Simple Swedish Podcast - #280 - Elektricitet och strömavbrott

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Nivå: A2-B1 #280 - Electricity and power cuts Måndagen den 28 april hände den största kollapsen av elnätet i Spaniens historia. Jag bor i Spanien och upplevde det personligen. Jag blev inspirerad att göra ett avsnitt om elektricitet, strömavbrott och om min egen upplevelse. Är du intresserad av Language Lock-in Boot Camp? Klicka här, ansök för att se om du är en bra match, och säkra din plats innan de tar slut! --- Transkript --- Ja, men hallå där och välkommen till Simple Swedish Podcast! Och idag ska det handla om elektricitet. Eller som vi säger på svenska, el. Så om du hör någon prata om el, då vet du att de pratar om elektricitet. Okej, så vi kan säga el eller elektricitet, det är exakt samma sak. Så. Innan vi börjar så ska jag tacka några patrons. Det är Barbro, Spiros, Alfonso, Pratyasha och Nikolai. Så tack för att ni stödjer den här podden och ja. Alla som stödjer podden får ju transkript till alla avsnitt på min Patreon www.patreon.com/swedishlinguist. Och ja, jag blev inspirerad till det här avsnittet på grund av något som hände i måndags. Så alltså, måndagen, vad blir det, den, måndagen den tjugoåttonde april, för då hände det största strömavbrottet i Spaniens historia. Så jag bor i Valencia i Spanien och i måndags så blev hela landet och inklusive Portugal, delar av Frankrike, vi blev utan ström, alltså utan elektricitet. Så det var en kollaps av elnätet på hela den Iberiska halvön. Så vi hade ingen ström, alltså ingen elektricitet, i kanske.. från klockan ett till åtta nånting eller åtta, nio, vad blir det? Typ åtta timmar! Och det är alltså som sagt den största kollapsen av elnätet i Spaniens historia. Så jag tänkte det var intressant att göra ett avsnitt om det och om elektricitet generellt. Så, först och främst, som sagt, vi har ordet el som är samma som elektricitet och det är ju en form av energi. Och vi pratar också om ström, ström är liksom själva flödet av elektricitet, vi kallar det ström. ....för resten av transkriptet klicka här!

Hello there and welcome to Simple Swedish Podcast. Today it's about electricity. Or as we say in Swedish, el. So if you hear someone talking about electricity, you know that they are talking about electricity. So we can say electricity or electricity is exactly the same thing. Before we start, I should thank some Patrons It's Barbro, Spiros, Alfonso, Bratiasa and Nikolaj So thank you for supporting this podcast And yes, everyone who supports the podcast gets a transcript

To all episodes on my Patreon Patreon.com slash Swedish Linguist. And, yes, I was inspired by this episode because of something that happened on Monday. So Monday, what will it be? Monday, April 28th. Because then the biggest power outage happened in the history of Spain. So I live in Valencia, Spain and on monday the whole country including Portugal

parts of France was out of electricity out of electricity so there was a collapse of the electricity grid on the entire Iberian peninsula. So we had no electricity from 1 to 8 or 9 what is it? 8 hours

and it is as I said the biggest collapse of the electricity network in the history of Spain so I thought it would be interesting to make an episode about a little bit of that and about electricity in general. So, first and foremost, as I said, we have the word EL which is the same as electricity. And that is a form of energy. We also talk about current. Current is like the flow of electricity. We call it current. We can also talk about a current when we talk about a stream, when we talk about water, we can say that it is a strong stream.

It means that the flow of water is strong. And that can be dangerous too, if it is current in, for example, a flood. Because then it means that the water current is very strong But we also have the electricity current And the electricity current is simply when a charge moves. So we have positive charge and negative charge. We have charged particles, for example electrons. An electron is a particle with negative charge.

Okay? And when these electrons move on, when they move away, we call that a current. Okay? And in Swedish we often use the word electricity and the word ström as approximately the same thing and the word electricity is from the Greek word elektron and the word elektron means bänsten. Bänsten is this yellow type of stone. You can say that it is coad that has become fossil.

In English we say amber. So amber is bernstone and in Greek it is electron obviously. And why does the word electricity come from bernstone? Yes, because they did experiments in the 1600 century with static electricity and these experiments were done with firewood so that's why it was the first experiments with some kind of electricity so that's why the word comes from the Greek word for bernstein. As I said, it started in the 16th century, but it was in the 17th and 18th century that more and more research was done on electricity and you start to understand it better and better. But it took a long time and in the 1800s the first electrical devices came. So, for example, the telegraph and the LED light.

A LED light is this lamp that you can screw in. And it has a thread that glows. That's why it's called a LED light. Because it has this thread that glows. And often has some kind of cup of glass. So that came in the 18th century. Also the telephone came in the 1800s. But to use electricity as an energy system in society, it didn't start At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century Then electricity was used in society as an energy system And in Sweden the first bulbs were lit with electricity already in 1876. That's quite a long time ago.

What is it? 150 years ago. So then they lit the first flashlights with electricity in Sweden. And it was in the mines. In the mines where they for example broke iron. In Sweden iron is important. An important export, for example. An important industry. And iron is found down in the ground.

So you have to dig and build a mine. We call it a mine-drift. The industry where you have mines and extract minerals from the ground. Like me for example. And it's clear that it's dark down in a mine. So to be able to use electric lamps was a revolution. And that made productivity increase. So that you could be much more productive with the groove drift when you had electric light. Lamps, lighting, that was the first thing that electricity was used for on a larger scale. It opened in 1884 in Gothenburg and an electricity plant is where you create electricity.

Where you create electricity, where you produce electricity, you could say. Or, yes, I think. In any case, it's either either a central that the electricity comes from And Sweden is actually one of the countries in the world that uses most electricity per person. And of course it's a lot because it's very cold in Sweden, but also because we have a lot of industries, a lot of high-tech industries that need a lot of electricity. So yes, Sweden is one of the countries in the world that uses most electricity per person. And where does the electricity come from? Yes, the biggest part of the electricity that is produced in Sweden comes from Vattenkraft. Vattenkraft, also man har elkraftverk i vattendrag, till exempel floder, och det är alltså rörelsenergin i vattnet som blir till el. Vi har också that becomes electricity We also have in second place

nuclear power Nuclear power is what you get from how do I explain that atoms when you cut down atoms to cut down is to divide in two parts You can also have

for example, atomic bombs they work with nuclear power, you could say So we have quite a lot nuclear power in Sweden That's number two and number three is

wind power. So you get energy from the wind. And that means that we have a lot of so called fossil-free energy production. Fossil-free means that we don't use fossil fuels that much. Fossil fuels are for example oil, coal, gas. They are fossil fuels that are extracted from the ground and so on And Sweden's energy production is 98% fossil-free actually So only 2% of Sweden's energy production is with fossil fuels That's pretty good actually

Okay, so When we talk about the home, it's important that we have electricity in the home We need electricity for our computers, for our lights, for cooking. Yes, for a lot of things. And I noticed that very clearly on Monday. Because we had a power outage in 8 hours. Power outage is when there is a power outage in the power supply. That means that we don't have electricity. Then it's a power outage And that lasted for 8 hours and then it becomes very clear

How much we need electricity in our lives Because nothing works And to get electricity in a device Then you need batteries. A device can be powered by batteries. For example, the phone has a battery, so it gets electricity from the battery If it doesn't have a battery, we need to connect the device to an electricity outlet in the wall so we have a cable a cable

or a cable cable about the same thing so we connect the cable to the electric outlet in the wall we are talking about an electric outlet an outlet

so we connect the cable to the electric outlet and then we get current from the electric outlet. And then we can use the device. So, then we have connected it to the electricity grid The electricity grid is the grid of cables that go everywhere in the world But you have for example a national electricity grid For example in... There is clearly a European power grid. What happened on Monday during the power outage was that the Spanish power grid was disconnected from the European power grid. It was some kind of mechanism that made it an automatic mechanism that made the Spanish power grid disconnected from the European power grid. But you can also get power outages at home.

So the electricity stops working at home. And that can happen if you overcharge... There is a local power grid or a circuit. A circuit is And that circuit can handle a certain power. So it can handle a certain power of electricity. And if I use a lot of electricity at the same time, if I use many different devices I have my oven, my microphone my dishwasher, my washing machine and my hair dryer everything at the same time

then I overload the system and then a fuse goes on So we have fuses in all circles and when you overload the circle, the fuse goes on or it can also break And then you have to change the fuse Yes, and we say in Sweden we say that That the prop has gone, a prop has gone so

Fuses that are in the home We call them props. We have a prop cabinet. The prop cabinet is this little cabinet that sits somewhere on the wall in the house. And if the current is going, then you have to go to the prop-box and change a prop, so you change a fuse. Yes, and that can also happen in the car, for example. Cars also have fuses. But we don't call it props in the car. Props are only in the home. So if you hear someone say that the prop has gone, then you know that it is a fuse in the house that has broken or is broken. And then we have to replace it and use a little less electricity at the same time.

So that was some important vocabulary when we talk about electricity. to tell you about what happened on Monday when the electricity network collapsed in all of Spain and my personal experience of that. But first I want to ask a couple of things. So, can you understand these episodes pretty well? And can you have conversations in Swedish already? Even if it's pretty basic. Swedish already, even if it might be quite basic, but if you can understand these episodes and you can maybe have conversations in Swedish and you might want to start using Swedish in your life, but you just feel that it is very difficult and nothing really works You can't really start speaking Swedish in your life You might feel that you need a breakthrough An experience that really makes you able to start speaking Swedish in your life. And in that case, you will apply for Language Lock-in Bootcamp

this August, this summer. Because there we have 9 days where you only speak Swedish, no English is allowed, you are 100% in the Swedish language for 9 days. The most intensive training in Swedish that exists. on a fantastic semester in the valleys surrounded by nature together with people in the same situation as you and you feel how the language starts to feel more and more natural to you to use Swedish, to be in Swedish, to even start thinking in Swedish So if that sounds interesting, apply to the bootcamp and see if it's right for you

I suggest you to apply now, you don't have to connect to anything just by applying, you can apply and see if it is for you I will leave a link in the description So, as I said, we had the biggest collapse of the electricity grid in Spain's history on Monday. And I was on my way to the gym. And I came to the gym and saw that it was completely black there. People came out of the gym and seemed confused. It was completely dark there. And a guy who worked there said that the electricity had gone and no one knows what happened. No one knows when the electricity will be back and I thought, ok, I'll go home again because I don't want to wait, it might take a long time

and I looked into other shops and restaurants on the way home and I saw that No Other had electricity either so I saw that that there was no electricity in Other on other places either and I came home and I I met a neighbor and this neighbor said that that the electricity has not only gone to Valencia but to the whole of Spain and Portugal

and then you just think What? So... And then it feels a bit crazy Okay, the electricity has gone on the whole Iberian peninsula And... Yes, I came home And...

Yes, I... The internet still worked, but not so well. I managed to talk to my girlfriend, she was on her way home. We could talk a little with our friends via WhatsApp, but after a while the internet stopped working so everything stopped working the internet stopped working all the electricity stopped working

everything stopped working and I went out to the city because I wanted to see what was happening I talked to a police officer Because I thought, maybe the police knows something But they knew nothing

So nobody knew anything So... But it was very quiet in the city So no one knew anything So that... But in the city it was very calm People sat on the terraces And ate and drank and had a good time I didn't feel so calm I wasn't very stressed, but I also felt that ok, if the electricity has gone all over the country and no one knows why

it means that no one knows when we will get electricity again, no one knows when the electricity will be back. So how can you be so calm in that situation? And we actually went and bought some extra food. We found a shop that was still open And we were forced to pay with cash And then we just waited Read a little, realized that you can't do much, you can't cook, you can't communicate with your friends, your family How would I have written to my colleagues, to my family And I had written before the internet stopped working, I had written to them So that was ok

And then around 8 pm it started to come back first the internet came back a little bit and then around 9.30 the electricity came back and everything was back to normal as usual again But the sick thing is that it's still no one who really really knows how it could happen, like I've heard different explanations and it's like ok

it was many thought that it was a cyber attack, but now they say that it was probably not a cyber attack. There were strong fluctuations in the electricity grid and it collapsed at one point. And there was some kind of domino effect. And the Spanish electricity grid was automatically disconnected from the European power grid. I have tried to understand what happened, but it's hard for me to understand. And I get the feeling that they don't know everything. They have explanations, but it doesn't feel like they are 100% explanations. I don't know.

It's also maybe because I don't have enough knowledge about electricity. I don't know that about electricity, maybe that's why. But I also get the feeling that things have happened that they don't really tell you It's hard to know But I have realized that That we are very vulnerable And we have started to talk about that we have to buy a radio Which you can charge it by weaving So you weave the battery in the radio, a radio like that We will buy it

And also a battery That can be charged with solar cells, so you can buy a solar cell battery so you can get electricity from the sun. So we will buy things like that to be prepared. So that was it. Now the episode has been half an hour so I will end there. Hope it was interesting and useful. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye!