Across Spain and Portugal, more than 50 million people recently experienced the largest blackout in modern European history. Thousands of commuters stood stranded on the concourses of Spain's transit system. In the span of five seconds, 60 percent of the country's electricity supply vanished. This wasn't caused by a storm or a cyberattack—just bad policy and the most underappreciated force in modern engineering giving way: inertia. When a power plant trips offline or demand suddenly spikes, the power grid has no cushion; it must respond instantly or it unravels. That's where inertia comes in. In coal, gas, and nuclear plants,...