bunker Archives - usatoday24

Spain wants to become a “bunker” for data centers with a very clear attraction: cheap energy

February 2, 2026 by usatoday24

Spain finds itself facing a historic opportunity. In the offices of big technology companies—from Amazon (AWS) until Microsoft or Google—the map of the Iberian Peninsula shines with its own light. The geographical location and the deployment of fiber optics have made the country the ideal candidate to be the great “cloud” of southern Europe. However, there is a toll: these data centers (DPCs) consume electricity at an industrial pace. Only the Community of Madrid investments are played worth 23.4 billion euros linked to these projects, while regions like Aragon see how the demand from these centers threatens to absorb half of all the energy they occurs in the community. But until now, Spain had a barrier to entry: an electrical regulation designed for steel foundries, not for servers. In order not to miss the investment train, the Government has decided to make a move and change the rules of the game. A change of rules in the BOE. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism has activated the legislative machinery. The goal is to allow data centers can access to the Statute of Electrointensive Consumers, a category that until now was reserved for large heavy industry and that allows receiving million-dollar compensation on the electricity bill. In fact, the first step is now official. Through a resolution of the Secretary of State for Industry published last January, the Government has eliminated with a stroke of a pen and as a matter of urgency the main technical obstacle for the 2026 campaign: the “off-peak” requirement. The previous regulations required companies to consume at least 46% of their electricity during the cheapest hours (generally at night) to receive aid. This, which works for a factory that can put on night shifts, is impossible for a data center that operates 24/7. The new resolution considers this requirement fulfilled for all applicants this year, a “technical amnesty” designed to facilitate the entry of new actors. However, it is not an isolated patch. In parallel, the Ministry has submitted to public consultation a Royal Decree Project to reform the Statute in a structural way. The text, whose hearing process has already included the sector’s allegations, explicitly recognizes that the current regulations have been ‘misaligned’ and need to be adapted to strengthen the competitiveness of companies in the face of high energy prices. The end of the tyranny of the night. To understand the importance of this measure, you have to look at the sky. The old rule required consumption at night because, historically, that was when electricity was cheap. But the explosion of solar energy in Spain has changed the paradigm: now, the cheapest hours tend to occur at midday, when the sun shines brightly, generating what experts call the “duck curve” in prices. Maintaining the obligation to consume at night was not only a bureaucratic barrier for data centers, but also economic and ecological nonsense in the Spain of 2026. By eliminating this requirement, the Government not only helps technology companies, but also adapts the law to the reality of an electrical system dominated by renewables. Less bureaucracy and more compensation. The Government’s plan to seduce data centers does not consist of paying for their electricity directly, but rather of shielding them from indirect costs. The reform proposes two courses of action: money and simplification. Compensation of hidden charges: The new Statute will allow subsidizing costs that increase the bill but are not energy consumption, such as contributions to the National Energy Efficiency Fund (FNEE). According to industry sourcesthis charge is around 2 euros per megawatt hour and has a tendency to rise. Alleviating this burden is vital for technology companies’ numbers to turn out green. Administrative facilities: The entrance exam has been relaxed. Along with the elimination of off-peak hours, the BOE has set a new technical ratio (ratio between consumption and added value) of 0.61 kWh/€ by 2026. In addition, cumbersome requirements are eliminated, such as the requirement for very specific long-term renewal contracts, which generated a disproportionate administrative burden. The missing piece of the puzzle. Despite the red carpet rolled out by the Ministry, the sector remains cautious. From SpainDC, the association that brings together data centers in Spain, they value the elimination of the off-peak hour requirement as a “relevant advance”, but they warn that the party has only just begun and they still do not have the official invitation in hand. The problem is bureaucratic, but lethal: the CNAE (National Code of Economic Activity). To be an electro-intensive consumer, your activity must appear on a closed list of eligible sectors. If the Government reforms the technical requirements but does not expressly include the “Data Processing” code (6311) in that list, the reform will be a dead letter for them. “For data centers, the inclusion of the CNAE is a premise. Without it, certification is still not within our reach,” employers warn the Energy Newspaper. Added to this is the underground tension due to the capacity of the network: it is not enough for energy to be cheap, there must be “plugs” available. The Electrical Network It is saturated in key pointsand the sector demands urgent investments so that the promised megawatts actually reach the servers. A seduction in the testing phase. Spain has sent a clear message to international markets: it wants to be Europe’s great data warehouse and is willing to modify its sacred industry laws to achieve it. The BOE resolution for 2026 It is the test of faitha temporary safe passage to prevent the flight of investments. However, the ultimate success of the strategy depends on the fine print that is written in the coming months. If the structural reform of the Royal Decree ends up including data centers in the official list of beneficiary sectors, Spain will have completed its transformation: from a country of sun and sand, to a country of sun and data. Image | freepik Xataka | Meta is spending millions and millions of dollars convincing us of one thing: that data … Read more

The official story says that Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. Conspiracy theory says he escaped through Galicia

November 2, 2025 by usatoday24

There is nothing simpler, more fruitful and irreversible than lighting the fuse of conspiracy theories. This is demonstrated wonderfully by the fact that perhaps, and with the permission of the Neil Armstrong moon walkbe the mother of them all: the death of Adolf Hitler. Although there are recent research which show that the Fuehrer He passed away in 1945 with the help of a sip of cyanide and a bullet. Throughout the last three quarters of a century, stories have circulated, each one more outlandish than the other, placing him after May 1945 as—watch the list—a hermit in a remote italian cave, pastor in the Swiss Alps, croupier in a french casino, family man in Argentina or wandering around Ireland or Colombia. One of these theories, however, is much closer to us. And it aims for an escape worthy of Hollywood with a stop in Galicia. A well studied death. In 2018 the coroner Philippe Charlier published in European Journal of Internal Medicine a study which aroused almost as much interest among historians and conspiracy theorists as among his own pathological colleagues. The reason: corroborated that Adolf Hitler died in 1945. The conclusion is valuable because between March and July 2017 Charlier and his colleagues achieved a milestone: the Russian secret services allowed them to analyze the supposed remains of the Fuehrer which are preserved in Moscow for independent examination. Their study concludes, first, that the teeth are real because they could be identified thanks to complicated dental history of Hitler. Second, the remains show blue stains that indicate that their owner may have ingested cyanide to end his life. The researchers did not find traces of gunpowder, but they did analyze a skull fragment attributed to the Fuehrer with a hole in the left side, probably made by a bullet. Both data confirm the most accepted version about the death of the Nazi leader: Hitler died on April 30, 1945 in his bunker with Eva Braun after consuming cyanide and shooting himself. End of the speculations, then? This is certainly true for Professor Charlier, who he even guaranteed to the AFP agency that he has no doubts about the authenticity of the teeth and that his study puts an end to any conspiracy theory. “Now we can stop them all. Hitler did not go to Argentina on a submarine, he is not hiding in a base in Antarctica or on the dark side of the Moon,” the coroner insisted: “Our study proves that he died in 1945.” Of course, not everyone shares his conviction. Over the decades, theories have circulated that the Nazi leader managed to escape the bunker and the Soviet siege and started a new life in places as remote as northern Italy, the Swiss Alps, eastern France and of course Argentina, perhaps the version that has achieved the most popularity among conspiracy theorists. Why’s that? Such conspiratorial fecundity is largely explained by the circumstances in which Hitler died and date back to 1945, practically the same day of his death. On May 1, 1945, Hamburg radio broadcast without going any further a version which is quite far from what is considered official today: the chain claimed that Hitler had fallen “fighting until his last breath” and with “the death of a hero.” Little to do with a suicide with cyanide and a gun. It didn’t take long for stories to spread about an alleged murder, a brain hemorrhage, euthanasia and of course a successful escape. The end of Fuehrer did not help extinguish those stories. As the BBC remindshistory tells us that Hitler’s body was burned and ended up in a ditch in the Chancellery garden opened by a bomb. Soviet counter-surveillance agents found his body there shortly after, on May 5. The state of Fuehrer It was such at that time that, to identify him clearly, they decided to use his jaw. During the process they had the help Käthe Heusermannwho had served as Hitler’s dentist’s assistant. The remains were moved from one point to another until in 1970 it was decided to cremate them and throw their ashes. Hitler on a walk through Galicia? At the root of the conspiracy theories surrounding the end of Hitler there is a lot of geostrategy and politics, such as explains to the BBC Luke Daly-Groves, a historian at the University of Leeds, who remembers that Stalin weakened his opponents every time he claimed that Hitler could have escaped to Spain or Argentina. “Their strategy was to associate the West with Nazism and make it appear that the British or Americans must be hiding it,” agrees Anthony Beevorauthor of ‘Berlin: the fall of 1945’. With that backdrop, one of the versions that is closest to us emerged: that the Fuehrer ended up in Galicia. What it tells us such a theory is that after simulating his suicide Hitler managed to escape from the bunker, get on board a plane in the templehof airport and fly to Barcelona, from where he went to Galicia. Once in Vigo he managed to board a submarine and flee to Argentina, where he lived until 1960 and started a new life with Eva Braun. another version talks about how shortly after the episode of FührerbunkerIn May 1945, a German plane arrived in Lugo with Hitler on board. There are those who even goes further and places it in the monastery of Samos. Worthy of Hollywood… and History Channel. True, the story may seem like something out of a book Dan Brown or the script of a Hollywood thriller with uchronic overtones, but Vigo’s theory has more preaching than it may seem a priori. Good proof is that a few years ago he starred in a History Channel documentary that was based, in turn, on 700 documents declassified by the FBI shortly before. There are variants about the supposed stay of the Fuehrer in Galician lands, but it is usually pointed out that he ended up getting on a submarine with which he … Read more

A German developer has bought a Nazi bunker for one million euros. Now he wants to turn it into a “fortress” for the rich

January 26, 2025 by usatoday24

Germany is still grappling with the legacy of the Nazis. Throughout the country there is an extensive network of bunkers of the Second World War with the capacity to accommodate almost half a million people. Some of those left have been redesigned to serve citiesbut there are those who want to recover them for something similar to their original purpose: to be a fortress for the richest in the face of fear of a World War III. And they even have their own cryptocurrency: BunkerCoin. The project. It all starts when a real estate developer is occurred the idea: convert a World War II tunnel system into a bunker for rich people who fear a Third World War breaking out. those tunnels 13 kilometers long are near the town of Halberstadt, about 200 kilometers southwest of Berlin and were built by prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 2019, businessman Peter Karl Jugl purchased these tunnels through his company Global Project Management for 1.3 million euros. Now you want to make profits. luxury bunker. Jugl’s idea is to create protected homes that also have all the facilities and comforts. “Similar to rooms on luxury yachts,” according to the project, with food to be obtained through agriculture and indoor mushroom cultivation. Among the amenities mentioned, we find a school, a workshop, a casino, hospital, workshop, gym and spa. So that the circadian cycle is not lost (although without sunlight it is somewhat complicated), the installation will simulate sunrises and sunsets in something extremely similar to what we can see in the nuclear shelters from the ‘Fallout’ saga. It will also be proof of a nuclear war. BunkerCoin. How is entry guaranteed? By purchasing a cryptocurrency, each one guaranteeing one cubic centimeter of space inside the bunker. It is estimated that a small room would cost around half a million dollars At the moment… The intention Historical memory. It is estimated that nearly 7,000 Buchenwald camp inmates worked in the tunnels and more than half died while digging. The purpose of the facility in its day was the manufacture of aviation equipment during the final phase of the war and, evidently, the plan for the luxury bunker has not pleased the descendants of those one bit. slaves who built it. Langenstein-Zwieberge is a memorial built in the vicinity of the prison camp that honors both victims and survivors and its director, Gero Fedtke, called the project “an inappropriate way of treating the historical heritage of the tunnel.” Disbelief. Curiously, all this has caught Jugl on a different footing. In a telephone interview granted told AFP that he has been letting visitors to the memorial access a section of the tunnel where historical traces from the Nazi era still remain, but he wanted to separate the tunnels from the prison camp located about two kilometers away. In addition, he commented that he is “building a facility to save human lives in an emergency and I have been treated unfairly, insulted and threatened.” An association of relatives of prisoners is not on that same page, pointing out that it is impossible to separate the tunnels from the camp, since the reason for the existence of that facility was to house the slave labor that would excavate the tunnels. Fedtke comments that, like the camp, the tunnels have historical relevance because in Buchenwald “hardly any historical traces of the Nazi era have been preserved and in the tunnel it is totally different.” still there. With all this commotion, Jugl has offered the state of Saxony-Anhalt the possibility of buying back the tunnels. It must be said that your company specializes in the purchase of “properties the bigger the better” with the aim of making them profitable and, now, it is offering the repurchase of the tunnel network for eight million euros. However, the state Ministry of Culture told AFP that they have not received any permit request for the construction of the bunker and that, “as it is a cultural monument, all structural or use changes require approval.” What they have received is the buyback proposal, something that has led some to think that Jugl’s plan was not to create any bunkers, but simply noise so that the state would give him more money than he originally paid for the tunnels and win. in the transaction. Whatever it is, it is a curious way to play with something as sensitive as the historical memory of the victims of Nazism. Images | Bunkercoin In Xataka | Faced with the escalation in Ukraine, Germany has dusted off something: a war manual and its underground shelters

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