cost

A brotherhood in Sagunto has closed its doors to women during Holy Week. The decision threatens to cost the entire town

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What weighs more, tradition or equality? It seems like a whimsical question, but it’s exactly the same as yesterday they had to consider hundreds of brothers from Sagunto. There the members of Sang de Sagunt have had to make a controversial decision with Holy Week around the corner: Keep the doors of their brotherhood closed to women, preserving the status quo with which they have functioned in recent centuries, or accept the requests increasingly pressing of the women who want to procession just like the men of the town? For them there are few doubts. What has happened? That nothing will change in Sagunto. At least for now. Yesterday the brotherhood of the Sang de Sagunt decided by an overwhelming majority that it will remain faithful to tradition and keep its door closed to women. The members of the brotherhood with the right to vote were called to a conclave in which they had to decide a crucial question: whether or not to alter the statutes so that where it now says “male” it now includes “any baptized person”, a small change that would nevertheless allow women to participate in the work of the entity. The brothers voted for do not touch a single comma. What was the result? The vote was held behind closed doors, but its results were not long in coming. To begin with, we know that of the 1,627 brotherOnly 403 voted, all men, of course. Regarding the result, the ‘no’ to the change won resoundingly. 267 people spoke out against altering the statutes compared to 114 who supported it. Another eight brothers abstained, 12 voted blank and two issued invalid ballots. The result throws a bucket of cold water (the umpteenth) on the claims of the dozens of women of the Semana Santa Inclusiva Sagunto collective who were waiting gathered at the doors of the temple where the summit was held. Why is it important? Beyond the vote and what it means for the brotherhood, the result is important for several reasons. To begin with, it shows that, despite the attempts at Inclusive Holy Week, the message of equality is far from reaching the brotherhood. It’s not just that the ‘no’ won overwhelmingly, it’s that it’s the third time that the brotherhood has spoken out in that sense. A similar vote was held in 1999 in which only nine brothers They spoke out in favor of the inclusion of women. In 2022 the experience was repeated with the same result, although the ‘yeses’ shot up to 135, leaving at least a positive reading for women. Yesterday the vote did not even leave that little consolation. Support plummeted to only 114. Are there more reasons? Yes. Yesterday’s vote is also relevant for what it may represent for Holy Week in Sagunto. In February elDiario revealed that the Ministry of Tourism had initiated an investigation file to decide whether or not to remove the label Festival of National Tourist Interest (FITN). The reason: precisely the lack of gender equality in the brotherhood that has been in charge of the central events of Holy Week for centuries. The loss of the title would be a lot more than a simple administrative formality. The FITN label clears the way to benefit from promotion channels and subsidies, so if Sagunto loses that label it could be affected at a tourism level. The Government already has advanced which, after yesterday’s vote, has decided to initiate a file to “revoke” the 2004 declaration. Why did they vote against? In the background there is a key debate: Maintain the current status to preserve tradition or adapt it to the values ​​of the 21st century for greater equality? As the reporters who were waiting yesterday for the result of the vote at the doors of the temple explained, arguments in favor of both positions could be heard in the streets of Sagunto. At the summit, however, the first one won with arguments like “tradition is tradition” or that women can set up their “own brotherhood.” “We are sad, above all disappointed,” admits to The Newspaper Blanca Ribelles, from Holy Week Inclusive. “I thought that our society would have evolved and that we would be more mature than three years ago, because equality is something that is no longer questioned. It is not about being more, but about equality.” After collecting signatures to encourage voting, Ribelles recognizes that now the next move may be to go directly to court, although assures which is a path “that we would never have wanted to reach”. Is it a unique case? Not quite. What the group demands is that women not have to limit themselves to mending their clothes, cleaning the hermitage or raising funds. They want to go out in procession in “the usual brotherhood, the one they have always had.” It is not the only place in Spain where the debate has arisen. A year ago the Constitutional gave the reason to a woman from La Laguna (Tenerife) who reported a similar situation. The case has been resorted at the European level, however, which explains why yesterday it was not decisive in the Sagunto vote. Images | Sagunto Tourism and Valencian Community In Xataka | Holy Week has been a huge marketing campaign for decades. Now it even has board games

The electric rental car still cannot find its place. Hertz tried it and it cost him 4 billion to discover it

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In October 2021, Hertz announced with great fanfare that bought 100,000 Teslas worth 4.2 billion dollars. It was the biggest bet by a vehicle rental company on electric vehicles. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into. And four years later, that bet has ended up becoming one of the most expensive lessons in history, because between 2023 and 2025, the company has accumulated losses of more than 4.5 billion dollars, a good part of them directly linked to that decision. What went wrong from the beginning. The business of a car rental company is not just renting, as they also need to sell the vehicles when they are paid for at the best possible price. And that is where the electric became a basic problem. electric cars They depreciate faster than combustion ones in the first three to five years, something that Hertz saw firsthand. When the fleet of Teslas began to lose value, the company was unable to place them on the second-hand market at a profitable price. The final blow came when Elon Musk decided reduce the price of new Teslaswhich automatically dragged down the value of the used cars that Hertz had in its fleet. In detail. Added to that were other problems that were not in the script. Electrical repairs they were more expensive Compared to combustion vehicles, tires wore out faster and many drivers simply did not want to rent an electric car. In addition, it should be noted that the charging network in the United States was (and partly still is) insufficient for travelers who do not fully know the specifics of charging an electric car. According to MarketWatch, electric cars in the United States they are not popular among rental customers precisely due to the scarce network of charging points in the country. And a car stopped in the parking lot does not generate income, but it does generate costs. The numbers of the disaster. In 2024 alone, Hertz registered a net loss of $2.9 billionafter having closed the first nine months of the year with 1,332 million in the red. The company rapidly sold the 30,000 electric vehicles that it planned to liquidate, and in 2025 it closed the year with a net loss of 747 million, although with an improvement of more than 2,000 million compared to the previous year. The results of 2025 We met them precisely a few weeks ago, in their financial report. The numbers are improving, but right now Hertz’s stock is trading near historic lows and the market does not quite believe the recovery. It’s not just Hertz. The company has not been the only one that has gone through this bad experience, in fact it has been a warning sign for the rest of the competitors. Avis Budget Group, the second largest global vehicle rental group, closed 2025 with losses of nearly 1 billion dollarsthe main reason being its electric fleet in the United States. The company had to register more than 500 million in asset impairment by reducing the estimated useful life of its electric cars, which caused them to plummet in the stock market by more than 20% in a single day after presenting results. Avis CEO Brian Choi even publicly acknowledged to investors that the quarter’s results were “unacceptable,” according to picked up SherwoodNews. Between the lines. A McKinsey report from April 2025 pointed out that only one in ten American consumers is considering going electric with their next purchase. If the customer who rents a car does not want an electric one, because he does not know where to charge it, because it generates range anxiety or simply because it is not comfortable, the rental company has an expensive vehicle that depreciates quickly and that spends too much time without generating income. Therefore, the equation does not work. And now what. Hertz has promised that 2026 will be the year of the turning point. The company anticipates revenue growth of between 4% and 6% in the first quarter of this year and has once again placed the depreciation target below $300 per month per vehicle, which was the figure it always indicated as the profitability threshold. Avis is also looking ahead cautiously. Both companies hope to improve results in 2026, relying on younger fleets and managing its electric cars more conservatively, adapting its presence in markets where there is a more mature charging infrastructure, as is the case in California. What is clear is that the great bet of massive electric rental in the United States has failed, at least in its first version. The electric car may have a future in rental fleets, but not at any price, not in any market and, of course, not without the customer being willing to get into it. Cover image | Ernie Journeys In Xataka | No matter what you do: the wheels of your car are revealing your position to anyone who wants to monitor you

Science is clear that being a good person gives happiness. The problem is the hidden cost of “overdoing it”

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Since we were little, society has bombarded us with a very clear message: you have to be good people. It’s a moral imperative, yes, but over the past few decades science has attempted to answer a much more pragmatic question: does being kind to others have a real impact on our happiness? This is where A group of researchers wanted to give an answer. What we know. The answer to this question is ‘yes’ according to the latest articles that have been published on the matter. But we must keep in mind that taking kindness to the extreme, leaving our ‘skin’ for others without attending to our own needs, has a real impact that translates into burnout and also in a great emotional exhaustion. And surely, some people can see themselves very reflected in these concepts of literally being very ‘burned out’ for being very kind to others and attending to all the favors they ask of you without thinking about oneself. The positive part. The idea that “good people are happier” is not a simple phrase of Mr. Wonderfulbut it is a conclusion with solid empirical support, especially in the field of positive psychology. Here the researchers were able to see, for example, in a Japanese sample that happier people performed more daily acts of kindness. What’s more, they found that forcing people to simply “count” their own kind acts for a week measurably increased their happiness. There are more studies. Beyond this case, which is very classic, the bibliography leaves us with a great meta-analysis that reviewed decades of research to conclude that help, donate or support others is consistently associated with persistently higher well-being, even if modest in some cases. Something that was also demonstrated in the experimental works of Sonja Lyubomirskywhich made it clear that assigning a group of people the task of “performing acts of kindness” significantly increases their well-being compared to control groups. The negative part. If being good is so positive… Should we give ourselves to others without limit? The answer here is a resounding ‘no’. As has always been heard, the middle ground is where virtue lies, since reaching absolute altruism causes compassion fatigue and burnout. And it is no wonder, because altruism taken to the extreme, especially in highly demanding contexts, is dangerous. The studies on health professionals and caregivers clearly show that high exposure to the suffering of others, combined with a strong compassionate orientation but without clear limits, triggers the risk of psychological collapse and, therefore, serious problems such as anxiety. Its consequences. An empirical study on altruism that exists among co-workers revealed that, although constantly helping colleagues encourages cooperation, in the long term it is associated with great emotional exhaustion and depersonalization of the relationship. That is, the system collapses if aid becomes chronic and absorbs own resources. And the problem is that when people are very compassionate with the rest of the world, they are usually incapable of being very compassionate with themselves and have much greater wear and tear. Here empathy needs a protective shield that is nothing more nor less than a series of limits regarding interpersonal relationships. Although logically there are cases that are difficult to mark because we tend to be too kind. The society. To fully understand the picture of human goodness, one must do zoom out since it is not about what we do individually, but about the ecosystem where we are living. Here the World Happiness Report 2025 dedicate an entire chapter to analyze on a global level how kindness and happiness interact. And their conclusions are revealing, since they point out that the greatest predictor of individual happiness is not the frequency with which we do good acts, but the expectation that others will do good things too. In this case, the report gives a very illustrative example: the expectation that, if you lose your wallet, a stranger will return it to you. Here, believing in the goodness of others has a brutal impact on reducing inequality of happiness within a country, and as the SDSN network points out In their adaptation of the data for Spain, “believing in the goodness of others is much more related to happiness than previously thought.” Images | Brooke Cagle In Xataka | If the question is “where is the secret to happiness,” an expert believes it is hidden in these 15 statements

Light and gas have become luxury items. Europe’s plan is to intervene in prices no matter what the cost

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Turning on the heating, running a washing machine or keeping a factory blind up has become, overnight, a luxury. Faced with the economic asphyxiation that threatens citizens and companies, the European Union has crossed the Rubicon: the free energy market, as we knew it, cannot sustain this crisis, and Brussels is preparing a drastic intervention to lower the bill at any cost. ORn global market on fire. The epicenter of this new financial earthquake is in the Middle East, as we have been counting these days in Xataka. The price of oil in international markets continues to suffer shocks; as the firm points out Sparta Commodities to EUobserverit is the “largest daily movement since 1988.” Investors assume that the blockage in the region will cause real cuts in the global supply of crude oil, leaving behind the idea of ​​​​a simple logistical delay in ships. Gas has not been left behind. As detailed BloombergEuropean natural gas futures—the Dutch benchmark—soared 30% in a single day, reaching €64/MWh. Europe emerges from the winter with its reserves depleted and is now facing an all-out war with Asia to obtain the scarce shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) available for the summer. The daily roller coaster of the bill. To understand why this crisis punishes the consumer so much, we must look at how the price of electricity is formed hour by hour. An analysis of Finance Times shows how prices in Europe now suffer wild volatility. The example of last March 4 is devastating: at the height of the solar peak (2:00 p.m.), a megawatt hour in Denmark cost just 26 euros; Just three hours later, after the sun set and the gas plants came into play, the price catapulted to 430 euros. This “roller coaster”, with jumps of up to 1,700% in one afternoon, has been replicated with the same harshness in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Gas thus imposes a “law of luxury” every time the sun disappears, preventing the industry from planning its production. Intervene “whatever the cost.” With a heavy industry (steel, chemicals, aluminum) on the brink of the abyss – it is worth remembering that, according to a document from the European Commission cited by Euronewsindustrial electricity in the EU was already twice as expensive as in the US and China before this crisis—Europe has decided to act. According to the documents discussed by the European leaders to whom has had access Euronewsthe emergency plan seeks quick relief by putting the scissors directly into the bill in three ways: National tax cuts: Which currently vary enormously and can amount to up to 22% of the electricity bill. Cap on tolls and network charges: Which represent 18% of the bill for large industrial consumers. Review of carbon emission costs: Which add 11% to the cost of electricity generation. The intervention beyond of tax cuts. The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has toughened her tone towards companies. In statements cited by Euronewswarned: “We will do everything possible to stop speculation. I am ready to react, if necessary, including by increasing taxes on companies that speculate on prices through energy bills.” Furthermore, the panic button for strategic reserves has been activated. As explained Reutersthe finance ministers of the G7 and the EU are negotiating to release part of the 1.4 billion barrels of strategic reserves that Europe keeps to flood the market and artificially sink prices. The impact of not intervening in time. Bloomberg details the case of Domo Chemicalsa plant in the German industrial city of Leuna, which has had to declare insolvency consumed by energy costs. This erosion of the industrial fabric also coincides with a delicate political moment in Germany, where the conservative party (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has just suffered an electoral setback against the Greens in the regional elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Spanish shield. Despite the urgency, the overall European response is being fragmented. EUobserver points out that Ursula von der Leyen has proposed as a patch to expand the Caspian Sea oil and gas corridor. Ironically, the only royal coat of arms right now is Spain. As highlighted by this same medium, the Spanish market has registered the lowest and most stable prices this week thanks to its gigantic previous investment in renewable energies, partly isolating its system from fossil volatility. Finally, the markets have experienced a slight respite thanks to geopolitics. According to the latest update of BloombergEuropean bonds rebounded and gas fell 17% on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump predicted the conflict with Iran would be resolved “very soon.” However, investors assume that if the war drags on, prices will remain high for a long time. Waking up to reality. With 67% of its consumption still tied to imported fossil fuels, the bloc is aware that depending on Middle Eastern trade routes is a huge risk for its economy. Until now, the European Union trusted that the free market would solve consumer problems and guarantee the best prices. This energy crisis has shown that this is not always the case. The authorities now assume that, in extreme situations, intervening in bills, capping profits and emptying state reserves is the only viable solution. Whatever the cost, Europe has decided to take control to ensure that turning on the lights is not a privilege reserved for times of peace. Image | freepik and Haydn on Unsplash Xataka | Neither oil nor gas: if a total war breaks out between the US and Iran, the definitive weapon will be desalination plants

It’s been going up for days and we already have queues at the low cost

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The conflict between the US, Israel and Iranand its consequent tension in the rest of the Middle East countries has been generating uncertainty in the energy markets for weeks. The barrel of Brent has risen nearly 30% so far this year, 8% this Monday alone. Goldman Sachs has revised its forecasts upwards and prices at Spanish gas stations have already chained five consecutive increases. In Spain, we are preparing for a gradual rise in price of gasoline. So much so that already long queues have been detected at service stations in some parts of the country. One of the most striking examples has been this Costco in Sevillewhere his gas station is flooded by a flood of cars. A scenario that recalls, with important nuances, what happened in 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. what’s happening. At the end of 2025, the price of fuel was giving some relief to drivers throughout Spain. Just like they count From El Motor, 95 gasoline had fallen by about 3.5% and diesel by more than 5% since November. However, this trend has ended in the most devastating and undesirable way possible: with another war. Image: Dieselogasolina.com (data extracted from the Ministry of Ecological Transition) According to the data from the Dieselogasolina web portal extracted from the Ministry of Ecological Transitionthe average price of 95 gasoline in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands stands at €1,557/l this March 4, compared to €1,531/l the previous day. Diesel has gone from €1,492/l to €1,539/l in the same day. Five consecutive increases that coincide with the escalation of war in the Middle East. A bottleneck. As you’ve probably heard or read, most of the problem has to do with the Strait of Hormuz, which has stopped its traffic due to this escalation of war and which is where approximately 20% of the world’s production of crude oil and liquefied natural gas transits. The barrel of Brent reached close to $80 in the first days of March, after accumulating nearly a 30% increase so far this year, as share The Vanguard. Europe does not import Iranian crude oil directly (90% of Iran’s exports go to China), but the blockade of the Strait affects the global reference price, and that price does reach European suppliers. What the experts say. Goldman Sachs this week revised upwards its forecast for the second quarter of 2026, in which it expects Brent stands on average at 76 dollars per barrelten dollars more than his previous estimate. The bank warns that risks are “significantly skewed to the upside,” as share the WSJ. And the bank points out that if exports through the Strait of Hormuz remained restricted for five more weeks, Brent could reach $100. Àngel Hermosilla, general secretary of the Col·legi d’Economistes de Catalunya, points out told La Vanguardia that the energy market is “very volatile and very sensitive to any political action,” and that the impact could be felt at the pumps in a matter of days. And so it is, for now. On the other hand, the engine shared the words of Nacho Rabadán, spokesperson for the Spanish Confederation of Service Stations (CEEES), who explained to Trece that the suppliers have already communicated to the stations “an extra cost of between 10 and 12 cents per liter for the delivery tanks this Wednesday.” That is the purchase price for the gas stations, not the final price to the driver, but it anticipates that the increases will end up being passed on. Rabadán remembers what happened in 2022 with the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, at which time some stations held prices when the liter was around 1.80 euros, assuming losses, but then replacing the product “cost them up to 3,000 euros more per tanker.” On the other hand, the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) esteem that, if Brent stabilizes around $80, a rise of between 8 and 10 cents per liter could be expected in the coming weeks. Beyond the deposit. Eduard Conti, specialist in personal finances, counted La Vanguardia that when fuel prices rise, this affects all economic sectors, including food transportation, airline tickets, industrial manufacturing, etc. Conti points out that in Spain, inflation is currently around 2.3%, but the CPI has accumulated a 23% rise in the last five years. For his part, Philip Lane, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, recognized in an interview with the Financial Times that “the magnitude of the impact and the implications for inflation in the medium term depend on the extent and duration of the conflict.” It hasn’t really gone up yet. Prices, although on the rise, are still far from the historical highs recorded by the Ministry of Ecological Transition: 95 gasoline reached €2,152/L and diesel reached €2,106/L. “I hope that we do not reach two euros, although the truth is that the oil market has been very strange for years. The only thing I can say is that for us, the fact that it is only the fifty-third highest increase in history is already good news,” counted Rabadan. Cover image | engin akyurt and Juan Carlos Toro In Xataka | The US has launched its most ambitious weapon against Iran in the last decade: a missile that does not need fighters or warships

If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece

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Renovate a house It is usually an exhausting experience: budgets that skyrocket, structural unforeseen events, provisional solutions that end up being permanent. Now imagine that this home is not just any apartment, but one of the great icons of the 20th century, visited by millions of people and examined to the millimeter by historians, engineers and conservators. Then the reform stops being a domestic problem and becomes a continuous battle against time. Thus an icon was born. The assignment that changed a career The year was 1934 when Edgar J. Kaufmann commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright a weekend house next to a waterfall in Bear RunPennsylvania. The architect then took an unprecedented decision: He decided not to look at the water from afar, but to literally build on it. The work, built between 1936 and 1938, almost immediately became in a manifesto of organic architecture: concrete terraces that float over the waterfall, local stone walls that sprout from the rock, spaces that open to the forest as if the house were an extension of the landscape. By January 1938 he already occupied the same cover of time and critics proclaimed it one of the great masterpieces in the history of architecture, one capable of reconcile modernity and nature in an unforgettable image. It happens that there is always a “but” in a work, and one like this was no different. Yes. That perfect image had a disproportionate price from day one. The original cost exceeded the planned budget almost four times and reached approximately $155,000 of the time, a figure equivalent to about 3.3/3.5 million current dollars. Added to this were Wright’s own fees and the expenses derived from a complex execution in a unique but remote environment, so that the project was born already financially stressed. What should be a weekend country house became a total commitment, technical and economic, to materialize a radical vision. And we come to the material that has given the work its name, although it almost took everything away. The gesture that made Fallingwater world famous, its large columnless cantilevers over the waterfall, was also its Achilles heel. During the work, the engineer in charge of concrete warned that only eight reinforcing bars had been placed on a main beam and that, for a span of that length, it should have been duplicated steel. However, Wright rejection the objections, arguing that adding more reinforcement would damage the structure and demanding absolute confidence in their judgment. The contractor, without warning, decided to increase the steel anyway. Even so, when removing the formwork the first cantilever deformed more than four centimeters and was left with a permanent arrow that today translates into a visible slope close to two degrees. And the cracks came before inhabiting it The problems were neither theoretical nor late. Even before the Kaufmann family moved in in 1937, there were already documented leaks and cracks on the concrete parapets. As the decades passed, some balconies began to sink. more than 20 centimeters with respect to its original position, and in the nineties engineers found that the cantilevers they had failed technically and required urgent reinforcements to avoid greater risk. The house that seemed to defy gravity rested on a more fragile balance than the iconic photograph suggested. If the waterfall was the soul of the project, the rain and snow were its nightmare. Flat roofs, terraces that function as roofs for lower rooms and masonry walls holes filled with rubble They made it easier for water to find invisible paths into the interior. So much so that since the 1940s the house was nicknamed with irony by its owners for the number of buckets needed to collect leaks, and almost ninety years later an intervention of 7 million dollars intended to seal covers, inject more than a dozen tons of grout on the walls and improve waterproofing. It didn’t matter the crazy price that had been used previously, many leaks they returned with time. The overhang of the living room seen from the bridge leading to the house At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, a structural restoration was undertaken that would be decisive: the beams were drilled and introduced steel cables post-tensioned to “pull” the concrete and recover part of its original position. That operation prevented the sinking will progressbut it did not eliminate the need for ongoing maintenance. To give us an idea, from 1937 to today, the preservation of Fallingwater has already exceeded 19 million dollars, a figure multiplied by about 120 times the initial cost of construction and which illustrates the extent to which keeping the icon standing has been more expensive than its own creation. In 1963 the Kaufmann family donated the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which opened it to the public the following year. Since then, more than 6 million of people have visited it, and its status as a National Historical Monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site consolidated his status as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. Paradoxically, the same audacity that generated the cracks, deformations and leaks is what gave it its symbolic force: Fallingwater, or The Falling House, embodies the rhetoric of the American dream of merging with nature and dominating it at the same time, even when that ambition required paying an enormous structural and economic price. The history of this icon shows that architectural genius is not exempt material risk. Wright’s possibly exaggerated authorship, his conviction towards engineers and contractors, and his willingness to take concrete further of prudent limitsproduced a work that was both sublime and problematic. If you will, it is also an imperfect building that has needed decades of disagreements, revisions and reinforcements to remain standing. And precisely for that reason, more than a frozen postcard over a waterfall, Fallingwater It is proof that great works are born from the tension between vision and reality, and that even masterpieces can always be, literally, at the edge of the … Read more

With Plenitude, the kWh will cost you the same 24 hours a day and, at the same time, you get a gift card for Netflix

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If you have an electricity rate with time slotsthe watch is your greatest ally. You probably try to organize yourself as much as possible to turn on the washing machine or dishwasher in the off-peak sections, thus saving money along the way. This creates stress in many homes.especially when unforeseen events arise or there are small children at home. What alternative do we have? A rate where the kWh has exactly the same price 24 hours a day. That’s just what it offers Plenitude’s Easy Ratethat now bring a gift with you in the form of a Netflix gift card. Of course, only if you hire before next March 2. A fee to be able to put on the washing machine (or whatever) without looking at the clock Although it may not seem like it, there is a fairly considerable difference between the price per kW between the cheapest and most expensive hours. If you can use the most demanding appliances at off-peak hours, there is no problem. But, What if you get home at 7 p.m. every day? There you will have to pay the most expensive price, which can make your electricity bill skyrocket. That does not happen with the Plenitude Easy Rate. with her, the price of electricity will be exactly the same all day (at the time of writing, 0.128306 per kWh). This way, no matter how many unforeseen events you have during the day, you won’t have to worry about how much electricity costs at a certain time of day. Furthermore, once you contract the rate, the price of kWh will remain stable for 12 months. This means that, if, for example, an energy crisis occurs that increases the price of electricity, you will continue paying the same. And it does not have any type of permanence, something that not all electricity rates on the market offer. Hiring can be done in several ways, although you have the option of doing everything through the Plenitude website. In this way, you will have a 100% digital process which will only take you a few minutes. We are talking about the Easy Rate for electricity, although Plenitude also offers the same for gas, as well as for having both supplies together. Now it’s time for the promo we mentioned above, active only until March 2. Any of these rates include a 50-euro Netflix gift card that we will receive after the first month of contracting. We can use this for both a new account and one we already have. If we do numbers, it’s great: It gives you almost four months of the Standard plan. Everything together gives us an opportunity to save every month, both on the electricity bill and by removing a subscription for a while. Although yes: only if you hurry and you contract the Easy Rate before March 2. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Patrick Schneider on UnsplashPlenitude In Xataka | What do you need (according to the EU) for your survival kit and how much will it cost you? In Xataka | Best power banks to charge your mobile phone. Which one to buy and recommended external batteries

RAM memory already represents 35% of the cost of a PC. The only solution that HP finds: capable equipment

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The PC industry – like many others – is facing a perfect storm that is completely altering manufacturing costs. As revealed by Karen Parkhill, CFO of HP, RAM memory has increased its prices so much that its specific weight in the cost of a PC is now almost unsustainable. Bad business. 35% of what your PC costs you is RAM. According to the directive, RAM memory has gone from representing an acceptable 15–18% of the bill of materials for your PCs and laptops to representing a suffocating 35%. The change is drastic, and has occurred in just one fiscal quarter. Things will get worse. This increase is due to the fact that according to HP, memory costs have doubled sequentially and have grown by 100% in a few months. Not only that: the company’s forecast is pessimistic, and they expect prices to rise as 2026 progresses. From more expensive PCs… The direct consequence for users is inevitable: the prices of PCs and laptops are going to rise. Analysts are already warning of increases of between 15% and 20% in the RRP of these devices, and in fact HP has already begun to make changes to its price tags precisely to protect its profit margins in the face of the massive increase in the price of critical components such as DRAM memory and NAND chips in SSD units. …to capable PCs. But the price is not the only thing that will change. To keep the equipment “affordable”, HP is adopting another strategy that we had already seen in mobile phones: that of “cut specifications.” This means that we will see more low- and mid-range configurations with less RAM than one would expect in 2026. The measure is clearly intended to save costs at the sacrifice of performance. At the moment they are saving the ballot. At HP they are diversifying their suppliers and cutting back on specifications and extras to compensate for the extra cost of chips. The company is even using AI systems to optimize its planning processes and has halved the time it takes to qualify new materials for agile component changes. The demand for HP PCs is still there: its personal systems division grew 11% in revenue. The company warns, however, that this trend could fall: high prices could cause sales to slow down. Damn data centers. The big culprit of everything is AI, of course, which is causing most of the production of DRAM memory chips and NAND chips to be destined for the AI ​​accelerators of NVIDIA and other manufacturers and, of course, for the gigantic data centers that are being planned everywhere. In addition, the industry is focusing on HBM memories, which are much more powerful for AI applications but which cause the production of “traditional” memories to suffer. Hello, 8 GB of RAM in 2026. For many years it seemed that 8 GB of RAM had become the de facto standard in our laptops and many PCs, but a couple of years ago we clearly made the leap to 16 GB. This crisis threatens to take us back to the past and see many “affordable” computers with 8 GB of RAM. Can we survive with this memory? Most likely yes… if our use of the equipment is relatively modest. The 16 GB really helps a lot now that we have become accustomed to opening a lot of browser tabs and applications in an era where these consume more and more memory. 8 GB seemed like a thing of the past, but we fear that we will have to learn to live with that type of configuration again. In Xataka | If you were thinking about setting up a NAS to create your own cloud, we have bad news: AI has other plans

AI consumes obscene amounts of energy. Sam Altman compares it to the cost of “training” humans

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman participated in an event organized by The Indian Express. During the interview made some striking statements, but the greatest of all of them was the one he dedicated to talking about what it costs to train an AI model. In fact, he complained about how many of ChatGPT’s energy consumption discussions they are unfair. Training humans also consumes a lot. The interviewer asked Altman about ChatGPT’s energy consumption and Sam Altman took a few seconds to answer the question, and then made a peculiar comparison (my bold): One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is that it talks about how much energy it takes to train an AI model compared to what it costs a human to perform an inference query. But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life and all the food you eat during that time before you become intelligent. And not only that, it took the widespread evolution of the hundred billion people who have lived and learned not to be eaten by predators and to understand science and so on to create you. The fair comparison is if you ask ChatGPT, how much energy does it take once their model is trained to answer that question compared to a human? And AI has probably already caught up in terms of energy efficiency if we measure it that way. A previous Epoch AI study corroborates that energy consumption during inference (when we actually use ChatGPT, for example) is low. Source: Epoch AI. Training is one thing, inference another.. The answer may be controversial, but to a certain extent it is logical: learning, both in the case of humans and AI, takes time and consumes many resources, but that cost is one thing and the cost of inference, of “applying that training”, is another. Once we have learned, it is not too difficult to answer things. This is what Altman is trying to point out here, who recognizes that AI does indeed consume a lot of energy in training, but that it has then become very efficient in the inference phase, when we actually use ChatGPT. The problem is that although Altman has already spoken that in inference consumption is minimal, does not provide evidence of this. The water problem is no longer a problem. He also spoke about the controversial water consumption that was theoretically carried out in large AI data centers. Although he acknowledged that this was a problem when “we used to use evaporative cooling in data centers.” Now, however, “we don’t do that,” he recalled, and made it clear that those accusations that “ChatGPT uses 17 gallons per query, or whatever” is totally false, “totally crazy, it has no connection with reality.” But again, there is still no official data from AI companies in this section. How much does AI really consume? The truth is that at this point we still do not have really clear data on how much the AI ​​consumes both in the training phase and in the inference phase. There are those who have investigated energy and water consumption and have made a mistake. wildly exaggerating the databut for example in the US, where a large number of data centers are concentrated, there is no legislation that forces transparency with those figures. Increasingly more efficient models and data centers. One of the most interesting studies was the one made by Epoch AI in February 2025, and at that time it was also concluded that AI did not actually consume as much as it was said to consume. In fact, it consumed relatively little and the models have only improved in efficiency. Chips and cooling systems have also improved, and although data centers have certainly require enormous amounts of energywe continue blindly in this section. In Xataka | Spain has a plan to capture more data centers than anyone else: “shield” them from energy costs

Mercadona and the white label had been setting the course for supermarkets in Spain for years. Until the “ultra low cost” arrived

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When we Spaniards go out shopping we value above all two factors. The first, proximity. The second, the price. Even above the quality. It is not at all surprising if we take into account that we come from a inflationary crisis and there are items of common consumption (cocoa, coffee either eggs) who have experienced a real storm in recent months. The chains know how much they are risking with each euro and have acted accordingly. For example with a bet on the white label that has been especially good to Mercadona. There is, however, another strategy that has been gradually making its way into the world. retail Spanish, one also focused on prices, but that does not rely on white label or short assortment: supermarkets “ultra low cost“. “Ultra low cost“? Exact. It sounds somewhat far-fetched (almost, almost cacophonous) but that is the label that best defines certain supermarket chains that have focused their strategy basically on product discounts. double digit. After years of inflation and with costs becoming a decisive factor When families decide where to shop, most chains try (to a greater or lesser extent) to be competitive in prices. In fact in the rankings Cheaper stores usually include brands such as Alcampo, Family Cash or Aldi. In the case of super “ultra low cost“The price is, however, more than just a front on which to compete. It represents the great differentiating factor. And it is to such an extent that it conditions the approach, the offer and the way the chain operates. In a recent article, Five Days reviewed the billing data of two relatively young firms that fit this pattern: Sqrups and Primaprix. What differentiates them? That in a sector (that of supermarkets) in which it seemed that everything had been said, with Mercadona expanding your domain and the white label gaining market sharethe “ultra” chains low cost“have found an alternative path of growth. Their strategy involves offering items from recognized brands (nothing from Hacendado, Deliplus, Auchan or similar), but with surprisingly low prices. As an example, Sqrups boasts of offering its customers “significant discounts” that move between 30 and 80%. How do they work the miracle? With your business model. More like its supply model. Unlike most supermarket chains, they supply surpluses that are left ‘off the hook’ or have no place on the shelves of companies such as Carrefour, Eroski, Mercadona or Hipercor, among others. These are surplus stocks, items that do not quite work, merchandise that has been left out of the circuit due to a change in packaging or not meeting presentation standards… In short, items in good condition that manufacturers need to liquidate and cannot (or want) to distribute through ‘conventional’ chains. Their destination ends up being Sgrups or Primaprix, where they add to a catalog marked by rotation, speed and discounts. But… How do they do it? “Large international brands usually have surplus stocks in their warehouses, left over from promotions (Christmas, summer, events…), from new launches or simply products with a much lower price in one country than in another. At Primaprix we travel throughout Europe hunting for these opportunities,” details the companywho remembers that he opened his first store in Madrid in 2015 and in just ten years he has built a network of 260. Sgrups’ explanation is similar. “We recover products that, under normal conditions, distribution throws away,” clarifies its general directorRaúl Espinosa, who boasts that thanks to its discounts the chain sells products with prices much lower (50-80%) than those on the market. The company ensures that its assortment comes from three sources: “production surpluses, image changes and quality control.” It also incorporates “short-dated” products. “In the last year we have rescued more than 26 million products, preventing them from being destroyed and giving them a second chance for consumption,” the company specifiesborn ago just over a decade and that works with food, but also drugstores, stationery and hygiene items. The big question: why? Because this formula has allowed them to connect with a part of the market and expand in a sector, that of retail Spanish, in which a small number of brands have been expanding their dominance. “Companies like Sqrups or Primaprix break the differentiation with the rest of the operators thanks to this supply model,” explains to Five Days Javier Pérez de Leza, good knowledge of the sector. “Mercadona, Lidl or Aldi have dedicated themselves to a type of discount that leaves room below, because the price trend is upward. You can be much cheaper than all of them, although with risks.” What risks? One (fundamental) is the pressure that operators in the sector can exert to reduce the surpluses that these chains feed on, although it is not the only limit that the model of companies like Primaprix faces. Relying on stocks makes it very difficult to guarantee the continuity of an ever-changing assortment. Furthermore, the fact that customers encounter different products every so often may increase their interest in visiting stores but also complicates such basic issues as logistics. What do your accounts say? That neither of the two chains are doing badly at all. Primaprix data we know them also thanks to Five Dayswhich a few days ago revealed that during the 2024 financial year the company had a turnover of 347 million euros. Maybe it’s far from billions from Mercadona, but it represents a year-on-year growth of 24%. If we look further back, the company’s sales quadrupled between 2020 and 2024, a period during which it went from managing 110 stores to 245. Now it is on its way to 300 establishments. The key: your business modelwhich is nourished by the surpluses accumulated in the warehouses of large manufacturers. Your catalog is completed with purchases you make in other countries, looking at prices, discarded items despite being completely suitable for consumption, or products that will expire soon. A bet not very different from what fashion or furniture outlets have been making for years. They are merchandise (many … Read more

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