain that are renewables-related means that greater reliance on renewables implies a greater probability of systemic failure.
Perhaps Pedro is right and the original shock was an IAV, which is not itself directly attributable to renewables. But as it stands now, crucial elements in the causal chain definitely appear to include tripping off of two major solar facilities in Spain, and a very small share of power production from spinning resources (due to a high renewables share) that resulted in a deficiency in system inertia. Thus, two major elements of the causal chain likely strongly implicate renewables.
Many “normal accidents” involve causal chains that came as a complete surprise to those reviewing them ex post. This is definitely not the case with respect to the electricity grid and renewables. There have been many Jeremiahs warning of impending doom from over-reliance on them. Indeed, the Spanish grid operator itself sounded the alarm as recently as February.
Will this almost real time validation of the warning lead to a major rethink of the advisability of continuing to push renewables ahead of the complementary investments (batteries, greater transmission capacity, technical mitigants of the inertia issue) necessary to prevent a severe degradation of grid reliability? Will it lead to a sober evaluation of the costs of these complementary investments and/or the cost of degraded reliability, and a recalibration of renewables plans that takes these costs into account?
Given the huge political and ideological investments made in the renewables push, I highly doubt it. Not in Europe, anyways.
In another normal accident-related story, the New York Times did a major tick tock on the Reagan Airport helo-plane collision that resulted in the deaths of 67. Again no doubt due to its massive political and ideological investment, it all but buried a crucial necessary condition. Specifically, the failure of the pilot undergoing an evaluation flight to heed the specific directions of the Warrant Officer performing the evaluation to (a) reduce altitude, and (b) make a left turn. Instead she–and that’s the important detail–continued to fly straight, high, and level right into a descending passenger jet.
If she had followed the WO’s directions, the tragedy would have almost certainly been avoided. Here, human error was a necessary condition. But since that human error was committed by someone of a protected class–a female military officer, one who had been a Biden aide no less, and noted in her obit as being an advocate for sexual harassment victims–the NYT (and myriad other media outlets) downplayed that detail.
The valence of this issue is particularly great in the current environment, where SecDef Peter Hegseth is challenging DEI in the military generally, and the role of women in the military specifically.
The lesson from these episodes? That in these abnormal times, honest assessments of normal accidents are nigh on impossible. Which means that their likelihood will be tragically higher than necessary.
The helicopter crash: I have some questions.
(i) She was said to have had plenty of flying hours under her belt but were many of them recent? If she was spending time serving at the court of King Joe, did she still keep her hand in or did she let her skills atrophy?
(ii) Was she one of those difficult women who did not want to accept instructions from a male; a male, moreover, of inferior rank?
(iii) Did she commit suicide?
(iv) Have we heard anything about the superior officers who sent her off on this dangerous jaunt?
Comment by dearieme — May 5, 2025 @ 2:19 pm
There are no “complementary investments” that will prevent large-scale installed so-called renewables from causing a severe degradation of grid reliability. And batteries will never, ever, provide grid-scale back-up.
There are no substitutes – none – for fossil fuel or nuclear fission plants for grid-scale electricity generation. And the excuse of so-called climate change is the province of the power-mad and their rank-and-file of useful idiots.
In other news, the NYT article does not exclude a subtext inference that Capt. Rebecca Lobach either collided with the American Airlines CRJ700 jet deliberately or, from her lack of response to spoken directives, had suffered a catatonic seizure at the controls.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 5, 2025 @ 2:25 pm
Am I right, Pat, in remembering that there was some delay in announcing her name while her social media was scrubbed? Why would you do that, I wonder?
Comment by dearieme — May 5, 2025 @ 3:01 pm
@3dearieme – I recall reading something along those lines, yes.
That sort of obfuscate-by-omission is common practice in the legacy media here in the U.S., whenever the perpetrator is politically fraught.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 5, 2025 @ 4:47 pm
I am being told on social media sites by people in their 20s/30s that it will work. Just need adjustments and more government spending
Comment by Jeff Carter (@pointsnfigures1) — May 6, 2025 @ 9:10 am
“The more links in the chain that are renewables-related means that greater reliance on renewables implies a greater probability of systemic failure.”
Well… all the data is readily available, so this implication should be clearly visible in the numbers no? You’re a finance/economics guy, shouldn’t data, numbers and stats come first, not prejudices?
For example, try plotting SAIDI (a widely used grid reliability metric) against renewable share of the generation mix by country. I’ve done this, by the way and there is absolutely no correlation, if anything, there’s a slight anti-correlation.
Comment by derriz — May 6, 2025 @ 12:13 pm
@derriz: how did you deal with confounders? In particular did you define renewables to include hydropower, you naughty boy?
Comment by dearieme — May 6, 2025 @ 3:07 pm
Maybe the helo pilot just wasn’t up to the job? Hegseth could do better ridding the military of any such underperformers. He could start by sacking himself – leaving by example, so it were.
Comment by David Mercer — May 6, 2025 @ 3:44 pm
@derriz – right. Who ya gonna believe? A graphic or your lying eyes and the testimony of grid operators?
Johnson, et al. (2019) Evaluating rotational inertia as a component of grid reliability with high penetrations of variable renewable energy
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544219308564
More renewables requires more spinning back-up to stabilize the grid against intermittency.
The whole promotion of wind and solar is based on garbage science. There’s zero evidence our CO₂ emissions have done anything except green up the planet.
The push for renewables is a vile scheme to transfer money from the middle class to the already rich. The ultimate outcome would be serfs and lords (plus court sycophants. Looking at you, David).
Comment by Pat Frank — May 6, 2025 @ 4:27 pm
@Pat: I believe that the “complementary investments” means investing in battery-based inertia. For example, Tesla (ugh…) will sell you 2000 megawatt seconds of inertia for about $100 million. Nobody with any sense is suggesting that batteries be used to substitute generation capacity. It’s worth noting that A: the Spanish event happened during daytime in good weather (Making this entirely a problem of poor grid management for the power sources they chose to use) and B: Despite their renewables-heavy grid, they are able to keep the light and aircon running at night. In addition, they also manage to have fairly cheap power by European standards (though it would have been better to be a bit less cheap and a bit more reliable…) so obviously it is possible to have some combination of renewables and backup fossil fuel power in a cost-effective way.
And since Europe severely lacks fossil fuels of our own, I don’t think it’s fair to call us mad for trying to develop domestic power sources.
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 7, 2025 @ 3:32 am
“they also manage to have fairly cheap power by European standards” But what does that mean? Surely there isn’t much Euro power charged for at market rates – won’t there be a web of subsidies, taxes, and tax breaks to ensure that it’s near impossible to work out what true costs are?
Comment by dearieme — May 7, 2025 @ 7:04 am
@10 HF – The UK has coal, good fracking lands, and North Sea oil. Germany has coal (at least), France has nuclear, and Europe generally has exploitable natural gas.
If Europe wants secure domestic energy production, nuclear fission is the way to success.
So-called renewables are not a realistic option. With them, the grid requires spinning back-up, making the so-called renewables redundant in any case. Like lace filigree on a war-plane.
I don’t wish them (or you) ill, but if Europe insists on solar and wind, it’ll be their funeral. And a funeral it will be.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 7, 2025 @ 9:44 am
Derriz: For example, try plotting SAIDI… against renewable share of the generation mix by country.
I’m not sure that’s a valid comparison; as Deari noted above, there are confounders. SAIDI is influenced by maintenance practices – particularly vegetation management, which is expensive. It may well be that countries / utilities that are wealthy enough to absorb those costs (and pass them on to customers, natch) are also the ones wealthy enough to be early adopters of renewables.
Comment by dcardno — May 7, 2025 @ 2:06 pm
@dearieme. All good questions. I lean strongly to (ii), then (i). We’ll never hear about (iv). I’m sure she was coddled and praised out the wazoo, and she had an attitude as a result.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:34 pm
@Pat Frank. Don’t disagree. Basically you are saying the cost is infinite. That’s exactly why a “sober evaluation” is required to show the renewables emperor is naked.
I think freezing under pressure is a real possibility, that combined with @dearieme’s conjecture that she was being a girlboss and wasn’t going to listen to a mere warrant officer (despite the fact that WOs usually have much more experience, in large part because some choose to become so specifically because they just want to fly and don’t GAF about the non-flying billets that officers rotate through).
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:39 pm
@dearieme. Right from the jump there was speculation that DEI might have played a role, and the military definitely didn’t want to feed that fire.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:40 pm
@Jeff. Ah, but that’s the thing. How much more?.
I’m reminded of Adam Smith, who wrote that sure, you can produce wine in Scotland using green houses, hot walls, hot beds, etc. . . at 30x the cost of producing it in Portugal.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:44 pm
@derriz. Funny you should mention. That’s an ongoing project. Stay tuned. We can compare results.
There is no doubt, however, that the cost of electricity is strongly increasing in the share of renewables. And that’s even before making a reliability/quality adjustment.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:46 pm
@HibernoFrog. Or a domestic non-power source, as it were.
Further, Spain has nukes, a domestic power source. (Yeah, yeah, uranium). Which socialist dipshit Pedro is hell bent on shutting down.
Life is trade-offs. What is the cost of domestic power sources, relative to the alternative? NG and coal (and uranium to a lesser degree) are available from multiple sources, reducing the security risk substantially (well, except when the Germans in particular decide to put their balls in the Russians’ hands).
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:51 pm
@dearieme “fairly cheap by European standards” reminds me of the punchline to an old joke. A farm boy takes a girl to a dance. Before he leaves, his mother says “make sure you say something nice to her.” On the drive home he wracks his brain, trying to think of something complimentary to say. Finally, he blurts out: “You don’t sweat much for a fat girl.”
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 12:53 pm
@cpirrong: when I went up to university my father’s advice was “Take out English girls. You can afford beer but not whisky.”
I’ll look on solar and wind power as the whisky of electrical power generation.
Comment by dearieme — May 8, 2025 @ 4:32 pm
@dearieme: Maybe domestic rates, but not at wholesale. French taxpayers have no interest in subsidising German industry, so the information is indeed available.
@Pat: A lot of claims there… Yes, we could use more coal, and ignore the fact that it’s filthy stuff, but let’s just agree to disagree on the climate change aspect, because the debate would never end, and in fact, your side has already won, because this is exactly what Germany does – they burn enormous quantities of lignite. But apparently it’s not enough. Yes, the North Sea has oil, but it’s running out. Same for Natural Gas, we’ve used what we could (with the exception of the Dutch turning off one major field because a city was falling into the earth – again, that seems fair enough). Fracking has some pretty harsh costs: Groundwater pollution and more soil subsidence, and given Europe’s lack of huge sparsely populated tracts of land where we can do this, like in the US, it’s hardly unreasonable for us to be hesitant.
“France has nuclear”
Yes, I’m baffled as to why Europe doesn’t use more of it. Your criticism on this point is wholeheartedly agreed to by this European.
“nuclear fission is the way to success.”
In future, maybe, and Europe is leading the way with the reactor in France. But this is, for the foreseeable future, a lot less realistic than Solar.
“So-called renewables are not a realistic option.”
Of course they are. Spain has literally been doing this for years. Solar during the day, fossil fuel during the night. Yes, they had a grid failure, but since that happened on a sunny day, it is clear that this was mismanagement of the selected power source. They lost something like 4% of their power and their grid collapsed. There’s ANY number of reasons to lose 4% of your grid – a storm, a coal powerplant shutdown, loss of a high-voltage line… whatever. And if that happened, we wouldn’t be saying that ultimately, any of those technologies were at fault. But somehow when it’s a solar plant, the problem is ENTIRELY due to solar power? Yes, as the Prof points out, that power source is more temperamental, but technology exists to mitigate that – they just chose not to, and this is the price they pay.
@Prof:
“Which socialist dipshit Pedro is hell bent on shutting down.”
Yes, I despair at my fellow Europeans on this point.
“You don’t sweat much for a fat girl”
People in glass houses 😛
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
In fact, since Europe is forced by geography to import more energy than the US, the comparison looks very poor for some parts of the US there…
“Or a domestic non-power source, as it were.”
For a day. Grid failures happen almost everywhere on occasion. Solar may be the proximal cause here, but not the root cause, as I said to Pat, above.
“Life is trade-offs. What is the cost of domestic power sources, relative to the alternative?”
Given that Spain has been able to achieve economic growth recently, in part by attracting industry with relatively low electricity prices, the real-world experiment seems to be working just fine for them. Albeit most places don’t have as much sun, so I wouldn’t take this as evidence that solar is a silver bullet, or is even a sensible thing to do in, say, Germany. But this pile-on against solar is driven by political reasoning, not technical. But I’m totally with you on Nuclear, given our relative lack of domestic energy, it is beyond insane that we continue to ignore things like Thorium based reactors (NB: The Chinese are making HUGE progress on this – it’ll be a real game changer for them, mark my words!), small modular reactors, and just regular present-day nuclear plants.
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 12, 2025 @ 3:04 am
Oh… sorry. I didn’t realise that comment had run on quite so long. I’m a former electrical power engineer (but aerospace, not grid), so this a subject I’m really invested in.
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 12, 2025 @ 3:05 am
I’d like to see a serious estimate of how much the cost of fission electricity could be reduced by abandoning the obsolete “Linear No Threshold” model of the harms done by low doses of radiation. The LNT isn’t science; it’s a straight line plotted on 1950s graph paper because there wasn’t any good data that the workers had found so they just made it up (hence “model”.)
That it’s still used nearly three generations later is a scandal – yet another case of a scientific Establishment protecting itself and to hell with the truth.
As far as I know the calculations involving high dose radiation are pukkah.
Comment by dearieme — May 12, 2025 @ 1:59 pm
An electrical-engineer friend of mine is agog at the nonsense being spouted by the Spanish politicians to avoid blame being attributed to the renewables (where she believes, with reason, that it lies) and, by extension, at the feet of those very same politicians who drank deep of the renewables Kool-Aid.
Next time I see her, I’ll give her Lily Tomlin’s ‘We try to be cynical …’ line. Poor thing is only just beginning to open her eyes to the world.
Comment by Ex-Global Super-Regulator on Lunch Break — May 13, 2025 @ 2:50 am
@22 HF – hard coal is no longer filthy.
Climate: I’ve published peer-reviewed papers showing that:
1) climate models cannot predict air temperature. The torrid future is a fantasy of pseudoscience;
2) the historical air temperature record is no ridden with systematic measurement error, that neither the rate nor the magnitude of warming since 1900 is knowable. The practitioners in the field ignore that error;
3) over the last 66 million years (the Cenozoic) the varying level of atmospheric CO2 can be understood as having been driven by changes in the temperature of the sea surface. CO2 is driven, not a driver.
There’s zero evidence our CO2 emissions are doing anything to the climate. The only known observed effect is a positive – the general greening of Earth.
The whole renewables business is for nothing. Except for moving money from the middle class into the pockets of the already rich.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 18, 2025 @ 5:53 pm
@24 dearieme — and on top of that, we’re all radioactive anyway, what with our natural quota of potassium-40 and carbon-14.
We life-forms have been dealing with low-dose internal radiation over the past 4 billion years.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 18, 2025 @ 5:56 pm
“Climate: I’ve published peer-reviewed papers”
And they have been roundly criticised. Eg: https://skepticalscience.com/frank_propagation_uncertainty.html
No doubt you will argue that it is a conspiracy by vested interests…
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 19, 2025 @ 3:04 am
@28 HF – It’s the recrudescence of the incompetent partisan.
Ken Rice:#1: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/17/when-trust-and-safety-encounter-fact-and-science/#comment-3479120
Ken Rice #2: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/17/when-trust-and-safety-encounter-fact-and-science/#comment-3479196
I’ve seen them all, HF, and responded to them all.
My critics uniformly do not understand physical error analysis. They persistently mistake uncertainty for error; as fatal a mistake as is possible to make.
Comment by Pat Frank — May 19, 2025 @ 1:52 pm