![\"Andasol_5.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Andasol_5.jpg\" "\\"Andasol_5.jpg\\"")
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Updated Man of La Mancha lyrics could read: \u201cTo dream the impossible dream<\/a> of clean, green, net-zero electricity, to fight the unbeatable foe of manmade climate cataclysms, we must run where the brave dare not go.\u201d<\/p>\n Don Quixote saw windmills as malevolent and dangerous dragons. Spain\u2019s governing classes view them from the Chinese perspective: benevolent and magical dragons.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve erected over 22,000 gigantic windmills, to harness the wind and generate electricity. Portugal has nearly 3,000. Together, when conditions are perfect, they can generate almost 38 gigawatts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Like Cervantes\u2019 hero, the elites also want \u201cto reach the unreachable star\u201d \u2013 or at least capture the energy from one star: the sun. Spain and Portugal together also have 38 GW of photovoltaic solar panels<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the Iberian Peninsula neighbors have long ignored the dark sides of the forces they seek to commandeer.<\/p>\n Those wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines sprawl across some 2,000,000 acres of Spanish and Portuguese vistas, habitats and croplands. That\u2019s equal to Delaware and Rhode Island combined.<\/p>\n They kill eagles, bustards, vultures, and other raptors and birds. Building them requires mining, pollution and child labor on historically unprecedented scales. Solar panels are easily destroyed by storms.<\/p>\n Worst, they provide intermittent, weather-dependent electricity \u2013 necessitating expensive backup power and making the electrical grid unstable. Just how unstable was demonstrated recently, and dramatically.<\/p>\n On April 16, for the first time, for a few minutes, Spain generated 100% of its electricity<\/a> with wind, solar and hydro power.<\/p>\n A fortnight later, on April 28, a prolonged blackout<\/a> sent Iberia into chaos. Lights, televisions, refrigerators, cell phones and traffic lights went dark. Trains, subways and elevators trapped passengers. Airports canceled flights. Hospital backup power provided only basic and emergency services.<\/p>\n The outage even struck parts of France and Belgium. It was Europe\u2019s biggest blackout ever. If France hadn\u2019t shut off its connection to Spain\u2019s cascading problems, all of Europe could have shut down.<\/p>\n Just a week later, another blackout hit Spain\u2019s Canary Islands.<\/p>\n Power outages are nothing new. But the Spain-Portugal blackouts underscore fundamental problems with the supposedly \u201cinevitable transition\u201d from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear electricity to wind, solar and battery power.<\/p>\n Read the rest of this piece at Heartland Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org<\/a>) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.<\/p>\n Photo: Andasol Solar Power Station via Wikimedia<\/a> under CC 4.0 License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Man of La Mancha lyrics could read: \u201cTo dream the impossible dream of clean, green, net-zero electricity,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-220102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114758473760777067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}