The UK experienced a nationwide blackout after its main energy plant failed, officials said.
Its power grid collapsed at around 11:00 (15:00 GMT), the energy ministry wrote on X.
Grid officials said they did not know how long it would take to restore power.
This follows months of lengthy blackouts on the island – prompting the prime minister to declare an “energy emergency” on Thursday.
Other stories
Fuel in the UK to become five times more expensive
The UK laments collapse of iconic sugar beet industry
‘The violence is getting out of hand’: Crime grips the UK’s streets
Friday’s total blackout came after the UK’s final coal-powered fire station, the last on the island – went offline. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the situation was his “absolute priority”.
That’s all bunk, er, the future: Here is the real news, from the BBC:
Cuba experienced a nationwide blackout after its main energy plant failed, officials said. Its power grid collapsed at around 11:00 (15:00 GMT), the energy ministry wrote on X. Grid officials said they did not know how long it would take to restore power. This follows months of lengthy blackouts on the island – prompting the prime minister to declare an “energy emergency” on Thursday.
Fuel in Cuba to become five times more expensive
Cuba laments collapse of iconic sugar industry
‘The violence is getting out of hand’: Crime grips Cuba’s streets
Friday’s total blackout came after the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas – the largest on the island – went offline. President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said the situation was his “absolute priority“. “There will be no rest until power is restored,” he wrote on X.
Earlier on Friday, officials announced that all schools and nonessential activities, including nightclubs, were to close until Monday.
Non-essential workers were urged to stay home to safeguard electricity supply, and non-vital government services were suspended. Cubans have also been urged to switch off high-consumption appliances during peak hours, such as fridges and ovens, according to local media.
Don’t worry folks, non-vital government services suspended? it won’t happen here.
In response to the CMN, Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, stressed the importance of new investments in nuclear power. Tom Greatrex said: “Without fresh investment and decisions on new nuclear projects at Sizewell C and Wylfa as well as Small Modular Reactors, these warnings will become more commonplace and we will have to continue relying on volatile gas markets to fill the gaps in supply, threatening out energy security and driving up bills and emissions.”
Orwell made a famous remark about a boot on a face forever, but in practice it seems difficult to keep the racket going for more than about three generations.
There would be no problem in Cuba had they enacted TRUE communism.
If there’s any benefit of having that gormless erection, Miliband, in charge of energy, it’s the penny dropping across the country that net zero without nuclear is a non-starter.
This will eventually lead to the next obvious fork in the road: build more nuclear or ditch net zero.
I know what I’d choose, but I think the Overton window still has some shifting to do yet.
(Frack, baby, frack.)
bobby b wins. Nolo Contendere.
So goodbye to tourism as a source of income too.
non-vital government services….. Is there any vital government services? I can’t think of any?
Andy Briggs:
Embrace the power of “and”.
Cuba does seem to be collapsing – Collectivism does not work.
That Collectivism does not work is not a new discovery – Aristotle rejected the Collectivism of his teacher Plato because Aristotle understood that Collectivism will always fail (Aristotle also rejected other teachings of Plato, such as the idea that men and women are basically the same – a rejection that led modern leftists, such as the socialist Bertrand Russell, to hate Aristotle).
Humans are not just a “bundle of perceptions” (as David Hume, allegedly, claimed) – we are human BEINGS, the self (the free will “I”) exists – it is not an “illusion” – the human person exists. The human person, the human being, is not an ant in an ant colony, as Collectivism seems to assume, the human person (the free will “I” – the moral agent) must be allowed to make decisions (decisions are real – they are NOT predetermined as the ravings of Determinism and Compatibilism falsely claim), otherwise, eventually, society breaks down – as we may be starting to see in Cuba.
To bring things closer to home – Mr Ed is correct – the Starmer government in the United Kingdom rejects all this and is wedded to Collectivism – the United Kingdom is NOT yet a fully Collectivist society, but is certainly moving in that terrible direction.
So are K. Harris and Tim Walz in the United States – K. Harris was the most Collectivist Senator in the United States Senate (see her voting record) and Tim Walz was the most Collectivist Governor, out of all 50, in the United States – see the recently published Cato Institute study.
Whether or not K. Harris and Tim Walz are or are not strict Marxists misses-the-point that, whether they are Marxists or not, they are Collectivists – they believe that the state should control society, that human beings have no rights AGAINST the state.
When Americans look with horror at developments in the United Kingdom (developments that are on going – the process is far from over, things are going to get a lot worse than they are now) – everything from high energy prices to people being sent to prison for their beliefs, they must grasp that this is the future of the United States if “Harris/Walz” comes into Office – i.e. if the Collectivist Deep State is allowed to continue its drive towards totalitarianism, the total crushing of human freedom.
It has already started – for example the Orwellian named “Justice” Department and the corrupt courts recently sent an American wife and mother to prison for three years.
Her crime? Protesting outside an abortion center – that was her “crime”.
So much for liberty being safe in the United States.
“But if I remain silent I will be safe”.
No you will NOT – for have you not forgotten that “silence is violence” a central doctrine of the modern left.
You must convince the leftist Deep State in all your words and actions that you are fully on board with “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” which turns out to mean Uniformity, Injustice and Exclusion.
If they have the slightest doubt that you fully support the agenda of tyranny they will destroy you – and destroy you, and your family, in the most sadistic ways possible.
So it is rather more than high energy prices, or even the existence of the electoral power grid, that is to be decided in a few days in the United States.
Cuba’s problems aren’t caused by any commitment by its government to net zero, but by the usual problems of socialism. The power stations have not been properly maintained for years, while the price of fuel is subsidised. One of the links reports the price of petrol in Cuba is 16p a litre, meaning every litre sold costs the government money. Electricity is probably subsidised too, meaning the government loses money on every kilowatt-hour.
@bobby b
There would be no problem in Cuba had they enacted TRUE communism.
If I’m not mistaken, Cuba has true communism, however Cuba’s problems are because, America.
Schrodinger’s Dog – correct. On the other hand Sri Lanka (Ceylon) went for Agenda 2030 style “Green” policies – and also collapsed.
Fraser Orr – technically Cuba is still in the “socialist stage”, state control of the means of production, as it does not claim to have “achieved” equality – the mark of the Communism end point.
Pol Pot achieved equality for one third of the population of Cambodia – by killing them (to the joy of his many supporters in Western countries), but more moderate Marxists prevented him killing the other two thirds of the population – and thus achieving true Net Zero (at least after the bodies had rotted away) via Year Zero.
The “human extinction movement” is hopeful that via such policies as Net Zero the end of the “virus that is humanity” may yet be “achieved”.
Bought another 3 * 12 volt batteries as part of my backup regime for £95 including delivery today.
I already have multiple UPS’s, power inverters, 12volt lighting, thermal to USB power generation and alternate gas heating capability.
Because it’s just a matter of time until they’re needed.
No better time than the present to find a junked Tesla and rescue the battery into several lithium home power centers. Those prices are really coming down as more and more EV’s get retired.
(I aim for about 4-5 months per year living off of solar down in the SW US deserts. Get enough panels and batteries, and you never have to start your generator!)
Unfortunately, @Bobby b, it isn’t about what I need, but about what I can afford.
£95 buys me a couple more hours of electric lighting, phone and tablet charging. Maybe internet (plugging the router into an inverter) if the connection isn’t broken at the street level boxes.
It’s about staving off the worst consequences of an immediate NetZero created blackout / brownout, nothing more than that.
If we get into a Black start (aka Dinorwig scenario) then we’ll be out for days at least. Apart from 120 watts (theoretical max.) of solar charging during the day, I’ve got no more fallback.
Even so, I’m still far more prepared than most people.
The first of the rolling blackouts / brownouts will be a real shock to many, especially those who don’t have the experience of the 1970’s miners / power workers strikes and the power cuts then.
At least the camping gas stove (gas canister driven) will give us cooking and heating for about 20 days. Life would be far more miserable without that as a backup.
Wasn’t that Locke, originally?
Not that i don’t think highly of Locke.
And in any case this notion strikes me as wrong, but not pernicious: just irrelevant.
Snorri – I partly agree with you, and partly disagree.
I agree that the idea that the self is just a “bundle of perceptions” is wrong – but it is (not is not) pernicious, highly pernicious.
It is an attack on the principle of that humans are beings – persons. If true it would mean that the enslavement or extermination of humans was morally irrelevant.
Indeed it would negate the very concepts of moral right and moral wrong – as there would be no beings to hold these concepts.
As for John Locke – some 18th century French thinkers did indeed interpret Locke in this way, but this is not the way he seems to have interpreted himself. Indeed Locke would have been horrified (and outraged) to be told that he did not believe in the human person, the soul, in either the religious or nonreligious, Aristotelian, sense.
As for Mr Hume – James Beattie (and, more politely, Thomas Reid and others) interpreted Hume this way, and Kant stated that Beattie had totally misunderstood Hume. But it is interesting that Mr Hume himself never, as far as I know, clearly denied this interpretation.
David Hume was alive – he could have clearly said “no I do not believe that – on the contrary I believe in the existence of the moral agent, of the “I” the person” – but there was no such clear statement from him, there were a lot of words – but no clear denial of the charge.
Today historians of philosophy accept Beattie’s attack on Hume’s alleged racialism – yet deny his attack on Hume’s alleged denial of human personhood. Yet the evidence for Hume being a racialist is weaker (weaker – not stronger) than the evidence that he denied human personhood.
In 1947 in his last days alive Professor Prichard asked Wittgenstein whether he, Wittgenstein, believed in the existence of the human person – whether he accepted I-think-therefore-I-am (a principle of Aristotle a couple of thousand years before it was a principle of Descartes) – Wittgenstein dodged (“that is silly, old man, am what?”) in much the same sick way that pro Soviet Union Cambridge types tended to dodge all important questions.
Prichard’s Oxford colleague Professor Ross (known in another line of work as Major Ross) and Commander Brown (I once had the honour of meeting Commander Brown) knew there are ways, and without using physical violence (none at all – no need for physical unpleasantness) of wiping the smiles of the faces of these evil folk and getting straight answers out of them.
The key is to put them in a situation where it is clear to them that they are not in charge any more (and that there will be no help from the special friends that such folk tend to have) – and to make clear to them that one does not regard them as special, as above the rules of moral conduct of ordinary human beings. And to make it very clear that the questions will continue till there are straight answers – regardless of how long it takes. The smug, self satisfied, superiority tends to collapse quite quickly. And, interestingly enough, when the straight answers finally start coming – it is not difficult to tell whether or not the person is lying.
Alas this was not done – and not with Bertrand Russell, “Kim” (Harold) Philby, and the others either.
“… to find a junked Tesla and rescue the battery…” – it was my understanding that “junked Teslas”, indeed, all junked EV’s, are usually junked because the battery has quit and replacing it would cost more than the car is worth…
In case anyone does not know – Bertrand Russell (who falsely called himself a “liberal” or even a “Whig” but was really a socialist – totally committed to tyranny, i.e. the collective control of the means of production) not only helped create CND (which campaigned for one sided nuclear disarmament – the West disarms, but the Marxist powers keep their weapons), he also created “The 100”.
This smaller organisation was specifically created to engage in “active measures” – for example organizing the escape of the Soviet agent George Blake from prison.
Bertrand Russell was just as much a traitor as “Kim” Philby and the “Cambridge Five”. Yet he, and traitors like him – people who actively worked to destroy liberty, were treated as respected intellectuals till the day they died – and given the highest honours. As if philosophical treason, especially in such matters as ethics and the existence of the human person (what used to be called “the nature of man”) does not lead on to political treason – whereas, in reality, of course it does.
It is hard not to despair.
A person can be a Collectivist, a supporter of tyranny (total tyranny), without being a Marxist – Bertrand Russell is an example of this, and there are many other examples. But even self confessed Marxists such as Maurice Dobb was treated as respected intellectuals and given academic positions.
And, please let us not forget, that this was in spite of Marxism being nonsense – utter nonsense. The economics of David Ricardo, on which the economic side of Marxism is based, is wrong – the Labour Theory of Value is wrong, and Ricardo’s theory on land (which is still trotted out to be pretend that a Land Tax is somehow better than other taxes) is also wrong – refuted by Frank Fetter more than a century ago.
As a theory of history Marxism is also bunk – for example there was no “feudal mode of production”, feudalism is a military and political system, it is not about a “mode of production”, so all the ink that Maurice Dobb and others used on the “transition from feudalism to capitalism” was wasted.
Even if one is talking about serfdom (and one can have serfdom without feudalism and feudalism without serfdom) when was serfdom common in, for example, the county of Kent? Or in the nation of Norway?
Yet, again, Maurice Dobb, and so many others, were treated as respected intellectuals – and Marxist thought, of various sorts, continues to dominate academia, and the culture generally, to this day – indeed perhaps more than ever.
And it is mixed with other absurdities such as Keynesianism – the mixture of Marxism and Keynesianism was going at Cambridge more than 70 years ago. Get one utter absurdity, Marxism, mix it with another utter absurdity Keynesianism, and you get such things as Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe or Venezuela under Hugo Chavez.
Yet the people who do the mixing are treated as great intellects – and given the highest academic honours.
Y. Knott
October 21, 2024 at 10:27 am
“it was my understanding that “junked Teslas”, indeed, all junked EV’s, are usually junked because the battery has quit and replacing it would cost more than the car is worth…”
Yeah, but . . . .
The insurance companies junk them out – declare them to be total losses – at the drop of a hat these days, since they cannot guarantee that the batteries are undamaged after even a minor accident.
And so you can pick up a full battery module at Ebay or several other sellers – or smaller parts of a module – run a few capacity tests on the individual cells, and use the good ones – usually over 90% of the cells are still great – to build your own battery module.
Great for powering an off-grid home, or an RV. Lots cheaper than buying full batteries.