My friend’s brother is in Portugal. She told him to go and buy water. No cash, no water.
Large grid failures happen ,it’s not unprecedented at all. There are many examples in history.
In fact if you search large power grid failures and news you will see plenty of recent examples around the world.
I don’t know why you bother replying lol, it’s not like he knows anything about Portugal.
I’d rather live in a country with an ‘over reliance’ on energy that doesn’t pollute the air and water.
Filthy air in Taiwan in comparison to there.
Hasnt been a big one in Europe for 20 years it seems. Italy in 2003. As you say, happens a lot in India, Pakistan and other mostly developing countries. My Spanish work colleague was upset because she couldn’t contact her elderly mum yesterday. She was like this is terrible. My Georgian work colleague was like, in Georgia, it is just a Monday.
Yes that’s true. Texas had one a while back, North America has them occasionally.
The European grid is highly interconnected which one would think could result in cascading shutdowns when things do go wrong. I have heard of that weird frequency oscillation thing before, it seems difficult to deal with once it gets going.
Maybe more people having backup home batteries might help. Grid operators don’t like that though.
My first thought was foreign hacking. Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea might have the means and just want to test or send a message
I liked the initiative people had to break some fences in order to feed stranded train passengers between Madrid and Sevilla.
And I laughed so hard at all the memes and jokes from the Venezuelan point of view. "First time?"was ubiquitous. 
I was talking to a friend in Barcelona and the main issue is they do not have like us in Taiwan the habit of having a bug out bag or stored survival goods and gear like a camping gas stove or a handheld torch or even candles. They had to huddle around old style am/FM radios, which sold out quickly from Chinese stores. 
Do we? I just use convenience stores.
Sometimes the typhoon is too strong and you can’t go out and when you do you get called a lunatic by the clerks and going back home means waiting between flying billboards and skipping tree branches. Hence, the food storage.
Talking from personal experience.
Most people I know in Spain could easily survive a few weeks with the food in their “despensas”. Canned and preserved food in Spain is very high quality and popular. Depending on the time of the year and where you live, many “embutidos” can be stored outside of the fridge and last a long time too. Most fruit and vegetables can be out of the fridge for more than 5 minutes without going moldy (I’M LOOKING AT YOU TAIWAN!). I’m pretty sure my parents could do well just rationing what they have at home for a very long time, and still gain some weight 
Gas stoves have seen a decrease in use. So, yes, most families would have a hard time cooking without electricity and only people who like camping may have some small gas cylinder and stove at home. Still, a Campingaz high pressure cylinder last for ages compared to the gas bottles most people use here. Me too, my wife bought one of those for our camping trips and it sucks. Bottles only last 1 or 2 days, as long as you only cook foods that can be made fast.
Who doesn’t have some torches or candles at home?
@Icon, your friend from Barcelona must be truly an urbanite who doesn’t cook. Were they Taiwanese? 
No, and actually they live on a place with a strange name in Catalan in the outskirts. Yeah, they had cheese and bread and stuff but no radio. That was a big fail.
In the old country, we didn’t have the habit of stocking emergency supplies. We did have a few candles and matches, but batteries and torches were a luxury. Radio a must.
They probably weren’t so upset because they don’t need to go to work 
Talk about radio, I don’t think I have any here in Taiwan. I think my phone has FM, not sure.
The Israelis are masters at this what with their mitts in cybersecurity, cyber health, etc.. The fact the Spanish cancelled an arms deal with Israel could be the smoking gun.
Putler was also blamed as usual for a period.
Get one. It was our lifeline after 921. Can still recall the updates from ICRT. 