Last week’s sweeping blackouts across Spain and Portugal delivered a stark reminder: energy policy rooted in ideology, not engineering, has real-world consequences.
Days before the lights went out, Spanish leadership celebrated their power grid’s high reliance on renewables. But when solar and wind faltered—as all intermittent sources eventually do—the system buckled. Their mistake should give Americans added confidence that President Donald Trump’s all-of-the-above energy vision will lead to American energy dominance and dependability.
As large swaths of the Iberian Peninsula went dark, Europe came face-to-face with the instability that results from over-reliance on wind and solar power. The irony? This chaos unfolded on a sunny, wind-swept day—exactly the kind of day when renewables are supposed to dominate.
At the heart of the disruption was a grid built not on resilience, but on fashionable climate politics. Spain’s grid operator reported that just before the outage, solar power provided nearly 60 percent of the country’s electricity. Wind contributed another 9 percent. Together, these intermittent sources accounted for over two-thirds of supply—and when the system folded, it did so calamitously.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stubbornly holds to the belief that the country’s high reliance on renewable energy had nothing to do with the extensive blackout, but several experts disagree. Leading former International Energy Agency board member Jorge Sanz told the press that the grid did not have enough support from nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to fill in when a sudden drop in power occurred from solar and wind power plants.
André Merlin, a former executive of France’s power grid, warned Europe against following Spain. “We need to be careful about the policy of maximum development and maximum use of intermittent renewable energy to the detriment of more conventional means,” he said.
It’s no coincidence that President Trump’s all-of-the-above energy policy—embracing fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables, and hydro—is giving the economy supreme confidence in our energy future. By diversifying America’s energy mix instead of putting all our eggs in the wind-and-solar basket, Trump ensures stability, affordability, and national security.
In contrast, the European Union is marching toward a self-defeating future where 69 percent of electricity must come from renewables by 2030, regardless of the consequences. Technocrats in Brussels may pat themselves on the back, but grid operators are still scrambling to solve basic technical challenges—like how to keep the lights on when clouds roll in or the wind dies.
One of the key technical problems is the loss of grid “inertia”—the momentum in spinning turbines at coal, gas, and nuclear plants that help stabilize voltage and frequency. When a solar farm goes offline, the output vanishes instantly. There’s no cushion, no time to react. This is precisely the kind of fragility President Trump warned about in 2018 when he pushed back on radical energy mandates and shutdowns of baseload power plants.
British energy expert Professor David Brayshaw of the University of Reading, summed it up: future blackouts will likely become “more significant and widespread” as renewables dominate the grid. Europe is learning that the hard way. Meanwhile, American energy independence—secured under Trump through expanded oil and gas production—offers the flexibility and robustness that Europe sorely lacks.
Back in Spain, grid operator Red Eléctrica wouldn’t say for sure what caused the outage, but all eyes turned to solar. The system collapsed in broad daylight, when solar production was at its peak. Two rapid losses of power—just 1.5 seconds apart—threw the grid into chaos and severed Spain’s connection with the wider European system.
And when it came time to reboot the grid, what energy sources did authorities rely on? Not wind. Not solar. It was hydroelectric and natural gas—energy sources vilified by climate activists but proven once again to be essential. President Trump understands this dynamic and refuses to bow to the environmental lobby’s demand for a total shift to intermittent renewables.
His administration is supporting investment in solar and wind—when and where it makes sense—but never at the expense of coal, oil, gas, or nuclear. That balance, that pragmatism, ensures that America stays competitive, keeps utility bills low, and avoids the kind of disaster Europe just experienced. Spain’s blackout was not the result of a freak accident—it was the predictable outcome of an energy policy that treats physics as optional.
Spain is still moving forward with its plans to shut down its nuclear plants, the most reliable sources of zero-emissions power, and doubling down on wind and solar. That decision defies common sense. Nuclear energy is precisely the kind of carbon-free, high-output technology we should all support—technology that delivers stability and allows us to be good stewards of natural resources.
Europe’s push for a continent-wide “supergrid” is another green utopian dream not grounded in reality. The idea is that countries can share power more efficiently—but this past week’s outage rippled through Spain, Portugal, and even parts of France. Interdependence sounds great until a single failure spreads like wildfire.
This blackout should be Europe’s wake-up call. The “transition” they keep touting isn’t a triumph—it’s a gamble, and one that’s starting to cost real people their livelihoods, their travel plans, and their basic security.
Trump will continue to show the world what a sane energy policy looks like: use everything. Don’t demonize fossil fuels that keep the lights on. Don’t shut down nuclear reactors that provide dependable, carbon-free power. Don’t force the economy to depend on whether the sun shines or the wind blows.
As Spain gropes in the dark for answers, one thing is clear: President Trump’s all-of-the-above approach isn’t just sensible—it is essential.
W.J. Lee has served in the White House, NASA, on multiple political campaigns, and in nearly all levels of government. In his free time, he enjoys the “three R’s” – reading, running, and writing.
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