Spain's crippling blackout shows need for gas in a greener world: Woodside CEO
Australian oil and gas giant Woodside Energy has pointed to crippling blackouts that left millions without electricity across Europe last month as a 'forceful reminder' for the Albanese government to prioritise energy security alongside goals to switch to cleaner sources of power.
While authorities are still searching for the cause of the unprecedented loss of power in Spain, Portugal and southern France on April 28, Woodside, the largest Australian gas producer, has seized on the consequences of the disruption to drive home the importance of ensuring reliable energy supplies.
'What we can see with certainty is that these events reinforce the need to focus on energy security and energy affordability as well as – and not instead of – emissions reduction,' Woodside chief Meg O'Neill will tell the Australian Energy Producers conference in Brisbane on Tuesday.
'When we lose sight of any one of these, all three are at risk.'
As investigations continue, some analysts and commentators have raised questions about the Spanish grid's rapid shift to solar farms and wind turbines, which account for more than half of the country's electricity, and which can make it more challenging to balance fluctuations in supply and demand.
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Rystad Energy analyst Pratheeksha Ramdas said: 'Spain's high renewable penetration exposed difficulties in balancing intermittent supply, while Portugal's complete reliance on imports underscored its lack of flexibility and energy storage.'
Spain's grid operator, Red Electrica, and government leaders have denied any link to the expansion of wind and solar power.
O'Neill's comments on the European blackouts come as Australian oil and gas executives seek to press the Albanese government to focus in its second term on making it cheaper and easier to drill for fossil fuels. Actions they are seeking include cuts to red tape, a simplification of environmental permitting and greater clarification on who must be consulted over offshore oil and gas projects to avoid ambiguity and 11th-hour lawsuits that force costly delays.
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What message does the Woodside approval send?
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@ Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. If you want to lose weight, you don't eat a salad and then tuck into burgers and chips on the side. It doesn't work. Likewise, if we want to cut climate pollution, we can't just add a bit of solar and wind while continuing to flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. That's why Environment Minister Murray Watt's preliminary approval of Woodside's North West Shelf gas terminal – allowing it to operate until 2070 – is so wrong (″ Major fossil fuel project tick ends years of uncertainty ″, 29/5). This gas terminal will contribute 4.4 billion tonnes of emissions (10 times Australia's annual total), undermining all our other efforts to tackle climate change. What message does this send to our Pacific neighbours battling rising seas, to regional Australians hit by extreme weather, to Indigenous communities whose cultural heritage is at risk, and to our young people? Amy Hiller, Kew Economic interests are taking precedence With the announcement that Environment Minister Murray Watt has approved the extension and expansion of the Woodside North West Shelf gas project, every young Australian should now understand that we have a government that puts the economic interests of the fossil fuel industry ahead of their future. The fast emerging climate crisis will present young people with a very challenging future. Surely they have a right to expect our political leaders to be taking every possible step not to make the situation worse. Catherine Rossiter, Fadden, ACT Australian fossil fuels have global impact I am a climate scientist. I have a fear for the future of our country and our planet given the published research and Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment. It does not matter where Australian fossil fuels are burned – here or overseas – their impacts are global, and will hit Australia hard through more climate and weather extremes. This is overwhelmingly the state of the science. Commonwealth approval for gas or coal projects will generate company profit now that will ultimately cost Australia's next generations – our children – massively in dollars, lives and livelihoods. It is clearly now untenable. Andrew Watkins, Research Affiliate, School of Earth, Atmosphere & Environment, Monash University What's the point, when this happens? Labor has used its mandate to approve a gas project that will result in more emissions that will fuel fires, cause more floods and wreak havoc for future generations. When our society has leaders that value corporations over the health of communities, people gradually stop caring, and they won't keep fighting for climate justice. Labor might want us to recycle, compost our waste, walk instead of drive. But what's the point when our leaders are doing the opposite and wrecking the environment? I had a sliver of hope that Labor might have the courage to tackle climate change, sadly it's still not the greatest moral challenge of our lifetime. Shameful. Ben Shaw, Ocean Grove Who is going to pay for the consequences? Federal Labor must be condemned for giving provisional approval to extend the North West Shelf gas project for another 70 years. Farmers and communities are suffering the ruinous impacts of fossil fuel pollution. If the project goes ahead, will Woodside pay the rebuilding costs and insurance premiums of those affected by droughts, storms, floods and fires; for ongoing trauma services for survivors; for more equipment for emergency services; lost income for CFA and SES volunteers; endangered species programs? Will the government look at both sides of the ledger when weighing up the costs and short-term benefits of this project? Julia Croatto, Kew THE FORUM Ineluctably unelectable A notable mantra of Gough Whitlam was that his party had to become electable, and be worth electing. The present version of the Labor Party has certainly shown over the past two federal elections that it is indeed electable. The jury, however, may still be out on whether it has been worth electing. Its actions on several issues will deliver that judgment in time. Electionwise, the Coalition has achieved the opposite. It has become virtually unelectable, its position worsening from 2022 to 2025. Its present policies and conflicts show it is out of touch with modern Australia and not worth electing at all. Graeme Gardner, Reservoir PM's Uluru mission Cathy Wilcox's incisive cartoon (29/5) rightly reminds us of the big lie that was inherent in the Coalition's rejection of a Voice to parliament. The wilful mischaracterising of the latter as equivalent to a ″third chamber of parliament″ ensured that substantive government-initiated reconciliation was brutally undermined. The conservative right-wing line that Indigenous Australians were seeking to divide the nation, and gain social and political preferment, was surreal in the context of Closing the Gap targets not being met and the cross-generational existential impacts of the documented more than 400 Indigenous massacres from 1788 to the 1930s. White Australians' ″cult of forgetfulness″ and the ″great Australian silence″, as articulated by the eminent anthropologist Professor Bill Stanner in 1968, is a continuing phenomenon. In 2025, ignorance and racist colonialist sentiments persist. Crucially, the Voice to parliament and Makarrata Commission ″truth telling″ process remain as relevant as ever. It is to be hoped that the PM, endorsed powerfully in the recent election, revisits the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Jon McMillan, Mt Eliza
