Benidorm

They have found a way to turn tall buildings into batteries. And that makes Benidorm our best asset

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The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, what do we do if there is no renewable energy when we need to turn on the lights? Normally, pulling lithium batteries either pumped hydroelectric plants. But cities that build vertically like Benidorm have another untapped option. In short. A comprehensive University of Waterloo study has shown that the height of buildings can be used to create a system of gravity energy storage. An idea that transforms cities built in height into a huge device to store and release energy at will. Mechanical batteries. The concept is, in essence, very simple. It is made up of a heavy mass (concrete or steel blocks), a system of pulleys and cables similar to that of an elevator, and a motor that also works as a generator. The operation is as follows. When there is a surplus of energy, for example at midday, when the building’s solar panels are at full capacity, the motor uses that electricity to lift heavy dough along a vertical gaplike that of an elevator. Electrical energy is converted into potential energy. When electricity is needed and renewables are not producing, at night or on a day without wind, the mass is dropped in a controlled manner. The force of gravity does the rest: the descending weight moves the generator, which converts the potential energy back into electricity ready to use. Tested successfully. The researchers propose this system as the heart of a hybrid energy ecosystem integrated into the building itself, which includes photovoltaic panels on facades, small wind turbines on the roof and backup lithium-ion batteries. As pointed out PV Magazinecompanies such as the Scottish Gravitricity have already demonstrated the viability of this technology with functional prototypes and have full-scale commercial projects of 4 and 8 MW underway. Energy is generated with the sun and the wind. Gravity acts as the main battery for daily storage, managing large charge and discharge cycles. Is it viable? To test whether their idea was more than just an interesting theory, the University of Waterloo team ran a massive simulation. They analyzed 625 different building designs, varying parameters such as height, the shape of the floor plan (more square or more elongated) and the energy efficiency of the building. The results are very promising. The system (facade solar panels + small wind power + gravity storage + a battery support) achieved a levelized cost of electricity of between 0.051 and 0.111 dollars per kWh. This figure is very competitive, and even improves the costs of other renewable energy systems integrated into buildings located in areas with moderate solar or wind resources. And taller buildings with larger floor plans benefit the most, so Benidorm It is our best asset. Image | Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 3.0) In Xataka | Finland has found a cheap way to store energy all winter: a tower of 2,000 tons of sand

The true city of the future is not in China, we have it next to the house: Benidorm

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In the province of Alicante between crows of calm waters and white villages such as Altea, that vertical colossus that we all know appears: Benidorm; for many an urban non -non -nonsense; For others, a continuous party on its crowded sea and the streets of English bars just some apples from the beach. I, who am Alicante, know the discussions it causes. We can spend hours regretting your skyline, your infinite blocks or tourist invasion. But, beyond prejudices, Benidorm is moving in an unexpected direction: to become an urban sustainability laboratory, capable of producing its own energy, reusing almost all the water that consumes and serves as a model to other cities that seek to survive the climatic crisis. Short. The BIPV system (photovoltaic integration in buildings) is not new, but the intervention presented by the solar company Earth takes another step. According to your own statementThe company will rehabilitate two residential buildings of 17 plants, Medical Club VI and VII, by integrating 1,200 m² of vertical photovoltaic glass integrated into ventilated facade. Beyond the aesthetic. These facades will act as an energy skin capable of generating about 190,000 kWh per year, which will reduce the energy demand of the houses around 35% and avoid the emission of more than 50 tons of CO₂ per year. “This project shows that energy rehabilitation can go far beyond efficiency: it can transform buildings into active renewable energy generators,” José Carlos Antón saidCEO of Solar Earth. In addition, the ventilated facade system provides thermal and acoustic insulation, reinforcing the comfort of the neighbors. The work has the support of the Ministry of Housing, the Generalitat Valenciana and a financing of 1.9 million euros of the Next Generation EU Plan. A city looking for more. Benidorm has been working on another critical resource for years: The water. In an increasingly frequent drought context in Spain, they place the city among the more efficient in water managementwith uses close to 95% compared to 75% in Spain and the EU and with Reuse for irrigation around 30%. The strategy has been clear: constant infrastructure investment, renewal of obsolete networks, digitalization and control in real time of consumption and leaks. In 2025, the City Council He even presented a regenerated water management plan that will save about 15 % of the drinking water consumed by the city. The first phase is already underway in the Poniente area, where regenerated water will be supplied to more than 6,000 homes. All for a broader strategy. The commitment to solar glass and water reuse is part of a broader strategy of urban sustainability. He Benidorm Plan 360within the tourist sustainability plans at destination, it includes projects such as climatic corridors, sustainable urban drainage systems or the measurement of the water footprint. There are also actions in energy efficiency, such as the renewal of public lighting with LED technology, and sustainable mobility plans. All this has earned Benidorm the recognition of “green pioneer” within the network of smart tourist destinations. A paradigm shift. For years, Benidorm has been a symbol of mass tourism and urban speculation. Under that facade, however, the city has learned to manage its resources as few. He did it with water and now he wants to do it with energy. The true city of the future is not being built in Chinese megalopolis or in the futuristic experiments of the Middle East, but a few kilometers from home, in front of the Mediterranean. And it’s called Benidorm. Image | Freepik and Unspash Xataka | Self -consumption takes another step in China: windows that produce electricity while still being windows

North Korea has just opened its own “Benidorm” for 20,000 tourists. The mystery is now who will go there

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To Kim Jong-un we usually see him dispatching with uniformed subordinates or supervising missile throws, always cooling in his everlasting MAO neck suit. Much less common is to see it as This Tuesdaywhen it was recorded sitting in a folding chair with a soda and a package of cigarettes while contemplating how people slid down a huge water slide. Nothing strange if we consider that what Kim was doing was neither more nor less than inaugurate The “New Benidorm” North Korea. The Great question Now, after the fanfare and pomp of the inauguration is: How the hell is intended to fill it a hermetic and suspicious country of foreign tourism? Welcome to Wonsan Kalma. North Korea already has His particular Benidorm. Officially, with opening tape cut and fireworks included. Tuesday The leader of the nation, Kim Jong-un, went to the new Megacomplex Kangwon tourist to preside over the start -up of one of its biggest projects: a Marina D´or to the Korean, with aquatic parks, hotels, beach kilometers and ability to accommodate 20,000 guests. MAO NECK WITHOUT. Kim Jong-un is more or less common to see him dispatched with subordinates, meeting with other leaders and supervising missile launches or warships (not always). And in all these cases its aesthetic is usually identical: gray or black suit, usually of the mao neck, and sober expression. Wonsan Kalma is a place of recreation, so there he offered a more informal picture and enjoyed a mass bath which K-pop star. Kim also appeared accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-Juwho had had a year and a half away from the spotlights, and his daughter Ju-Aeof 12 years already the one that usually signs up as the future heiress of the family saga. Next to them Kim walked along Wonsan beach, inspected the hotels and even sat on a folding chair (refreshment and pitillo by hand) to see how a comrade slid down a water slide. Neither easy nor fast. Wonsan-Kalma is news because North Korea He has just given it By inaugurated, but in reality the project is not new, much less unknown. Moreover, he has been talking about him since 2013, when Kim Jong-un, then just enthroned in the Korea Workers Party advertisement His desire to turn Wonsan into a “tourist city.” Curious bet if one takes into account that the authorities had used the region to Try your missiles. That Kim opts precisely in that area of ​​North Korea is no coincidence: he grew up there, surrounded by luxury, and his coast is bathed by the sea of ​​Japan. The idea was that the new tourist complex was Ready in 2022but on the way several inconveniences crossed: the covid and a serious shortage of materials aggravated by international sanctions, so that his calendar was expanding until he went into the second half of the decade. Last summer the state agency KCNA slid that Wonsan Kalma could be ready in May. It will take something else: you will start receiving visitors July 1. And who will visit it? We know that Wonsan Kalma has hotels, aquatic parks, pools with slides, four kilometers of beachrestaurants and commercial areas, but what is not so clear is how North Korea will manage to fill it. Especially since the government itself remembers that it has the capacity for tens of thousands of visitors: their accommodations can host 20,000 people And in his day he slid that the capacity of the complex would be even greater. The KCNA agency only states that Wonsan-Kalma will begin offering services to “National Clients” As of July 1, without mention of plans to promote the complex or capture visitors outside the country. To the inauguration of Wonsan Kalma, yes, a delegation of Russian authorities including the ambassador, one more sample of the approach between Pyongyang and Moscow. Gesture question. It is not easy to know what plans Kim has in tourism, one of the few legal channels available to the nation to capture foreign currencies; But over the last months the North Korean regime has given forward steps (and Also some other behind) to open timidly to foreign tourism, knocked out after pandemic. By mid -2023 the restrictions They relaxedmonths later the country began to receive Russian visitors already early this year He surprised the world when opening its doors to a reduced handful of Western tourists. That did not last long. Weeks later He turned back. In April the capital celebrated a marathon in which allowed Run to foreigners, especially Russians and Ethiopians. Looking at Russia. The CNN Precise that at the moment the Russians seem to be the only ones who will have it more or less easy to step on the new tourist complex. One of his agencies, Vostok Intur, is in fact promoting several packages for the coming months with Pyongyang scale. Your price? Around 1,800 dollars. In 2019 North Korea received some 300,000 visitors foreigners, especially Chinese, who generated a flow of between 90 and 150 million dollars. Images | KCNA In Xataka | North Korea has revealed a small manhattan of 10,000 apartments. The problem is what is behind the facade

There was a day when Benidorm had one of the largest Russian mountains in Europe. Today is a closed fiasco and still standing

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Magnus Colossus has been closed since 2016. Considered an icon of mythical terra, its practically definitive closure is a good symbol of everything that has ended up destroying the park: bad organization, embezzlement and a series of murky plots that ended in very serious judgments and convictions. Today, Magnus Colossus is dead, but his journey full of curves leaves a few lessons on the park. Mythical Colossus. Magnus Colossus was one of the most important Russian mountains in Europe (and the largest: length of 1,149.7 meters and maximum speed of 92 km/h) and One of the absolute icons of the ambitious amusement park. However, a series of stumbling blocks in construction, added to the economic and organizational decline of the park, have led to its greatness to end limited to that of mere aesthetic claim. A closed colossus. Almost a decade has closed this spectacular roller wooden mountain that took advantage of the natural terrain of a limestone quarry, 180 meters above sea level. The culprit of its uselessness is the heat that has inflamed the wood, which entails too expensive maintenance. However, his presence under the gigantic poster that presides over the views of the park, on the mountain, has given him a unique personality. The negligence of the owners of the facilities, who have not dedicated the necessary resources for the care of Magnus Colossus, has ended the giant. “Irregularities in maintenance”. In 2016 it was decided to close Magnus Colossus, in principle temporarily to undertake the renovations that would solve problems that existed then, such as the excessive trachetening of the wagons. However, They never got to undertakesince the park had more serious problems to deal with: controversy, suspicions of corruption and various negligence in maintenance, which culminated when an investigation detected that had used creating to treat wood, substance prohibited at an industrial level for being carcinogenic. Photo: Jeremy Thompson Dramas before starting. The controversies and suspicions that have always surrounded the park started even before its inauguration: in August 1992, with Spain submerged in the maelstrom of the expo and the Olympicsa forest fire razed the area known as “the largest Pinada in the Mediterranean”, in the area where Terra Mítica would be built. 450 hectares of non -urbanizable land of special forest protection They were razedand although it was not proven judicially, associations like Greenpeace suspected That the fire could have been intentional, seeking recalification. After the fire, in fact, the land was expropriated and re -qualified, which allowed the construction of a mythical terra, a hotel zone and two golf courses. The current law prohibits the change in forest land use for 30 years after a fire, but this case occurred before the entry into force of the regulations. 1990s in its purest form. Terra mythical is a paradigmatic case of the bubble and the speculation that occurred so much in Spain by those dates. About the park they hit Judicial suspicions and research for embezzlement, fraud, money laundering and influence peddling. The trial began in 2015 and dozens of entrepreneurs and managers were charged. Among other things, there was a plot of false invoices for almost 4.5 million euros to companies for non -existent services in the years 2000 and 2001, in addition to 150 million euros to ghost companies. Photo: Jeremy Thompson The verdict came to light in 2016: Two former director, including the exemptedness of the then president of the Generalitat, Eduardo Zaplana and 20 entrepreneurs were convicted of corruption, scam, documentary falsehood and crimes against the Public Treasury with sentences between 4 and 47 years in prison. Terra mythical is sold. In 2004, only four years after its inauguration, Terra Mítica entered into suspension of payments: like so many projects of the time, business forecasts had been well above their results. The Generalitat Valenciana sold their participation to the company Aqualandia in 2011 for 65 million euros, well below the initial investment of 400 million euros. In the background, the roller coaster. With these accounts, it is not surprising that Terra mythical is very far from their best times (if they came to exist at some point). With very scarce visits, almost exclusively from devotees from the parks, in 2021 Terra mythical He reported 6 million euros in losses and 4.3 of income (let’s compare, for example, with port adventure, with 163 million in revenue). Magnus Colossus has few chances of raising head at some point in the future, and remains for posterity such as the wooden skeleton that reminds us of the great bubble of embezzlement in the construction of the Spain of the nineties. Header | Jeremy Thompson In Xataka | We have known how to eliminate the tails of the attraction parks. Disney keeps them for something

The Benidorm of North Korea is about to open. Your problem is how to fill the crazy number of rooms

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In October 2024 confirmed the plan that had Pyonyang in hands. Benidorm is only one, but if tourism has become the Economic engine Of so many nations, they did not want to stay in the saga. Thus, North Korea announced that the ambitious project to turn Wonsan into a kind of Benidorm to the Korean There was a stern wind. The idea is now about to become a reality, it is called Wonsan-Kalma, and the number of rooms has gone hand in hand. An unparalleled resort. As we have gone countingKim Jong’s ambitious tourism project on the Kalma Peninsula, on the east coast of North Korea, seeks to position itself as one of the world’s greatest holiday complexes. A fact exposes the intentions: it has an estimated capacity between 7,000 and 20,000 rooms. Conceived as a tourist city from scratch, the resort Wonsan Kalma is described by analysts as the most huge tourism project ever driven by the regime. Announced Back in 2014the complex suffered multiple delays attributable to international sanctions and then at the closure of borders during the pandemic. However, its opening is already planned for June, and the regime has rehearsed a shy reopening to international tourism, although the economic viability of the resort remains deeply uncertain. Tourism as a strategy. Kim conceives the resort not only as a source of income in foreign currency, but as showcase of power and the modernity of your regime. However, the attractiveness of the enclave is in question: experts like Bruce W. Bennett and Marcus Noland They explained this week The doubts that foreign visitors attract in sufficient quantity to justify their huge investment. The logical basis of the project, which presumably aspired to capture South Korean tourists for its proximity and purchasing power, collides with the diplomatic impossibility of allowing them to enter. Meanwhile, and as We explain weeks agoRussian agencies have begun Offer tour packets for Citizens of Vladivostokbut even there the enthusiasm is doubtful. Russian travelers, According to the operators themselvesThey continue to prefer traditional destinations such as Thailand or Dubai. Oasis restricted to internal consumption. Thus, another plausible strategy of the regime would be to take advantage of the resort as an internal control and reward mechanism. They counted in Insider that the facilities could be used as an incentive for loyal citizens or exemplary workers, and the complex is designed with areas reserved for presidential delegations and suites. The problem? As Bennett points outaccess will be rigorously segregated, mainly to prevent North Korean citizens from entering foreign visitors. This structure reinforces the propaganda nature of the resort that, a priori, would serve more as a political showcase than as a real tourism center (something similar To “little manhattan” They raised recently). Structural limitations. Despite the monumental effort, the project drags many of the endemic problems of the regime. The Lack of experience North Korean in the hotel industry and the rigid state censorship are important obstacles to offer a credible tourist experience. In addition, recent history of the Ryugyong Hotel (That unfinished skyscraper for decades and symbol of North Korean failed excess) remains a latent warning. Plus: Kim’s fear of the free flow of information is incompatible with the logic of contemporary tourism. Therefore, although it is seen of modernity and luxury, it is likely to end up being Another monumental decorationwithout sufficient and useful tourists only as a propaganda tool. There is several examples similar A “diplomatic” letter. If you want, in parallel, the complex can be seen as a piece on the diplomatic board. In 2018, Trump had suggested Kim towill help your “big beaches” For economic development, and it is not ruled out that the resort is used precisely as a symbolic gesture in future negotiations, especially if Pyongyang seeks recognition as a nuclear power. Remember that the nation already has made “resort” For Russian soldiers. In that context, Kalma can always fluctuate, like promise or threat: It can be used to show openness or reinforce the cult of the leader. If so, Kim Jong Un, determined to differentiate himself from his predecessors, could see in “his Benidorm” not only a tourist destination, but a political statement to the world. Image | Diego Delso, Clay Gilliland In Xataka | Kalma is the first real effort of North Korea to become a holiday place. For now only for Russians In Xataka | North Korea has revealed a small manhattan of 10,000 apartments. The problem is what is behind the facade

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