Atomic lobby seizes on Spanish blackout
BRUSSELS — Europe's nuclear advocates are pushing their favorite energy source as a deterrent against the type of blackout that seized Spain and Portugal last week — even if the facts paint a muddied picture.
The EU's atomic allies are claiming that having more nuclear energy coursing through the grid can help ensure a stable power supply to back up renewable sources like wind and solar.
'If you want a lot of power and you want it to be fossil-free, then nuclear is your pick,' Swedish Industry and Energy Minister Ebba Busch said in an interview.
Advertisement
Specialists and other officials, including those in Spain, aren't convinced. While they concede that having more overall power can aid in certain circumstances, they aren't convinced nuclear energy would have prevented Monday's outage, which was caused by a sudden loss of power in the Iberian grid. Europe's grids, like those in Spain, need upgrades, better linkages and more storage tech like batteries to keep power stable, they stress.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
24 minutes ago
- Fox News
Gabbard was in Situation Room on Iran, still key player despite Trump saying she was 'wrong' on intel
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was inside the Situation Room Saturday when the U.S. military launched successful strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital Sunday morning. A White House official confirmed Gabbard was in the room Saturday and that she is a "key player" on President Donald Trump's national security team. Speculation had mounted there was a rift between Gabbard and Trump after the president told the media Gabbard was "wrong" about intelligence on Iran back in March when she testified before the Senate that the nation was not actively building a nuclear weapon. Photos of the Situation Room released Saturday evening did not show Gabbard present alongside Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other administration officials. The photos, however, did not include wide shots showing the entire room or each individual present, with the White House confirming the intelligence chief was present. Trump and Gabbard appeared at odds earlier in June, when the president was asked about Gabbard's testimony before the Senate in March, when she reported intelligence showed Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon. Trump told the media June 16 he did not "care" what Gabbard had to say in previous testimony, arguing he believed Iran was close to building a nuke. "You've always said that you don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon," a reporter asked Trump while aboard Air Force One on June 16. "But how close do you personally think that they were to getting one?" "Very close," Trump responded. Then again Friday, Trump said Gabbard was "wrong" after she reported that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon. "My intelligence community is wrong," Trump said when asked about the intelligence community previously reporting that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon. When Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, she delivered a statement on behalf of the intelligence community that included testimony that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon. "Iran's cyber operations and capabilities also present a serious threat to U.S. networks and data," Gabbard told the committee March 26. The intelligence community "continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003," she said. She did add that "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons." "Iran will likely continue efforts to counter Israel and press for U.S. military withdrawal from the region by aiding, arming and helping to reconstitute its loose consortium of like-minded terrorist actors, which it refers to as its axis of resistance," she warned. However, as critics picked apart Gabbard's past comments, the White House stressed to Fox Digital that Gabbard and Trump were closely aligned on Iran. A White House official told Fox News Digital on Tuesday afternoon that Trump and Gabbard are closely aligned and that the distinction being raised between Gabbard's March testimony and Trump's remarks that Iran is "very close" to getting a nuclear weapon is one without a difference. The official noted that Gabbard had underscored in her March testimony that Iran had the resources to potentially build a nuclear weapon. Her March testimony reflected intelligence she had received that Iran was not building a weapon at the time but that the country could do so based on the resources it amassed for such an endeavor. Gabbard took to social media and blasted the media for "intentionally" taking her March testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee "out of context." "The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division," Gabbard said in a Friday post on X, accompanied by a video clip of her March testimony to Congress. "America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly," she wrote. "President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree." Trump announced in a Saturday evening Truth Social post that the U.S. military had carried out strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran, obliterating them. Trump held an address to the nation later Saturday night, describing the strikes as wildly successful and backing Iran into a corner to make a peace deal. "A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan," Trump said from the White House on Saturday evening. "Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number-one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success." "For 40 years, Iran has been saying, 'Death to America. Death to Israel.' They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs," Trump continued. "That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular." Fox News Digital reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for any additional comment on the Sunday strikes, but did not immediately receive a reply.
CNN
25 minutes ago
- CNN
On GPS: How Iran and Israel are rethinking strategy
Fareed asks Iran expert Vali Nasr and Israeli columnist Nadav Eyal how leaders in Iran and Israel are adjusting their strategies moving forward following US airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US bombs three Iran nuclear sites, entering war
President Trump announced Saturday the United States had bombed three Iranian nuclear sites, including the Fordow site that is located in a mountainside. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home,' Trump added. 'Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' Live updates: Trump will address nation after Iran bombing The announcement of U.S. action against Iran came two days after the White House said Trump would decide whether to get involved in the conflict between Iran and Israel 'in the next two weeks' to give a window for negotiations. Trump gave a brief nationwide address from the White House at 10 p.m. ET Saturday, and said there would be further communication from the Pentagon Sunday morning. White House sources indicated the U.S. had given Israel a heads up before it struck the Iranian sites and that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke after the strikes. It marked a significant entrance by the U.S. into a conflict that Israel and Iran had been in for nearly two weeks. It also indicated a reversal by Trump, who said for weeks he would have rather sought a diplomatic solution with Iran, and had sent U.S. officials to make a deal with Tehran on its nuclear program. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. had deployed specialized 'bunker-buster' bombs that experts said could penetrate the mountain where Fordow is located. Israel had indicated in the past week that its strikes had also set Iran's nuclear program back by at least two or three weeks before Trump issued the U.S. strikes Saturday. While the U.S. was not involved in Israel's initial missile strikes initially, all eyes were on Trump and whether he would get directly involved. He campaigned heavily on being an anti-war president, blaming former President Biden for the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas war , saying those conflicts would have never started if he was in the White House. Trump has been adamant that Iran could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and he indicated Tehran would not be allowed to enrich uranium as part of any deal. Those deals collapsed once Israel began bombing Iran more than a week ago. Several Democratic and Republican lawmakers weighed in Saturday night to Trump's announcement. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) called it 'not constitutional.' But the majority of the GOP supported the president's actions against Iran. Updated 9:50 p.m. ET Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
