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the symbol of the Spanish electric car boom faces a difficult horizon

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In its day, Wallbox was one of the great hopes for him electric car in Spain. A symbol with unicorn aspirations with Spanish capital, listed in New York and a simple initial purpose: to sell electric chargers. A purpose that gradually escalated to end up focusing on the comprehensive management of domestic energy. The problem? Since last year the company has a value less than that of your debthas laid off a third of its staff and urgently needs a financial boost. One who doesn’t know where to find. The situation. At the beginning of this month, Wallbox activated the pre-bankruptcy process. The company owes nearly 170 million euros to entities such as Banco Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, or the Official Credit Institute. The pre-bankruptcy status prevents creditors from executing their debts, so this shield is a small temporary ball to negotiate debt and reach agreements. Dates? Evolution of the Wallbox share. Javier Lacort. The hope. Wallbox closed the 2025 fiscal year with losses worth 103.19 million euros, 32% less than in 2024. The company reduced its labor and operating costs by 25%, managing to stop the debacle in its adjusted EBITDA. What happened. In 2021, Wallbox was listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a valuation of more than 1 billion. Four years later, the company was worth 37 million. The company has been adding year-on-year losses that have plummeted its stock. It has reached a price below the dollar The situation led to massive layoffs and cost reduction plans Since 2024, the company has focused the strategy on reduce operating losses and get creditors to sign a new financing plan. According to Wallbox, 85% of them support the plan but HSBC, one of the giants behind the financing, is reticent about the new roadmap. Buying time. Wallbox is buying time with its pre-bankruptcy request, trying to refinance the 170 million debt. Although the situation is critical, all is not lost. The company is managing to cut net losses and affirms that its strategy is aimed at “a more efficient, resilient and future-ready organization.” We have until summer to check it out. Image | Wallbox In Xataka | Install an electric car charger at home: how much does it cost and steps to follow

more job offers but it is more difficult to find work

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The technology sector has never had so many open vacancies and yet finding a job there has become a task harder than ever. This apparent contradiction is not just a feeling: the data confirms it, and it has everything to do with how AI is redrawing the map of who has a place and who does not in technology companies. A detailed analysis by Lenny Rachitsky, expert in the technological labor market and host of the popular Lenny’s Podcastoffers an image that invites reflection. The figures are the most optimistic that has been recorded in its four editions of the report on the state of employment in the technological product sector, but the reality of many professionals who looking for a new job contradicts that optimism on paper. Numbers are deceiving (or at least, they don’t tell everything). According to the collected data by Rachitsky through TrueUp, a platform that tracks job offers in more than 9,000 technology companies in the world, there are more than 7,300 vacancies open for profiles Product Manager At a global level, 75% above that recorded at the beginning of 2023 and almost 20% more than at the beginning of this same year. In engineering, the figure is even more striking, with more than 67,000 active offers worldwide and 26,000 in the US alone. However, more vacancies do not automatically equal easier finding a job. Rachitsky himself acknowledges in his report that there are many people having a hard time searching, and that this does not change because the overall numbers are good. He labor market growsYes, but it doesn’t do it at the same rate for everyone. not even for all profiles. The boom in roles linked to AI. The great catalyst for this growth is AI. Jobs related to its development and implementation are skyrocketing compared to other technology roles, something Rachitsky describes as a hockey stick-shaped growth curve. This profile demand of software engineering reaches both native AI companies (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Cursor) and non-technology companies, which looking for product managers specialized in integrating these technologies into their processes. a report of the London School of Economics confirms that more than 76% of product managers expect to expand their investment in AI in 2026, which has triggered demand for managers capable of translating the capabilities of AI models into concrete products. The profile that companies are looking for, however, is very specific and not just any candidate with AI on the resume is worth it, but experienced professionals in implementation and with the ability to make decisions in environments where AI is already part of the development process. Side B: junior profiles are left out. This is where the other side of the paradox comes in. The report by Anthropic ‘Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence’reveals that overall unemployment among workers most exposed to AI has not increased significantly since the arrival of ChatGPT, but there is a worrying sign in the data from hiring the youngest. Specifically, the study detects that, since 2024, workers between 22 and 25 years old have increasingly less likely to be hired in jobs most exposed to automation. The incorporation rate for these positions has fallen approximately half a percentage point, reducing by up to 14% the probability that a young man finds a job in those occupations, relative to levels prior to the launch of ChatGPT. For workers over 25 years of age, however, that same drop is not observed. Design, the great forgotten of the recovery. There is another profile that the recovery of employment in the technological labor market seems to have left aside: the design one. While product and engineering roles have been growing for two years, vacancies for designers have practically stagnated since the beginning of 2023, with around 5,700 global offers compared to more than 7,300 for product. The analysis firm Humbl Design confirms in its January 2026 report that design roles oriented toward routine execution will barely grow between 2% and 3% until 2034, while profiles specialized in strategy and problem solving project an increase of 16% in the same period. AI has a lot to do with this stagnation. Its ability to accelerate the work of engineers has reduced dependence on traditional design processes, especially in the prototyping and generation of visual variants phases. That is, AI has assumed that role and is now executed from the development departments, so companies They don’t need so many designers anymore.. In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry Image | Unsplash (Mimi Thian)

China claims that having its own ASML is not that difficult. At the end of the day “ASML is a simple integrator”

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China is advancing at a fearsome speed, but they are their own critics. A group of scientists and industry representatives has published an analysis very critical in which they describe their semiconductor industry as “small, dispersed and weak.” For these experts, the problem is that they do not have their own ASML, so they propose creating one, and the curious thing about it is precisely that: that they do not see it as difficult to do. Not authors, authorities. Among the authors of the study are Wang Yangyuan —co-founder of SMIC— or Chen Nanxiang —director of the YMTC NAND chip manufacturer—. Both they and the rest of the participants are recognized personalities in the field of semiconductors. That makes it clear that this articlepublished in the magazine Science and Technology Review China is valuable to understand the state of this industry. The US veto works. This article indicates that the United States has managed to contain China’s advance in three areas: electronic design automation (EDA) used in chip design, the manufacture of silicon wafers, and the creation of chip manufacturing equipment, especially those with extreme ultraviolet (UVE) photolithographic technologya segment that is absolutely dominated by the Dutch ASML and that China has not yet managed to match despite its efforts. There are many companies, but they are too small. The study analyzes in depth the situation of the Chinese semiconductor market, which they describe as small, dispersed and weak. And to prove it they give a significant fact: there are 3,626 domestic chip design companies in China, but “the total value of the industry’s output was 646 billion yuan (approximately 91 billion dollars). In other words: the total sales of these 3,626 companies were less than the sales of NVIDIA alone.” Smartphone chips are doing well. Of course, these experts point out that several Chinese companies have managed to reach “the world’s leading edge” in terms of chips for smartphones. They mention HiSilicon Semiconductor and Unisoc, which occupy the first and second place among the largest smartphone chip designers in China, with market shares of 20 and 10% respectively. And the “mature” chips, too. Something similar happens with chips with much more mature technologies, such as those manufactured with 28 nm photolithography or higher. That problem is already solved in China, which does not have to depend so much on foreign manufacturers. In fact, China now represents 33% of global production in this segment, and design and manufacturing processes are not limited by internal restrictions. Too dependent. Despite its many advances, China remains the world’s largest importer of integrated circuits. It invested $385.79 billion in 2024 in these components, even exceeding its oil imports ($324.7 billion). Here China has a big problem of dependence on chips from third-party foreign manufacturers, and this is especially noticeable in automotive chips (95% of them import) and memory chips (90%): all of them depend on imports. There is a clear bottleneck in high-end integrated circuit production. In search of Chinese ASML. The document also addresses competition with ASML but not as a direct commercial rivalry, but as a strategic challenge of technological sovereignty. The Dutch company is described as “a simple integrator” that coordinates more than 5,000 suppliers to manage the 10,000 components of an EUV machine. The suggestion of the study is precisely to create a Chinese ASML that unifies the advances made by different companies. But. Although progress has been made In this ambitious objective of creating SVU machines, “integrating them with a national effort is a problem that must be resolved during the 15th five-year plan” that concludes in 2030. To do this, these experts assure, there must be financial support and human personnel is required. We already knew that China I was trying to copy ASMLbut for now it is going badly. The document talks about developments such as promising Flip-FET technology (FFET) of Peking University. This advance allows us to reach 3-2 nm nodes without depending exclusively on EUV machines, but it remains to be seen if this method ends up being successful or not. In Xataka | Holland has just declared war on China in the most important battle of the century: control of semiconductors

AI has already bothered us to improve the PC. Now it is going to make it difficult for us to set up a NAS to create a homemade cloud

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It is the best time so that your PC does NOT break. Or the console. Wave Steam Deck. We have been talking for weeks about how the explosion of data centers for AI has made burst the consumer market of RAM. The SSDs were nextand it was logical to a certain extent because they share technology. What perhaps was not expected was that the new components to increase in price were conventional hard drives, HDDs. And in the midst of cloud fatigue, AI is going to claim a new victim: the NAS. Western Digital, the symptom. It was during the presentation of results for the second fiscal quarter of 2026 when Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital, commented that the company had sold practically its entire catalog by 2026. We have already seen this with RAM memory, and it indicates that there are already confirmed orders for 2027 and 2028 (supporting the assertion of other authoritative voices in the industry that this crisis still has some time left). Components that do not exist for something that does not exist. The HDDs that WD is talking about are not those with 2, 6 or 8 TB for the consumer market, but rather those with 20 or 30 TB capacity. Onwards. For now, if you want another 4 TB to store games on your PC, you will have no problem finding a drive at an appropriate price/GB ratio. Now, when we talk about having “everything sold” it is not that there is not a single album left on the shelves, but that what they have not produced yet is already sold. This is something that is happening with other segments, such as with RAM itself (with hoarders) and with SSDs. To give a quick example: if Western Digital is capable of producing two million 30 TB HDDs per year and only the xAI data centers They buy two million 30 TB HDDs for a data center that they have not yet built, WD no longer has production capacity and the waits begin for the others. One of the bosses of SMICthe great Chinese foundry, dropped recently the issue that components that have not yet been produced are being sold to power data centers that have not been built to give life to a technology that no one knows exactly what it will be like in the future. Or if it’s even a bubble. The innards of an HDD. And that HDDs are running out is logical for two reasons. The first is because, just like the SSD and memory industry is dominated by three companies (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix), HDDs are commanded by three others (Toshiba, Western Digital and Seagate). All three have begun a conversion to new technologies to create denser disks, which implies moving money from the “old” factories to the new processes. But it also means that if they have a certain production capacity, scaling up to create more isn’t as easy as clicking a button. Not so immediate either. The second reason is that there are HDDs that have a NAND drive inside as cache memory. That is to say: if there is a shortage of flash memory, there is a shortage for everything, and the companies that manufacture HDDs also experience the delays and price increases in the industry. Second youth. What is undeniable is that HDD manufacturers are doing well in this situation in terms of income. We told it a few months agowhen at the end of January it was already seen that the shares of Seagate and Western Digital were beginning to skyrocket by 148.38% and 156.09% respectively. The thing is that they have not stopped increasing since then because, although memory and SSDs are crucial in data centers, HDDs also have a lot to say. The price per GB makes the cost per capacity extremely attractive, and the AI ​​generates a lot of information that must be saved and for which a very high transfer speed is not needed. Also for the information you consume during training. That has to be stored somewhere, and HDDs are the best option. NAS. And you will tell me: and that doesn’t matter to me, as a user. And it’s a great question because yes: that 20 or 30 TB HDDs become more expensive may not matter to you if until now you thought of this component as the storage of a PC, but…and if you want to set up a NAS? A trend in recent months is to escape subscriptions. There are too many and increasingly expensive, and for everything, and a NAS is a great alternative. Basically, it is a PC with a huge storage capacity with which you can build a private cloud. Do your photos Google Photos? To the NAS. Your private Netflix digitizing your DVDs and Blu-Ray? To the NAS. ¿Your private Spotify ripping your CDs and vinyls? To the NAS. And all this accessible at any time, without paying subscriptions and without problems with data leaks. But of course, to have a private cloud it is necessary to have teras and teras of storage, and that is where those more “professional” hard drives can become impossible not only because of price, but because, at some point, they will no longer exist. Don’t let what we already have be broken. And the worst thing is that there is only one solution: go through the price hoop, unless you entrust yourself to what you believe in so that your PC, laptop or Steam Deck does not break (whichEU is also having supply problems due to the RAM memory crisis). As I said before, it is going great for companies because they are selling everything, but for users, although we assume a much smaller percentage of income, this situation has overwhelmed us like a freight train. If at least the train was loaded with RAM tablets and we could get some, it wouldn’t be bad. Images | Western Digital, Xataka In Xataka … Read more

now remains the most difficult

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Spanish science has once again demonstrated the great talent we have in our country and of which we should feel proud. One of the most recognized names is undoubtedly Mariano Barbacid, who joins his team has achieved something unprecedented until now: leave no trace of the pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomaone of those with the worst prognosis. But there are nuances to take into account. A resistant cancer. If there is something that is feared in medicine, it is the diagnosis of a cancer that affects the pancreas due to its great mortality because it is difficult to diagnose it early and especially because of its resistance to treatments. Therefore, when the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) publish in PNAS who has managed to eliminate these tumors in micethe scientific world turns its head. The team led by Mariano Barbacid has achieved what is technically called a “complete and long-lasting regression.” Or in plain words: they have cured the mice. But before you throw the bells in the air, you have to read the fine print of biology: this is a preclinical milestone, not a ready-made therapy for humans. A triple therapy. Until now, attacking pancreatic cancer was like trying to stop a car by cutting a single cable, since the tumor had alternative routes available to evade treatment and continue developing. But now Mariano Barbacid’s team has focused on cutting all possible routes. To do this, they have created a therapy aimed at simultaneously attacking three critical points of the tumor. Technically, they have used three drugs to inhibit its growth pathway, such as KRASthe escape route in the EGFR protein and also the ‘shield’ it had by eliminating the STAT3 protein which is key for tumor resistance. The result. By combining the three, they were able to eliminate tumors in mouse models, including PDX models, which are mice implanted with tumor tissue from human patients. The most surprising thing is the durability: more than 200 days without a trace of the disease after completing the treatment, and without apparent toxicity. It won’t be ready for tomorrow. When this news emerges, the emotion is evident in different fields of science and also in society in general, since we are talking about a cancer that has destroyed many families. But the reality is that science does not move as fast as we would like and this treatment It still has a long way to go until it reaches the oncology units of hospitals. If everything goes well. Your main barrier. There are three fundamental barriers that explain why a clinical trial could take around three years to start for this triple therapy. The main one is that of the three components that are used in this cocktail, only one, which is afatinibis approved and marketed. And this is a serious problem. RMC-6236 It is the other drug that is currently in a clinical trial to test its safety and effectiveness. But the case of SD36, one of the most important drugs, is even more incipient since right now it is not approved by any regulatory agency. This reminds us that turning an experimental compound into a safe pill for humans takes time and a lot of regulatory bureaucracy. The problem of toxicity. But beyond this, we must keep in mind that a mouse and a human have many differences in their organism. This makes what a mouse tolerates, a human sometimes cannot. In this way, the real effect on humans of this triple therapy and the toxicity it presents remains to be seen, although the good result in mice opens a door to hope and the need to continue betting on science and Spanish talent. The shadow of resistance. Carmen Guerra, CNIO researcher and co-author of the study, has put her finger on the problem: have already identified mutations that confer resistance to this triple therapy. This means that even if it works in humans, it is likely not a definitive solution for all patients. And pancreatic cancer in colloquial terms has a lot of bad milk This makes it truly heterogeneous, so even if a treatment works for one patient, it is not the same for others. A Spanish milestone. Despite all these nuances that are necessary to come down to earth, what the CNIO team has achieved is extraordinary and reminds us how important it is to commit to science. made in Spain with greater financing. The fact that pancreatic cancer is a veritable graveyard of drugs that work in the laboratory and fail in the hospital gives a lot of weight to achieving a complete reversal in animal models. Patience. What are we waiting for now? You have to be patient. Science advances step by step, with a large amount of bureaucracy behind it that puts an extra brake on it. In this way, now it is time to seek funding, wait for the experimental drugs to reach their own regulations and design a clinical trial to demonstrate whether this miracle in animals is also developed in humans and without intolerable side effects. In short, it is a big step, yes. But the goal is still far away. Images | Louis Reed RTVE In Xataka | The most unexpected treatment against cancer is LED light, and it is giving good results

There is someone who is clear that China has a very difficult time overtaking the US in the AI ​​race: the Chinese themselves.

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China or the US, who will win? the AI ​​race? The US seemed unattainable, but after the launch of DeepSeek a year ago, China became almost at par. Since then, the possibility of China winning the race became very real. Great figures of American AI Several Chinese AI companies have already warned about this situation they are doing very well on the stock market. Despite everything, there are those in China who do not see it at all clearly. Low chances. They count in Bloomberg that Chinese companies have less than 20% probability of being able to advance the OpenAI or Anthropic models in the next 3 or 5 years. Justin Lin, technology manager of the Qwen modelsduring Justin Lin, technology manager of the Qwen models from Alibaba. To the limit. The event was also attended by Tang Jie, founder of Ziphu AI, one of China’s ‘AI tigers’ that last week it had a spectacular IPOincreasing the value of its shares by 36%. Its founder pointed out a somewhat uncomfortable fact for the Chinese AI ecosystem: while companies like OpenAI dedicate “a large part of their computational capacity to next-generation research, we are at the limit of our possibilities. Just meeting delivery demand consumes most of our resources.” In other words: the restrictions on the latest technology are working. The gap is widening. As we said, the launch of DeepSeek R1 a year ago unleashed a wave of optimism among Chinese companies. Since then, a few have launched new LLMs such as Alibaba with Qwen, Ziphu AI or Minimax. However, Tang notes that “some may feel excited, thinking that Chinese models have overtaken American ones, but the real answer is that the gap may be widening.” Restrictions. Speakers blamed the situation on a lack of resources caused by US blockades, especially AI chips and lithography machines. Their chips are not that powerful, so, as Tang says, all their computing power goes into serving their customers. This greatly limits them when it comes to continuing to scale their models. Shunyu Yao, former OpenAI and current chief scientist at Tencentis committed to focusing on solving bottlenecks such as long-term memory and promoting self-learning of future models. Independence. From the government is promoting technological self-sufficiencyprioritizing the use of national chips over American alternatives. The reality is that without access to the most advanced lithography machines, China is lagging far behind. One fact: Huawei and SMIC are ‘tuning’ old ASML machines and making authentic viguerías that have allowed them to obtain chips of 7 and up to 5nm. It’s a technical feat, but its chips are still several years behind the competition. The aces of China. It is clear that China is lagging behind in chips, but there are other areas in which it has an advantage that can be decisive, one of them being electricity. While The Chinese government subsidizes and bets heavily on renewablesin the US electricity has become a bottleneck for its increasingly numerous data centers. Another critical point is that The US has cut funding for academic researchwhile China has done so national priority. And that’s not to mention that they might lose the AI ​​race, but China is winning almost everything else: batteries, robotics, electric cars and especially renewables. Image | Gemini In Xataka | The US believed it had dealt a mortal blow to China when it deprived it of NVIDIA. He only accelerated one plan: ‘Delete America’

The bridge with the largest steel span has completed its most difficult challenge. And it’s in China, of course.

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There is not a month that does not release one mega constructionand in that area, China leads with an iron fist. Both due to the magnitude of his works, the technique used or the land they save with the structurethe Asian giant has become an example of perseverance when it comes to creating, above all, infrastructure that connects all its regions. After the highest bridge in the world, in the province of Chongqing, they are involved with another record-breaking bridge. One with the largest steel span in the world. Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge. As is often the case with these works, something that stands out as much as its magnitude is the construction time. In just three years, they have up a bridge in an extremely complex area. It clears two cliffs and the causeway will be 310 meters above the water surface. But more than because of the terrain, if it is news for something, it is because of the opening, that space between two columns. The total length of the bridge will be 1,136 meters when it is finished and the span is almost half of it: 580 meters that are suspended leaning on an arch-shaped structure made of steel. The height The arch in its central part is 116 meters and both the photos and videos show the complex lattice-type structure. Precision. More than a whim, it is necessary if you want to bridge that distance while looking for a bridge that can withstand both the weight and the possible tremors that are frequent in the region. To build the structure, engineers turned to BIM methodology (either Building Information Modeling) that simulates by computer all the processes of both the construction of the structure and its future maintenance. This is common, but essential in this lattice structure where many embedded components require an accuracy of less than a millimeter of deviation. On November 28, the team complete the union of each of the pieces weighing more than 300 tons that form that great puzzle of the lattice span, and now it remains to create the road that will consolidate the union between regions. Necessary. Because the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge is not simply a feat of engineering: it is a catalyst for something China is aggressively pursuing. The country wants to carry out an economic and social transformation of the most challenging regions of its geography, and the Chongqing region falls into those plans as it has a large number of mountain ranges that have traditionally challenged communication with large centers. When completed, the bridge will be part of the Wu-Liang Expressway that will link the urban center of Chongqing with the Wulong district in approximately one hour, when with the current detour it takes approximately three hours, having to do a mountain route. And it is just one piece of a much more ambitious plan, which includes 52 construction projects, more than 1,200 kilometers of highways and a total investment of 155 billion yuan, about 19 billion euros. Megathings = tourism. Thus, the bridge will seek to become an element that will facilitate the flow of goods between the regions, but also of people with the objective of promoting tourism. Currently, in Wulong About 350,000 people live there and it has traditionally been a poor area due to the soil not being the best for farming and its natural isolation. However, since 1994, tourism has transformed it, especially since the Karst Geology National Park out including on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2007. Now, Wulong aspire to become a global tourist destination, and this improvement in infrastructure seems key to achieving that goal. Furthermore, it is no longer just that China’s megaconstructions facilitate mobility: The buildings themselves are designed with the aspiration that they become points of interest. An example is Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridgean immense construction 625 meters above the level of the river that is used to cross from one side to the other, but It has a cafeteria and some adventure activities. Another is the Three Gorges Damwhich can not only move the axis of rotation of the Earthbut it also has a museum that documents the construction, an example of how the dam itself works and multiple observation points. Images | Xinhua Sci-Tech In Xataka | Young tourists from China have begun to visit random places en masse. There is an explanation: Xiaohongshu

Boeing wanted to get back on track with Starliner after its most difficult year. The contract with NASA just changed in a key point

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For years, Starliner was presented as Boeing’s opportunity to aspire to a leading role in American manned flights, in a scenario in which SpaceX I moved faster with Dragon. The contract signed with NASA in 2014 It represented that opportunity: six manned flights and an open door to a new cycle of missions. Eleven years later, the situation is different. That agreement has been adjusted and the next mission has become an exam without people on board. That agreement placed Starliner within the program with which the US space agency sought to guarantee two different US vehicles to the International Space Station. The idea was clear: have more than one capsule capable of transporting astronauts, long-term planning and autonomy in low orbit. That document established that, once the ship was certified, Boeing would operate six manned flights for regular rotations. All this with an eye on the station’s deadline, scheduled for 2030. A shortened contract, by mutual agreement. NASA and Boeing have decided to modify the conditions of the original agreement and reduce the number of guaranteed flights. Instead of the six manned missions planned after certification, the new scenario includes a mission without astronauts, intended to validate the system, and up to three crew rotations. In addition, there are two optional flights that NASA can activate depending on its mission needs. This review also reduces the value of the contract, which goes from $4.5 billion to $3.732 million, after deducting $768 million. Starliner-1 changes roles. This mission without astronauts has a name: Starliner-1, and it has become a key piece of the system validation plan. NASA will use it to send cargo to the International Space Station and verify, in real conditions, that the changes introduced after the manned flight in 2024 offer sufficient guarantees. The target date remains no earlier than April 2026, provided the spacecraft successfully completes testing, certification and pre-launch preparation. A history of setbacks: The first warning came with flight OFT-1 in December 2019, when some problems prevented for Starliner to complete the planned profile and approach the International Space Station. The mission had to be terminated early. In 2022, the OFT-2 flight managed to reach the station, but problems appeared in several thrusters. Two years later, during the first manned flight, several thrusters failed again on approachwhich led NASA to order the return of the ship without the astronauts. NASA and Boeing engineers inspect the Starliner spacecraft after landing in White Sands, New Mexico, during the OFT-2 orbital test in May 2022 When NASA decided that Starliner would not bring Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back, they both extended their stay on the International Space Station much longer than planned. In total it was nine months, until the agency scheduled a Dragon flight with two fewer astronauts than usual to have enough space. That landing, in March 2025, allowed the return to be completed and confirmed that the evaluation process on Starliner was still open after the 2024 manned flight. Meanwhile, Dragon. In parallel, Dragon began operating with astronauts in 2020 and was progressively incorporated into NASA’s regular planning. Since then, the SpaceX capsule has covered the planned rotations within the Commercial Crew Program, becoming the vehicle regularly used to access the International Space Station. In August 2025, the Crew-11 mission was completed, and Crew-12 is scheduled for February 2026. NASA has booked additional flights with Dragon until the station’s operational end, scheduled for 2030. Less flights, less income, more pressure. The contract modification also means a change in Boeing’s position within the program. The reduction of the total value to 3,732 million dollars implies 768 million dollars less compared to the original figure, with fewer guaranteed flights and a greater weight of optional missions. According to Reutersthe company has invested more than $2 billion since 2016 in this development, which adds relevance to Starliner’s performance in upcoming flights. Despite this, Boeing says it remains committed to the program. Redundancy against the clock. For NASA, Starliner remains relevant because the agency wants two independent systems that can transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Steve Stich, head of the Commercial Crew Program, summed it up by pointing out that the plan involves certifying the ship in 2026, scheduling its first manned rotation when it is ready and coordinating future flights according to the operational needs of the station, which will remain active until 2030. Maintaining this double capacity is key so that the agency does not depend exclusively on a single vehicle. What happens from now on will depend on the outcome of the next flights. If the system manages to be certified in 2026, Starliner can still participate in up to three crewed rotations, with two additional options subject to NASA decision. Boeing maintains its commitment and suggests that the ship could have a place in commercial projects after the end of the International Space Station, although these scenarios are yet to be defined. The opportunity has not disappeared, but it no longer looks as much like the one signed in 2014. Images | NASA (1, 2) | Boeing In Xataka | Starship’s great hope has gotten off to a bad start: a new and painful explosion

Renewable gasoline and diesel are the last bastion of combustion cars to be able to circulate in Europe: they have a difficult time

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Whether for lack of infrastructure, strict regulationsocial perception, or by many other factors, electrification is a process that is advancingbut very slowly. Meanwhile, more than 20 million diesel and gasoline vehicles continue to circulate in Spain, many of them more than a decade old (or two). However, there are solutions that try to make this energy transition more bearable, and one of them involves the use of renewable fuels. What exactly are these fuels?. They don’t have a single drop of oil. They are produced from organic waste such as used cooking oils, animal fats, forest waste or crop remains. The catalytic hydrogen generation process transforms these wastes into fuels with properties similar to those derived from petroleum, but with a key difference: the CO₂ they emit when burned is the same as that which plants have previously absorbed from the atmosphere. Here we would therefore speak of a closed cycle, unlike fossil fuels, which release carbon stored underground for millions of years. Emissions. Repsol states that its Nexa diesel can reduce net CO₂ emissions by up to 90% compared to conventional diesel, while your Efitec Nexa gasoline discount more than 70%. In this case, although the engine continues to emit CO₂, it was already in the atmosphere before being converted into fuel. However, there is a nuance: nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) continue to be generated during combustion, because they come from nitrogen in the air when exposed to high temperatures. And for now, studies show conflicting results, with some indicating slight increases in NOₓ with certain biofuels, while others like the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory they conclude that renewable diesel reduces both CO₂ and NOₓ. What is consistent is the reduction of particles and soot. Full compatibility with current cars. This is probably its biggest practical advantage. Any diesel or gasoline vehicle can use these fuels without technical modifications. There is no need to change the engine, adapt the tank, or install new pumps at gas stations. In the case of Repsol, its Nexa diesel also complies with the European standard EN 15940 for paraffinic fuels, and Efitec Nexa gasoline with EN-228. In addition, the company ensures that, thanks to its high cetane number, it improves combustion, reduces engine noise and has a cleaning effect on the injection system. Where to find them in Spain. Repsol clearly leads the deployment, with more than 1,000 stations that offer Nexa diesel and with the goal of reaching 30 stations with Efitec Nexa gasoline by the end of the year. BP too offers HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) in strategic locations such as Tafalla, Getafe, Villacastín Norte or Olaberria, although its network is more limited and is oriented towards professional transport. To locate them, the most practical thing is use web search engines of each company, since they include filters to find gas stations that offer renewable fuels. It is worth remembering that the conventional diesel sold at practically all gas stations in Spain already contains up to 7% biodiesel (B7 label), but it is not comparable to a 100% renewable fuel if we stick to emissions. Cost and availability. Price is one of the main obstacles. Nexa diesel costs approx. 10 cents more per liter than conventional diesel, placing it in the range of premium fuels. Renewable gasoline follows a similar trend. Furthermore, although Repsol has expanded its network, coverage remains limited outside large urban centers and main corridors, especially in terms of renewable gasoline. Industrial production. Repsol produces renewable diesel in its Cartagena refinery and 100% renewable gasoline at the Tarragona plant. The company assures that it has been researching these processes for more than twenty years in collaboration with Honeywell. In 2026, the opening of a new facility in Puertollano with capacity for more than 200,000 tons per year is planned. Who is using them already?. In addition to the fact that anyone can now go to a Repsol gas station to try these fuels, their use has transcended commercial vehicles. And they have been tested in competitions like the Dakar Rallyand even sustainable fuels are used on commercial flights. Also transport companies such as Scania, Alsa or Grupo Sesé have signed agreements for adoption. An intermediate solution. The current European regulations The CO2 emissions test for new vehicles measures emissions from the tailpipe. With this approach, the result is zero for an electric car, but not for one that uses renewable fuel, even if it is carbon neutral in its entire life cycle (from production to consumption). It is for this reason that the industry and defenders of these fuels are asking for a change in the methodology so that the complete life cycle of the fuel is considered. Repsol and other players in the sector They ask for adapted taxation and long-term objectives that provide stability to investments. The Spanish mobile fleet has an average age of 14.5 years and it has more than eight million vehicles that are more than two decades old, according to data from ANFAC (Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers). Therefore, renewable fuels could be an intermediate alternative in this stage of energy transition, especially since they do not leave millions of drivers behind. Cover image | engin akyurt In Xataka | In 2001, Renault launched a car ahead of its time: it was a miserable failure that now has another chance

depends on something more difficult to replace

by

Europe has just learned an uncomfortable lesson. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union moved at unprecedented speed to cut the umbilical cord of Russian gas. He succeeded—more or less, because It has been a story in fits and starts– with REPowerEU: new infrastructures, supplier diversification and painful but effective adjustments. The metals are coming. However, in the background, a deeper vulnerability that is difficult to reverse has been consolidated. As Richard Holtum, director of Trafigura, warned, in his column for the Financial Times“Europe has stopped being dependent on Russian gas and has become vulnerable in something even more structural: its metal supply chains.” And that, according to himself, has a very simple and very serious consequence: “Without critical metals there are no semiconductors, no renewable energy, no military equipment, no artificial intelligence.” The continent has emerged from a trap to enter a labyrinth. The labyrinth of critical metals. The root of the problem is twofold: an overwhelming dependence on foreign countries and a silent erosion of European industrial capacity to produce and transform the minerals that sustain the modern economy. Holtum sums it up with a devastating fact: Europe has not built a single new refining complex since the 1990s, and in the last decade it has closed or cut about a third of its existing ones. Meanwhile, China deployed a deliberate strategy to absorb global refining capacity, the key link in the chain. Today controls between 70% and 90% of global processing of many essential metals. The figures confirm it. A European meta-analysis, published in Springer Naturereveals that the EU does not produce any of the gallium, germanium, vanadium or rare earths that it consumes; only residual percentages of lithium (0.1%), cobalt (0.5%), nickel (1%) or natural graphite. The same study concludes that the community objective of covering 10% of its needs for critical raw materials by 2030 is simply “unrealistic” for most metals. Europe depends almost entirely on others to access the materials that make it possible to manufacture everything from batteries to advanced weapons. Added to this structural weakness is a problem of scale: demand will multiply between six and fifteen times between now and 2050 due to the electrification of transport, the massive deployment of renewables and accelerated digitalization. The Union needs more metals than ever just when it has the least capacity to produce or refine them. A strategic industry that is reeling. The impact is already visible. According to Euronewsthe European steel industry speaks openly of “survival” in the face of the flood of heavily subsidized Chinese steel and punitive American tariffs. The chemical industry, another historical pillar of the European industrial fabric, is going through even more severe deterioration: closed plants, evaporated investments and a growing consensus among analysts that “deindustrialization is no longer a risk: it is a reality.” The irony is bitter. The EU wants to electrify everything, but it does not control the minimum materials for that electrification. Wind turbines contain more than 8,000 parts, many containing critical metals; solar panels generate increasing amounts of waste whose recycling is still in its infancy; 85% of a turbine can be recycled, but almost no one does. What should be the European passport to energy autonomy becomes a bottleneck that threatens to stop factories, delay infrastructure and undermine the green transition. China, from supplier to industrial minotaur. Friction with China is no longer just commercial: it is structural. Beijing has tightened its export controls on critical metals in the last year. According to the World Economic Forum, Recent restrictions on rare earths, gallium, germanium and antimony have raised prices, forced European plants to shut down and generated a climate of permanent uncertainty for entire industries. can be explained with a recent example: To obtain import licenses, German companies must provide the Chinese government with extremely detailed information: manufacturing diagrams, photographs indicating where rare earths are located in a product, customer lists, inventory volumes, production data for the last three years and future forecasts. Meanwhile, the German government acknowledges that it does not even have that level of detail about its own companies. The paradox is evident: China knows more about the German industrial anatomy than the German state itself. That asymmetry fuels a form of surgical coercion: delaying a critical license here, slowing a key flow there, straining bilateral negotiations, pushing through rotating checks every six months. The underlying message is clear: whoever depends, obeys, or better known as “Second China Shock”. A response that arrives late. The European reaction is underway, although many recognize that it is late. According to the European CommissionBefore the end of the year, Brussels will present the new RESourceEU plan, aimed at guaranteeing supply, creating strategic reserves, strengthening agreements with third countries and boosting mining and refining within the EU. To this will be added the creation of a European Center for Critical Raw Materials, in charge of coordinating joint purchases, monitoring risks and acting as a nerve center for industrial intelligence. The Commission’s work program for 2026, under the motto “Europe’s Independence Moment”also places access to raw materials at the heart of its sovereignty strategy. Along with strengthening defense capabilities, protecting critical infrastructure and promoting innovation, Brussels admits for the first time that without stable access to essential minerals no industrial autonomy project is viable. The return of stockpiling. One of the most relevant developments is the debate on strategic reserves. According to a Financial Times reportthe EU will launch a consultation to decide which metals to store, how much to buy and how to finance it. It is a profound change: Europe has had oil reserves for decades, but has never considered storing critical minerals. However, an obvious problem arises. Some materials—such as lithium hydroxide, recalls Fastmarkets—have a useful life of just six months even when stored correctly. Others, such as certain metal oxides, require very specific humidity and temperature conditions. And in the case of metals such as gallium or germanium, buying massively would imply acquiring them from China. … Read more

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