fossil

Looking to reduce fossil fuels in transportation, Hyundai has the solution: a nuclear container ship

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About 80% of world trade is moves by sea. Although it may seem like slower transportation, something key to maintaining prices is moving a large amount of material on each trip, something that is out of the reach of trucks, trains and planes. There, the huge container ships They lead the way with the associated problem of enormous spending on fossil fuels. The industry is looking for alternatives to operate no carbon emissions and Hyundai has a clear path. A nuclear container ship. Pioneer. HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering is the naval branch of the company and, in 2025, they presented a model of container ship nuclear seeking to eliminate emissions of a large ship with electric propulsion powered by a small nuclear reactor. The reactor type would be an SMR with thorium-based fuel and liquid salt as a coolant. After months working on the plan, this 2026 HD and ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) they arrived to an agreement to jointly develop the vessel. This is something that is in the design and subsequent prototype phase, but the agreement between the two lays the foundations for the development of a ship that is expected to be the first nuclear container ship. 16,000 TEU class. The class of a container ship is measured by the TEU, or Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit. Basically, x number of 20-foot-long containers, 16,000 containers at a time in the case of the Hyundai ship. It is far from the 20,000 and 25,000 TEU vesselsbut it will be a step forward in the maritime mobility of the future. Furthermore, the ship will not need to be as massive as others thanks, precisely, to that nuclear propulsion. By replacing the conventional machinery of diesel engines, exhaust systems and huge fuel tanks with a nuclear compartment and electrical systems, there is free space to transport more containers while maintaining the ship’s compact size. Compact within what these monsters are. Armor. To guarantee radiological safety, what this ship must include is a double stainless steel tank shielding system designed to ensure that there are no radiation leaks to both the inhabited areas of the ship and the ocean. The liquid salt itself as a coolant will also act as a safety measure against reactors that require pressurized or boiling water. If SMR stands for ‘Small Modular Reactor‘, MSR respond to ‘Molten Salt Reactor’, and basically means that, in case of emergency, the salt mixture can solidify to stop the reaction, being another security measure. all the sense. For now, the Hyundai ship has received the approval of its partner – an advantage of being the body that is also in charge of these things – but it is a project. The next steps are development and prototype, so there is still no authorization for the construction of the ship. However, it makes perfect sense for container ships to switch to nuclear propulsion. It is something that we have already seen on large ships like aircraft carrier and submarinesand the main advantage (apart from reducing emissions) is that life on the high seas depends solely on how much food can be loaded on board. Obviously, the investment is more expensive initially because it is not cheap to change the mobility paradigm, but it would not be tied to fluctuations in the price of fuel for transportation, something that we have been seeing recurrently in recent years and that, obviously, changes the shipping price. Alternatives. Hyundai is not the only one in this race and its national competitor Samsung also has a project in the oven. China, or Norway, transport heavyweights, They also have concepts of container ships powered by nuclear reactors. In the end, the industry must move because the International Maritime Organization is regulating greenhouse emissions and demanded reductions of 20% by 2030 with the aim of achieving neutrality by 2050. A render of China’s nuclear container ship In that sense, maritime transport not only represents 80% of the transport of all goods, but is responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions of human origin. Now, nuclear electric motors are not the only way and recently we are seeing that the industry is exploring the path of battery electrification and even the return of a technology that seemed forgotten: the candles. Image | hyundai In Xataka | The West stopped building nuclear power plants because they were too expensive: China is teaching it a lesson

Chile has the lithium necessary to save the world from fossil fuels. The problem is that you are extracting it blindly

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The world desperately needs to move away from fossil fuels. To achieve this, electric vehicles and large renewable energy plants require a vital component for their batteries: lithium. This global emergency has set its eyes on one of the most inhospitable and fragile places on the planet, the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is home to about 25% of the world’s reserves of this mineral. But this “salvation” has a dark side. As deep research reveals published by MongabayChile is accelerating the blind exploitation of its salt flats. Under the institutional promise that this mineral will be the “new salary of Chile”—as It was defined by former president Gabriel Boric by promising wealth with strict environmental respect—the reality in the territory is diametrically opposite. The productive desire is crushing the socio-environmental knowledge that is required to avoid destroying the same nature that, ironically, the world is trying to save. The pact that seals the future. To capitalize on this demand, the Chilean State launched the National Lithium Strategy (ENL)seeking to consolidate the country as the undisputed leader of this market. In this context, an unprecedented mining agreement was forged. According to The Confusionthe state mining company Codelco and the private giant SQM sealed a historic pact to extract lithium in the Salar de Atacama until 2060 under a new joint venture: NovaAndino Lithium. With the aim of avoiding the local resistance that usually paralyzes these megaprojects, the agreement included an unprecedented governance model. This scheme promises the Atacama indigenous communities (the Lickanantay people) million dollars annually in profitsseats at dialogue tables and power of environmental oversight. A model that the industry celebrates as the standard for future “green mining”, but which in the territory has lit a fuse with unsuspected consequences. The disproportion of 33 to 1. Promises of environmental balance crumble when looking at the fiscal wallet. The figures are devastating: for every peso that the Chilean State invests to protect the fragile ecosystems of the salt flats, it allocates 33 to promoting productivity and mining technology. Through the Production Promotion Corporation (CORFO), the State has injected more than 166 million dollars in technological development for the industry. In dramatic contrast, the scientific investment to understand the impact of lithium on water, microorganisms and threatened species – such as Andean flamingos – is barely close to 5 million dollars. Yovisibility territorial. Added to this institutional blindness is territorial invisibility. As the media explains South Slope when documenting the scientific project LiOness Ringthe public eye has become obsessed with evaporation pools, ignoring the off-sites: the areas outside the salt flats. Transportation routes, port terminals and transit communities silently absorb equal or worse impacts under “the excuse of green development,” researchers warn. For the National History Prize winner, Lautaro Núñez, cited by the same media, the key is being lost in the debate: “The salt flats are Chile’s heritage.” Thirst in the desert. As millions flow into technology, the ecosystem depletes. Extracting lithium requires pumping and evaporating enormous amounts of ancient water. As detailed The Confusioncurrent operations consume up to 12,500 liters of industrial water for every ton of lithium, causing the salt flat to sink up to two centimeters per year. Faced with this threat, the injection of money has caused the greatest historical fracture of the Lickanantay people. The communities went from blocking routes in January 2024 to fighting each other for the millionaire loot, which could reach up to 150 million dollars annually for the region, according to data from the Chilean government. Social fracture. Rudecindo Espíndola, local farmer cited by The Confusionassures that participating in this agreement is a form of “participation justice” because, after 12,000 years of inhabiting the territory, they will finally have physical access to the plants to supervise the mining companies. However, others see the destruction of their social fabric. Sergio Cubillos, president of the Peine community, recognize the same publication that “the fact that today communities receive money is what has led to this division.” Sonia Ramos, a respected 83-year-old healer, is even more blunt. in his interview with Climate Home News: “We are land and water (…) but today there is fragmentation. Everything has become unbalanced.” For her, the mining megapact does not bring progress, but “death, the total destruction of the Salar.” So what’s going to happen? Seeking to justify its expansion until 2060, NovaAndino has promised to stop using fresh water and reinject at least 30% of the brine into the subsoil through new extraction technologies. However, this promise is being viewed with great skepticism. As microbiologist Cristina Dorador warnsthese reinjection technologies are not proven on a large scale and could alter the chemical composition of the desert. Continuing pumping until 2060, he says, could be the “coup de grace” for this vital ecosystem. The State as a facilitator, not as a protector. Politically, the course seems unchanged. The recently inaugurated far-right president, José Antonio Kast, has already promised to respect the contracts signed by the previous administration. The machinery will continue to operate. In statements to MongabayHernán Cáceres, director of the National Institute of Lithium and Salt Flats (INLiSa), justified the low state budget in environmental areas by arguing that this money is actually an “enabling expense.” That is, the State finances ecological studies and dialogue tables not necessarily to stop the impact, but to “pave the way” for mining companies, reducing the risks of social conflict and guaranteeing that companies can operate without resistance from indigenous peoples. Blindfold. While technological investments advance at record speed, legal protection, such as the recent creation of the Network of Protected Salt Flats, moves at a slow pace, trapped in bureaucracy and lack of funds. The history of lithium in Chile encapsulates the great contradiction of our time. In the quest to clean the air in the metropolises of the northern hemisphere, one of the oldest and most biodiverse corners of the global south is being squeezed and fractured. As the research concludes, the country today faces a monumental challenge: … Read more

We thought that human beings began to walk in Africa. This 7.2 million-year-old fossil says otherwise

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The scientific consensus has been telling us for decades that the cradle of humanity and the origin of our ancestors who began to walk on two legs was in Africa. However, a new paleontological discovery in the Balkans just launched an order to this official story. More specifically, a fossilized femur that suggests our earliest ancestors may have started walking on two legs in Europe. A bone. The centerpiece of this discovery is a femur cataloged as FM3549AZM6 and found at the Azmaka site, in Bulgaria. From this, the research team began to analyze the bone down to the millimeter, highlighting above all the anatomy it had. Researchers here have identified key biomechanical traits that point to partial bipedal locomotion, meaning that our ancestor could walk on two legs. Specifically, they have seen that the neck of the femur is unusually long and it has specific muscle insertion points that strictly arboreal primates do not have. These characteristics suggest that Graecopithecus He spent considerable time walking upright on the ground. A new hypothesis. This finding does not come out of nowhere, since in 2017 this same team of researchers already raised eyebrows in the scientific community by suggesting that the evolutionary divergence between humans and chimpanzees could have occurred in the eastern Mediterranean, and not in Africa. That hypothesis was based on analysis of a jaw found in Greece and a tooth from Bulgaria attributed to Graecopithecus freybergi. Now it comes to light again. At that time, definitive proof of locomotion was missing, but Azmaka’s femur fills that gap that we needed to begin to reach clear conclusions. Why did they stand up? Evolution rarely occurs without a strong environmental push, and the Europe of 7 million years ago looked nothing like it does today. Here investigations at Bulgarian sites, such as the Struma Valley, show that the landscape was dominated by a savanna environment very similar to the African one, caused by a global confrontation and severe droughts in the Mediterranean. This loss of dense forests would have forced the region’s primates to come down from the trees and adapt their movement to travel long distances in open fields in search of food. In this way, it was geography and not the continent that forced bipedalism. The debate. The new Bulgarian femur revives one of the hottest debates in paleontology, since until now, the title of the oldest bipedal hominin was held by Sahelanthropus tchadensisabout 7 million years old and found in Africa. But now, if this team’s dating and analysis are accurate, Graecopithecus would not only equal, but slightly surpass in seniority Sahelanthropusmoving the “kilometer zero” of bipedalism to the Balkans. But at the moment it is too early for the textbooks to change definitively, since, as with previous discoveries, the scientific community will demand more independent analyzes and will seek to debate every notch of the femur. What is undeniable is that the African monopoly on the origin of our lineage now has a serious European competitor. In Xataka | Humans are evolving live on the Tibetan plateau. And understanding what happens there will be essential in space

How Trump’s threat is the bitterest reminder of our fossil dependence

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The spark that set the White House on fire was Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to participate in the offensive against Tehran, under a speech that evokes the popular sentiment of 2003: “No to war.” Sánchez defends that Spain’s position is consistent with its actions in Ukraine or Gaza, seeking to avoid a spiral of global violence. However, Trump’s anger was not born yesterday. According to official documentsSpain had been discreetly blocking the transit and export of weapons to Israel for months, denying ship stops and vetoing dozens of military operations. Added to this is Trump’s historic reproach for Defense spending: the American president demands 5% of GDP, while Spain barely exceeds 2%. Trump’s response has been withering, mentioning for the first time the word “embargo”, a tool that the US usually reserves for “enemies” like North Korea or Venezuela, not for NATO allies. A life preserver that can sink. The threat of cutting trade ties is not a minor issue. In January 2026, the United States consolidated itself as the leading supplier of natural gas to Spain, accounting for a historic 44.4% of the total imported (15,259 GWh), far surpassing Algeria, how to collect Europa Press. Spain has spent a decade reinforcing its energy dependence on the US market to replace Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine. In 2025, the US supplied 30% of our gas and 15% of our oil. Strategic companies like Naturgy have critical exposure, with 40% of their LNG contracts linked to plants in Texas and Louisiana, according to The Independent. If Trump turns off the tap, Spain loses its main gas resource. The collapse of the Gulf, can we look the other way? Faced with the American threat, the Spanish Government is trying to send a message of calm. Minister Sara Aagesen maintains that the supply is “broadly diversified” and that only 2% of our gas transits through the conflictive Strait of Hormuz. Spain has seven regasification plants, which allows us to bring ships from almost anywhere in the world. However, optimism collides with a suffocating global reality. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes, is experiencing a technical closure due to war tension. QatarEnergy declared for the first time “Force Majeure” after suffering attacks on its LNG plants. This creates a domino effect: if Asia loses gas from Qatar, it will compete fiercely against Europe for the few ships available from the US or the African continent. As the expert Ignacio Urbasos explains in it The Countrythe market is interconnected; Although the gas does not pass through Hormuz, the price we will pay is decided there. 12 euros more per month. The impact of this perfect storm already has figures. According to the calculations of the Roams platform, The gas bill in Spain could increase by up to 18% and the electricity bill by 17%. An average household would go from paying about 50 euros for gas to almost 60, while the electricity bill could rise by about 12 euros per month, as he also explains The Newspaper. Natural gas in the Netherlands TTF market has already been triggered almost 80% in just two days. Furthermore, gasoline is not far behind: experts predict increases of up to 8% at the pump, placing a liter of gasoline above 1.58 euros. This is not just energy; It’s inflation. The European Central Bank warns that a prolonged conflict could bring inflation in Spain to 3%, forcing interest rates to remain high for longer, directly affecting variable mortgages. The dilemma of the “energy island”. The point is that Spain has plenty of regasification infrastructure to help Europe, but it lacks interconnections (pipes to France) to pump that gas to the heart of the continent. Furthermore, our gas reserves they are at 59%a figure notably lower than 72% last year, because companies did not fill warehouses waiting for lower prices that never arrived. The only consensus between analysts and the Government is that this crisis accelerates a lesson learned hard: the vulnerability of depending on foreign fossil fuels. As Alison Candlin points outof the think tank Ember, until we complete the shift to a renewable-based system, we will always be hostage to these price shocks. In Spain, the effort to scale wind and solar power has already reduced the influence of expensive gas on the price of electricity by 75% in the last six years, but the road ahead is still long and, now, is full of diplomatic mines. Image | Hannes Grobe Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

Europe produces more clean electricity than fossil electricity for the first time. The hard part starts now

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For years, the European energy transition advanced without completely displacing fossil fuels. Last year marked that turning point. According to the report European Electricity Review 2026wind and solar generated 30% of EU electricity in 2025, surpassing coal, gas and oil combined for the first time, which fell to 29%. As Dr. Petrovich explains by Emberwe are facing record growth. It is not normal to go from a 20% to 30% quota in just five years, but the numbers are there. The energy map is changing: there are now 14 EU countries where wind and sun generate more than gas or coal. In this scenario, Spain, Greece or Hungary already play in the league of solar powers. Beyond statistics. The milestone does not imply that Europe has left fossil fuels behind or that gas has disappeared from the system, but rather that it changes the hierarchy of the electricity mix. For the first time, variable renewable energies come to occupy the center of the electricity mix, while fossils are relegated to a technical and security support role. According to Emberrenewable energies as a whole contributed 48% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, practically half of the total, a figure that remained stable even in a year marked by adverse weather conditions, with less wind and less rain than usual. Coal, the most polluting fuel in the system, continues its withdrawal. In 2024 it fell to 9.2% of the European electricity mix, a historical minimum compared to the almost 25% it represented a decade ago. Gas, for its part, rose slightly compared to 2024, although it is still 18% below its 2019 maximum, confirming that its role in the system is increasingly residual. This rebalancing has consequences that range beyond the energy mix: Dependence on imported fossil fuels continues to be the main source of price instability and strategic vulnerability in Europe, even outside the climate debate. Five years that changed everything. The sorpasso – as it has begun to be called in the sector – is not the result of a mild winter or a stroke of meteorological luck. It is the consequence of sustained growth, especially in solar energy, during the last decade, accelerated very notably in the last five years. According to the reportsolar generation grew by 20.1%, this being the fourth consecutive year with increases of more than 20%, an unprecedented growth rate in European energy history. In absolute terms, solar reached 369 terawatt hours (TWh), more than double that of 2020, and the annual increase in 2025 alone is equivalent to the electrical production of three French nuclear reactors. A dizzying growth. This expansion responds mainly to the installed capacity. In 2025, 65.1 GW of new solar power was added in the EU, distributed almost equally between large plants and self-consumption on rooftops. All community countries increased their solar production, and in several of them—Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands—the sun already provides more than 20% of national electricity. As for wind power, although more affected by the weather conditions at the beginning of the year, it remains the second largest electricity source in the EU, with 17% of the total, above gas. The system, therefore, begins to rely structurally on variable renewables, something unthinkable just a decade ago. The reverse of success: when gas continues to set the price. Despite the historic advance of wind and solar, 2025 made it clear that gas continues to have a disproportionate weight in the European electricity system, especially in price formation. According to the think tank, gas-fired electricity generation increased by 8% in the EU, mainly to compensate for the drop in hydroelectric energy caused by the drought, and this greater use of gas raised the electricity sector’s import bill to 32 billion euros, 16% more than the previous year. The impact was especially visible in the electricity markets. Ember detects that price spikes They are concentrated in the hours with the highest gas use, while the hours with abundant solar and wind tend to make electricity cheaper. In 21 European countries, wholesale prices rose in 2025, driven almost exclusively by these fossil time slots. This is where the paradox of the current system: although gas no longer dominates by volume, it continues to set the marginal price of the market at critical moments. In other words, despite the oversupply, the price structure continues to be conditioned by fossil fuel when there is a lack of wind or sun. The new energy frontier. Ember’s report devote an entire chapter to what it considers the next big front of the transition: storage and system flexibility. Without these pieces, he warns, the sorpasso runs the risk of remaining a statistical victory. This was one of the large deficits of the European transition: investing massively in generation without doing so at the same pace in networks and storage. Batteries are now emerging as the piece that connects renewable success with stable prices and security of supply. Last year, the EU exceeded 10 GW of large-scale batteries in operation for the first time, more than double that of 2023. In addition, there is a portfolio of projects that could raise that figure above 40 GW if fully implemented. The first signs are already visible in countries like Italy, where batteries have begun to cover part of the demand during peak gas hours, reducing prices and displacing fossil generation. Physical bottlenecks: European infrastructure. It is not just a question of how much energy is generated, but where it enters and how it circulates within the continent. Europe has reduced its direct dependence of Russian gas, but continues to face physical limitations in terminals, transportation networks and cross-border connections. This substitution of Russian gas has been slowed by the slowness in the construction of critical facilities, such as regasification terminals and high-capacity networks, and by the insufficient interconnection between national electrical systems. This bottleneck explains why countries with abundant renewable production, like Spain, often cannot easily export that surplus, or why the European … Read more

Clean energy investment already bends fossil fuels

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There is an old narrative that states that the energy transition is a chimera, and that clean energies can barely be a complement to a system that will necessarily remain anchored in fossil fuels. But the data tell a very different story. We are living energy transformation faster in historyand money is the clearest proof of it. Short. World energy investment for all 2025 is estimated at 3.3 billion dollars. According to the International Energy Agency2.2 of those billion are destined for clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Two thirds of the investment. Just a decade ago, this proportion was unthinkable. It is invested in energies without emissions almost double what is invested in fossil fuelsa reality that shows that financial markets have chosen a clear side. The star king. The greater transformative force This transition is photovoltaic solar energy, with a global investment of 450,000 million dollars planned by 2025. This leadership is not accidental. Solar panels have gone from being the option for becoming the most economical way to generate electricity in much of the planet. Each dollar invested solar technology generates 2.5 times more energy that a decade ago. In 2015, the investment ratio between clean energy and fossil fuels was 2 to 1. in 2024, That relationship reached 10 to 1in large part thanks to the collapse of the prices of the photovoltaic components. An imminent sorpasso. The growing domain of renewables is not only reflected in investment, but also in their role in the Mix. In 2025, renewables They will overcome coal as the first source of electricity in the world. Coal will fall below 33% in the energy mix for the first time in a century, and renewables providing more than a third of the global generation. For now, it is not a homogeneous change. The bulk of the investment is concentrated in developed economies and in China, which in 2024 mobilized more than 625,000 million dollars in clean energy. Emerging markets and developing economies barely represent around 15% of world expenditure on clean energy. But the projection is global: starting from a very low base, the investment in these other regions has grown 50% since 2020. The beginning of the end for fossil fuels. The formula is simple: as the renewables become cheaper and more efficient, they move to fossil fuels. A few months ago, United Kingdom closed its last coal central. Its emissions have already fallen more than 50% compared to 1990. In 2025, for the first time, coal generated less than half of Poland’s electricity. Although the path to total decarbonization still has enormous challenges (such as the modernization of electrical networks, which remain a bottleneck, As we have seen clear in Spain), Renewables have reached a turning point, at least in the face of investors. The combination of solar, wind and battery storage is increasingly cheaper and reliable. The adoption, which was slow at the beginning, is now an exponential curve. Image | IEA (CC by 4.0) In Xataka | Forget the industrial revolution: the fastest energy change in human history is happening now

There is a place where renewables are gaining the game left over fossil fuels: patents

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Thanks to a new project of GLOBAL RENEWABLE Watch It can be observed The rise of renewable energiesspecifically, solar and wind. However, this considerable increase in clean sources has managed to displace fossil fuels, and much of this advance is due to technological patents. The initiative. An analysis of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has detailed How renewable energy patents have increased 4.5 times faster in the last two decades, surpassing fossil fuel -based patents in number. Global policies. This increase is observed in the growth of renewable capacity and the policies focused on the commitment to achieve the Carbon neutrality. According to the study, support with public policies and public and private financing have managed to reach 60,000 million dollars in large -scale technologies, but some of these projects face challenges such as inflation and political uncertainty. A global movement. Now if you want to have a more open overview about which country has invested, the king is undoubtedly China. The country that has been leading the energy transition It has allocated half of its energy patents and more than 90% of its financing of risky capital to mass technologies, such as batteries and electrolyters. For its part, Europe follows a similar path, focusing on scale engineering projects and renewables have overcome coal. However, the United States has so far maintained a diversified portfolio that covers fossil energy technologies such as clean, but this can change the future By the current Trump administration. Other emerging sources. An area that promises according to the study is hydrogen. Patents related to the production and use of this new source increased 47% in 2022, with an approach to industrial applications such as transport and manufacturing steel. Particularly, in Spain hydrogen is taking the front as A future gas source and be able to export it through Europe. Future investment. From the study They have remarked The need to increase public investment in energy R&D, because currently the financing of the member countries of the IAE does not reach 0.04% of GDP. Researchers have pointed out that the future path is an international collaboration in development plus solutions. In addition, they have focused on other emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), intelligent electrical networks and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in energy management. But there is a bottleneck. On the one hand, long -term shortage of the strategic material supply chain and the lack of infrastructure in some countries. On the other hand, the withdrawal of some large -scale projects focused on clean sources, as the case of BP. Finally, in recent days a tariff war has begun by Trump, so It will be to see how markets open. Image | Pxhere and Pexels Xataka | Now we can see the rise of renewable energy in the world: we just needed the satellite images

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