I'm in Lisbon. So yesterday I could experience the whole city being out of order. It was kind of an anti-covid experience: Everyone being cut off from their electronic devices, people were mostly on the street and had to talk to each other. Was nice, actually.
There were a few lucky ones with solar panels on their roof, and I hope that after that day, more people will go for that measure.
The cause of the blackout is still not entirely clear, but I would go with the one of extreme atmospheric temperature changes in Spain's mainland in combination with the insufficient cable infrastructure between Spain and France to even out such a shortage. I hope that also this will be a lesson for the EU to double down on a decentralized, resilient network based on renewables.
Instead everybody was talking about a cyber attack from Russia or whoever and the beginning of the next big conflict, while most probably the actual problem is climate-related and to be addressed with more sustainable, resilient energy solutions on a big scale. Those twisted reactions seem to be symptomatic for our time. I hope this will change.
So when yesterday evening I was just reading a book under candlelight on my balcony, suddenly electricity came back and the whole neighborhood cheered in relief. We're all together in our reliance on energy. Let's make sure we can rely on it and use it with good consciousness in the face of climate change.