opted

The country that opted most for green now embraces the one made with gas

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Just a couple of years ago, the atmosphere in German energy policy was one of pure euphoria. The small town of Bremervörde (Lower Saxony) had just opened the first train route operated solely on hydrogen. With an estimated saving of 4,000 tons of CO2 per year, the project was the perfect showcase for the Government’s great plan: relying the entire weight of its decarbonization on the purity of green hydrogen However, time has cooled enthusiasm and the current hydrogen landscape in Germany faces harsh economic realities. Refueling stations for hydrogen cars languish; in fact, H2 Mobility, the country’s main operator, announced the closure of several of its stations due to the lack of demand in passenger vehicles and constant supply bottlenecks. This face-to-face collision with reality has forced a drastic political turn: Germany, the country that most opted for the purity of green hydrogen, is modifying its laws to embrace “blue” hydrogen, that which is produced from natural gas using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Urgency changes the rules. The fractions of the government coalition (Union and SPD) have agreed to amend the Hydrogen Acceleration Law so that the production of blue hydrogen now enjoys the status of “overriding public interest”. Originally, this regulation sought to streamline bureaucracy only for 100% renewable projects, but the new draft expands its scope of application. As the specialized publication points out Tagesspiegel Backgroundthis change equates at the permit level the facilities that extract hydrogen from fossil gas (capturing CO2) with those that use wind or solar energy. This shift towards natural gas raises an obvious question for a country that has just gone through a severe energy crisis: where will the raw material come from now that the Russian tap is closed? The answer look north. Gas from the Barents Sea, of Nordic and Norwegian origin, is emerging as the ideal geopolitical lifeline to fuel this new European blue hydrogen machinery, guaranteeing industrial supply without falling into dependence on Moscow. A devastating wake-up call. This political shift does not come out of nowhere, but comes after a devastating report from the German Federal Court of Auditors (Bundesrechnungshof). According to this supervisory bodydespite the billions of euros injected in subsidies, the government is flagrantly failing to meet the objectives of its own strategy, as neither supply nor demand are growing as planned. Kay Scheller, president of the Court, publicly demanded a “reality check”, warning that, if it is not assumed that green hydrogen will not be competitive in price in the short term, federal finances will collapse under the weight of subsidies. The energy transition simply cannot wait for green hydrogen to be technically and economically viable on a large scale. The central problem is the cost. While natural gas (including CO2 emission rights) is between 43 and 67 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), the forecasts for imported hydrogen in 2030 rise to a range of between 137 and 318 euros per MWh. This abysmal price difference — which can reach 275 euros per MWh — makes it unfeasible for companies to make the change in the short term. Train crash. The business sector has breathed a sigh of relief. As explained in another article by Tagesspiegel Backgroundkey entities such as the Association of German Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) had been demanding this pragmatic step for some time. They argue that the transformation of heavy industry cannot sit idly by waiting for there to be enough wind and solar farms to flood the market with green hydrogen at affordable prices. On the contrary, environmental organizations They denounce that this movement It is a serious setback that will only consolidate and perpetuate the dependence of the largest European economy on fossil fuels. To unclog the sector, the Minister of Economy, Katherina Reiche, promised a few months ago simplify procedures “from the ground up”, recognizing that current processes are too slow. The declaration of “overriding public interest” will function as an administrative fast track that will cover not only production, but vital infrastructures as maritime import terminals and Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC). The risk of the “white elephant” and the fiscal hole. But legislative flexibility may not be enough to cover the enormous financial hole that is looming. The specialized portal CleanTechnica goes deeper, warning of the severe danger of “sunk costs”. Building and pressurizing pipelines without assured customers turns a theoretical infrastructure into an active spending sink. The Court of Auditors supports this thesis and warns of a serious synchronization problem: Germany has planned a huge 9,040-kilometre pipeline “core network”, but it is being built for a demand that today is a mirage. Large steel projects that were going to consume 18 TWh annually are faltering; of the four main ones, one has already been canceled and the rest face uncertain deadlines. The financing mechanism of this network is based on future users paying tolls to repay a state loan from the KfW development bank of up to 24 billion euros. If demand does not materialize and the pipelines remain empty, the mechanism will fail miserably, leaving German taxpayers exposed to losses exceeding €18 billion. The “Plan B” of the European locomotive The utopia of a Germany driven exclusively by green molecules has collided head-on with State accounting and the non-negotiable deadlines of heavy industry. Faced with the imminent risk of losing competitiveness and generating a fiscal crisis, the government has been forced to sacrifice the purity of its initial ecological ambitions. The country has understood that it needs an urgent “Plan B.” That Buxtehude train that in 2022 promised an idyllic future powered only by the wind and the sun, will have to share the track, at least for the next few decades, with the pragmatism of natural gas. At this crossroads, blue hydrogen has ceased to be the “dirty brother” and undesirable and has become the indispensable temporary lifeline of one of the great European economies. Image | freepik 1 and … Read more

Chinese electric car manufacturers opted to develop their own chips. He already plans to sell them to others.

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In 2024, Nio advertisement the world’s first 5nm chip for autonomous driving, being an important step towards technological independence from a Chinese manufacturer of such caliber. A year and a half after its announcement, the company is now beginning the external marketing of that chip, according to they count from Latepost. In this way, Nio is on the eve of transforming one of its most expensive investments into a potential source of income. Just like point The electric vehicle maker has already begun providing technology licenses to an automotive chip company. A multimillion-dollar project that seeks profitability. The development of Shenji NX9031 It has involved an investment of billions of yuan. William Li (Li Bin), CEO of Nio, revealed that the R&D expenditure on this chip was equivalent to the cost of building 1,000 battery exchange stations, which would place the investment above 140 million dollars. The project, started in 2021, has involved more than 600 professionals covering front and back design, verification and testing. What makes this chip special. Made with automotive-grade 5-nanometer technology, the Shenji NX9031 promises approximately four times the computing power of Nvidia’s Orin-X. Zhang Danyu, head of Nio’s chip division, pointed out in May that in some of their specifications they even surpass industry-standard chips and that their mass production began several months before Nvidia’s latest smart driving chip, the Thor-U. It is currently integrated into models such as the ET9, ES6 2025 and EC6. How much does a technology license cost?. According to share From Latepost, the value of these license agreements varies significantly depending on the type of authorization. An individual intellectual property license could be worth several million dollars, while a technical authorization at the system-on-chip (SoC) level could reach hundreds of millions of dollars. A new source of income. That the Nio chip begins to be marketed externally comes at a great time for the company, especially now that the manufacturer faces pressure significant from investors and has promised to become profitable in the fourth quarter. The company has intensified its efforts this year to reduce expenses and explore new sources of income. In March, Li Bin already advertisement publicly at the China EV 100 Forum that Nio chips and operating systems would be open to the industry. “If they want to buy the best chips, they can contact Nio,” he said then. What it means for the future of Nio. According to Li Bin, the chip provides a cost optimization of approximately 10,000 yuan ($1,400) per vehicle in the brand’s own models. Now, with the external license, Nio not only recovers part of its investment, but also positions itself as a technology provider for other manufacturers in the automotive sector. In Xataka | The longest straight road in the world is a mental challenge: 240 km without curves, in the middle of the desert and with truck traffic

Years ago Alicante opted for an artificial island with a luxurious restaurant and taxi boat. It hasn’t turned out as I expected

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The idea was good. AND on paper It was fable. Set up a restaurant an artificial island in the heart of the port of Alicante, a benchmark in the Valencian hospitality industry where people could eat paella or have a drink with views of the Mediterranean (directly on it, rather), surrounded by sailboats. So that clients could reach the island, it was even thought to build a taxi boat. The idea sounded so good, in fact, that the Port of Alicante decided to invest heavily in it, dedicating millions of euros to it. Now instead of an idyllic island to drink mojitos and coffees in the middle of the mouth what it has is a huge mess. An artificial island? That’s how it is. To understand it you have to go back a few years, to beginning of 2022when the Alicante Port Authority awarded Vías y Construcciones (subsidiary of the ACS Group) one of its most ambitious projects, at least as far as the interrelation between the docks and the city is concerned. What the Port entrusted to the company was the construction of a large platform at the mouth of its inner dock, a sort of artificial island of 669 m2 (34.8 x 20m) that would be supported with the help of three large 14 m concrete piles anchored to the seabed. The contest was launched with a budget of 2.7 million (taxes apart) and aroused the interest of several companies. The AC Group firm ended up imposing itself on the rest with a project of 2.1 million. And what did they want it for? The platform was just a means, not an end in itself. Its objective was to support a future restaurant located in a privileged enclave, a place that would offer food and drinks not with views of the sea (many bars in Alicante already have that) but directly over the sea. If the island measured 669 m2, the idea was that the building dedicated to hospitality uses would occupy 393 m2 on the ground floor and rise two levels (ground and first floor). The remaining 260 m2 would be dedicated to public access, with a three-meter wide promenade. So that people could reach that privileged enclave, it was also planned a taxi boat. The idea was once again ambitious: a purpose-built, sustainable boat managed directly by the restaurant. Did it stay in theory? No. The Port of Alicante took important steps to make the project a reality. The main one was the awarding of the works for the island platform, which ended up being erected, as can be verified today on the docks. The problem is that what should have been a simple work in theory ended up becoming complicated in a bad way, as recently recognized the Port itself. In 2023 one of the support pillars partially sank, requiring reinforcement work to be carried out on the seabed. From there the project entered a loop that now threatens to condemn it. In fact, the Port insists that it “has never received” the work, which is why it has not considered it good. “Once the work was completed, the contractor company refused to carry out a load test that would allow its stability to be evaluated, as provided for in the contract, and as an essential procedure for the port to sign the acceptance of the work,” remember from the organism. What’s more, he claims to have a report of CEDEX (an entity linked to the Ministry of Transportation) that “strongly advises against” carrying out the tests due to “the high risk of collapse of the structure.” And now what? After years of the open platform crisis and after the latest CEDEX report, the Port has decided to make a radical decision. Its last Board of Directors has given the green light to activate the procedures to “resolve” the construction contract for the island. That is, the organism wants break the agreementsomething that has been communicated to those responsible for Roads and Construction. Now the company has ten days to present allegations. Once that period has passed, “and after years of technical and negative incidents”, the proposal will return to the Board of Directors, something that will probably happen before 2026. “In recent years the Port has commissioned audits and expert reports that confirm the irreversible deterioration of the structure and the impossibility of meeting safety standards to locate the restaurant proposed in the original project,” the organization argueswhich in its 2024 accounts already contemplated “impairment losses” of 2.7 million euros, which it has invested in the platform. Is there anything else? Yes. The Port does not only propose to terminate the contract. He also wants the original seabed to be “restored” to “recover the navigable conditions” that existed before the platform works. If the contract finally ends up being broken, it is not unreasonable to think that the conflict will reach court, but the Port Authority assures that it has already touched all possible sticks, so it sees “all avenues to remedy the situation exhausted.” Are there more affected? The Port of Alicante not only awarded the works on the platform. In April 2022 it launched another contest which completed the project with its second fundamental piece: the building that was to rise above the artificial island to act as a restaurant. The one selected for its construction and management was a business alliance between Alicante Gastronómica SL and Restaura Gestión Forty SL, which from that moment became co-protagonists of the project. In fact, they would not only be in charge of the building, an elliptical, glass-enclosed block with a large interior garden patio, a restaurant with views of Alicante and a terrace for cocktails. Another of its functions would be to assume the “maintenance and governance” of the taxi boat that would connect the island, a ship whose investment, precise Alicante Plazatook over the Port and was commissioned for 460,000 euros (taxes included). In January the organization started to try it. Now … Read more

AI is running out of power in this world. So Nvidia has opted for servers in space

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The energy appetite of data centers is nothing new. Elon Musk predicts a shortage of transformers in two years. Sam Altman believes we will need an energy revolution, such as nuclear fusion, to keep pace. The planet was not prepared for so much energy demand. And that’s why Nvidia is funding a possible solution: deploy the servers outside of Earth. It’s not science fiction. It is the business model of several startups that propose building the next hyperdata centers in Earth orbit and even on the Moon. The idea, which until recently sounded far-fetched, is gaining traction driven mainly by two factors: the insatiable demand for AI and the low-cost launches that Starship promises. One of the companies leading this idea is Starcloud, supported by the NVIDIA Inception program. And he is so serious that he plans to launch his first satellite, the Starcloud-1in November. On board it will carry the first GPU for data centers launched into space: an NVIDIA H100. The difficult part will come later. Starcloud-1 is a test unit the size of a small refrigerator, but the company’s goal is to build a monster five-gigawatt orbital data center. Adding the solar panels and the enormous radiator, it would measure four kilometers wide. Its goal is the training of large AI models in orbit. Why in space? As detailed in an extensive white paperfuture models like GPT-6 or Llama 5 could require multi-gigawatt clusters, something “simply impossible with the current energy infrastructure” on Earth. In space, there is no such limitation. It’s more. According to Starcloud calculations, server energy costs are 10 times lower in space than on Earth. The value proposition of space data centers is based precisely on two pillars that are a problem on Earth: energy and cooling. Solar energy 24/7. On Earth, solar energy is intermittent. They depend on the day/night cycle, the weather and the atmosphere, which attenuates the radiation. In space, things change. By placing your data centers in a sun-synchronous “dawn-dusk” orbit, Satellites follow the line that divides day and night on Earth. With the panels illuminated by the sun almost continuously, the system increases its capacity to more than 95%. “Almost unlimited, low-cost renewable energy,” in the words of Starcloud. And the refrigeration? How would they dissipate all that heat? Land-based data centers consume millions of liters of fresh water to cool. There is no water in space, but they have something much better: an infinite heatsink at -270°C. The plan is not to ventilate the servers. The heat generated by GPUs (such as the H100) will be managed within sealed modules using liquid cooling (direct-to-chip or immersion), like high-performance systems on Earth. The difference is that this hot liquid does not go to an evaporation tower, but is pumped to gigantic radiator panels. These panels simply radiate waste heat into the vacuum of space in the form of infrared radiation. The Starcloud white paper details the calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann law, estimating that a radiator at 20°C can cleanly dissipate more than 630 watts per square meter. Without using a single drop of water. Not everything that glitters in space is gold. The pillar that supports this entire concept is the launch of high-capacity reusable rockets, such as SpaceX’s Starship. Starcloud calculations are based on a long-term cost of $30 per kilo put into orbit. But Starship is not ready, and it is certainly far from achieving its full and rapid reusability capability. If that cost does not materialize, the economic viability of the system collapses. The other big problem is radiation. Commercial GPUs are not designed for space. Cosmic radiation and solar flares can fry electronics. The solution is shielding, which adds mass and therefore launch cost. Not to mention that maintenance is not possible with current technology.

Openai has opted a billion dollars to become the Windows of the AI. Or it goes well or is going to be the mother of all bubbles

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In recent weeks, Openai has signed contracts that total more than one billion dollars (it is not a False Friend) With Nvidia, Oracle and AMD. But for now it continues to burn effective and does not expect to be profitable, at least, until 2030. Why is it important. This is not a growth strategy. It is an existential commitment. Large door or cemetery. Openai can only justify these commitments if it becomes the inevitable platform on which the entire ecosystem of the build. As Windows was for the PC. The general panoramic. Ben Thompson, analyst Stratechery, has defined it perfectly: OpenAI is running Microsoft’s play in the 80s and 90s. He doesn’t want to be a software company. It wants to be the AI ​​operating system. This week has presented native apps within chatgpt: Canva, Zillow, Spotify, Uber or Booking among others are integrated directly into the chatbot. They are not external links but experiences that live within Chatgpt, just like Excel and Word lived within Windows. The difference with being any app changes everything: If you are the platform, capture to users first and developers come later. First you add mass users, then you get free developers for your platform. Chatgpt has hundreds of millions of users. The companies that are integrated this week because Openai controls access to that audience. Exactly as Microsoft controlled access to PC users in the 90s. The figures. The commitments are dizzy. Nvidia will invest up to 100,000 million in OpenAI, which undertakes to fill data centers with millions of its chips. OpenAI has signed 300,000 million with Oracle, which in turn spends billions in Nvidia processors. Monday closed Another agreement with AMD by tens of billions in exchange for Warrants to buy up to 10% of the company. Coreweave has OpenAi contracts for 22.4 billion. The total exceeds billion dollars according to Financial Times. Even distributed in one or two decades, it is a bet that is only supported by absolute domain of the market. Between the lines. The agreement with AMD replicates a historical play. In the 80s, IBM forced Intel to license its processor to a second manufacturer to avoid unique supplier dependence. AMD was that second. OpenAI is using its dominant position in users to force alternatives to NVIDIA and guarantee negotiation power. If OpenNAI controls the software layer that matters, Nvidia pricing power is reduced. As Intel discovered that Microsoft, and not them, really controlled the value in the Wintel era. The key is who captures the value: During the PC era, Intel had huge benefits selling processors. But more value accumulated in Microsoft, which controlled the operating system. OpenAi is positioning to be that Microsoft, not that Intel. That is why the agreement with AMD comes only weeks after Nvidia invested in Openai. The message is clear: Openai controls access to users and that gives the definitive power in the value chain. The threat. Every collapse if Openai does not achieve that domain. Oracle reported yesterday 14% margins in your business Cloud: Win 14 cents for each dollar. The action sank. Paulo Carvao, Harvard researcher, sees the bubble pattern Puntocom: “The circular agreements inflated artificial growth. IA companies have real products, but they spend much more than they can monetize,” he said in Bloomberg. Yes, but. Altman has real users using the product every day. That is what the CEOS Puntocom did not have. Microsoft took a decade to match the Mac, but the two -way base of Apple’s technical superiority irrelevant. Chatgpt already has that advantage. And OpenAi is in explosive growth, not in decline. Decisive moment. We are in bubble territory. The question is what lasting infrastructure will remain when some companies break. The chips do not last. Data centers do not justify pain either. The real and durable prize would be something like a great expansion in electricity generation for half a century. OpenAi has become the axis of all the construction of AI infrastructure. Each announcement triggers the actions of its partners. Is THE NEW KING MIDAS DE THE BAG. At stake. U Openai becomes Windows, or collapse. There is no middle ground. Altman said it this week: “Someday we have to be profitable. But now we are in the investment phase.” That phase exceeds the billion dollars. It only makes sense if Chatgpt becomes as inevitable as Windows in the 90s. It is the biggest bet in the history of technology. In Xataka | 30 years ago the island of Anguilla stayed with the domain .AI by chance. Today it is making gold thanks to the AI Outstanding image | Dima SolominMicrosoft

Of all that Madrid’s Metro could copy of Tokyo, he has opted for the craziest: “Embujadores”

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The Madrid Metro congested, it is crowded and there is no more soul. It is what is lived every morning and the images have been getting worse over the years. With half a city raised by the works, the situation has been complicated (even) more in the Madrid suburban. Solution: “Pushers”. 120 people. That is the number of traigators that Metro de Madrid has deployed to manage and redirect the volume of passengers that tries to find a hole in the wagons of the Madrid lines, they explain in eldiario.es. The goal is to alert travelers that they are trying to clench in a vehicle when the same train still has a free gap to cover. Obviously, passengers have not taken to describe these employees as “pushers”, referring to Japanese personnel who in the Tokyo subway constraint passengers with strength of the wagons during the wagons during the peak hours. Oshiyas. EITHER “EMPJORADORES”in Spanish. Men, suit and white gloves. And less common than we think. It is a simple, effective, not very orthodox but key job for a suburban that moves some 8.3 million passengers daily. The Oshiyas They are responsible for pushing travelers in the subway. They do it without contemplations, compressing passengers to the last loophole before closing the doors. They take care, in fact, that a briefcase does not hinder the maneuver or closing the doors themselves. Yes indeed, Not all stations They have their pushers. His work is concentrated early in the morning and, to attend the “show”, you have to move to one of the main stations of the city such as Ueno, Shinjuku or Okachimachi. Managing. The “pushers” of the Madrid Metro are very different. Because they change the suit, the hat and the white gloves for a yellow vest with the company of the company. But above all because they don’t really push. Or not, at least, as is done in the subway stations of the Japanese city. In this case, these workers push passengers to move to an area of ​​the subway carrier a little more busy. Do not squeeze people by force but passengers do do their best to occupy until the last loophole. These “pushers” are something like “space managers.” Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet It is not the first time. As they point out in the digital medium, it is not the first time that these workers appear in the Madrid suburban. The company provides for the use of this type of personnel in exceptional circumstances such as football or large concerts, but only in the stations close to the enclosure. Already in 2017 the term “pushers” became common in the conversations of those who took public transport early in the morning. So The world He explained that the workers could “play in the back to help (passengers) to get on the car.” On that occasion they were on Line 4 due to the works on Line 8 and the workers were also known as “plates.” A gymnkana. Madrid has become in recent months a Cumulus of works and conditions that, obviously, have had their impact on the volume of suburban travelers. At the moment, the capital has works that affect shot traffic in the northern part of La Castellana, in the M-30 as it passes through sales and at the entrance of the A-5. This last work directly affects the buses that come from Móstoles, Alcorcón and other nearby towns, leaving passengers at the four -wind station where They are distributed between nearby and the subway. But, in addition, the partial closure of Metro Line 6, one of the busiest in the city since it is part of a wide ring that surrounds the entire center of it is added. In total, there are 120 people that Metro has deployed for this task. “They are technicians or line bosses, among whose functions this is,” they point out from the company to eldiario.es. Reinforcement? Obviously, seeing the images, The reinforcements in the Madrid Metro They have focused the political and social debate. What we know is that line 5 and 10 saw their frequency increased by 9% on the occasion of the works of the A-5 (adding to the nearby reinforcements and the special bus services). Subsequently, new reinforcements were secured in both lines (of 14% and 11%, respectively) with the closure of line 6. In line 1, the reinforcement is 14%, on line 3 of 13%and in line 2 of 6%. Likewise, in lines 4, 8 and 12 they have also added more trains to the usual frequencies. The doubt, therefore, is whether they are enough. The images of travelers in the middle of peak is more firewood for the political debate in a city that tries to live with the works daily. Photo | Erell Ceridwen and Raúl Hernández González In Xataka | There is a competition to tour the 274 Madrid Metro stations in the shortest possible time. And new record is already sought

There is a renewable energy source that works 24 hours a day, and Japan has opted for it: osmotics

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Omnipresent wind and solar energies have the same problem: intermittency. The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. This dependence on weather conditions It forces us to look for storage solutions OA depend on a 24/7 available source to have a constant supply. But what if that other source was also renewable energy? Japan bets on osmotics. In August, the Japanese city of Fukuoka launched the First osmotic energy center in the country. It is just the second installation of this type in the world and represents more than a pilot test for a technology that promises to revolutionize the energy mix. “I hope it extends not only in Japan, but throughout the world,” said Akihiko Tanioka, an expert in the field of the Tokyo Science Institute. The plant will generate about 880,000 kilowatts-Hora a year to feed part of the desalination plant that supplies fresh water to the city. Although it may seem like a modest figure, equivalent to the consumption of about 220 Japanese homes, its true value is that it works continuously. It is not affected by the weather or time of day, and does not emit carbon dioxide. The power to mix fresh and salted water. Osmotics is a new generation renewable energy based on A natural phenomenon that we all study at the institute: osmosis. When two solutions with different salt concentration are separated by a semipermeable membrane (which lets the water pass, but not the salt), the water of the less concentrated solution flows naturally towards the most concentrated to try to balance the mixture. Fukuoka’s plant places fresh water (treated wastewater) on one side of the membrane, and salt water (sea water) to the other. Fresh water crosses the membrane to the salt water side, increasing volume and pressure on that side. The conression is used to move a turbine that, connected to a generator, produces electricity. Therefore, this renewable source is also known as saline gradient energy or “blue energy”. From the initial promises to the first problems. This technology is not exactly new. Already in 2017, in Xataka we echoed its enormous potential: The studies suggested that it could generate up to 40% of the world energy demand if it would be used in the mouths of all rivers. The challenge was the efficiency of the membranes and the cost of the facilities. The first systems, such as delayed pressure osmosis, suffered bioincructing problems: bacteria blocked membranes, drastically reducing their effectiveness. Other systems, such as “inverse electrodialysis”, were more durable but generated very little energy. The Fukuoka plant, like the first in the world inaugurated in Denmark in 2023 by the Saltpower company, demonstrates that progress in membrane technology is allowing to overcome these obstacles. Nanotechnological membranes. In France, the company Sweetch Energy has developed Much more efficient nanometric size membranes, capable of generating between 20 and 30 watts per square meter. In comparison, the most advanced systems to date generate 12.6 watts. The company seeks to install its first real -scale generator, Osmorhône 1, at the mouth of the Rhone River. The potential of this unique river would reach 500 MW, equivalent to mid -nuclear reactor capable of supplying two million people. And it would be just the beginning. All deltas and estuaries in the world release 30,000 energy from each year, a figure similar to world demand of electricity. Salina bachata in Fukuoka. In addition to the friction of the membranes, the osmotics also loses energy in water pumping. But, as he explains The Guardianthe new Fukuoka plant uses the concentrated brine that remains of the desalination process to increase the salinity difference and, thus, the energy potential available. The inauguration of the Japanese plant and the advances of companies such as Sweetch Energy mark a turning point for the osmotics. They are the first steps to stop being a laboratory promise and become an industrial reality. In a clean, permanent energy, which does not depend on the climate and that can be integrated into existing infrastructures such as ports, desalination makers or locks. Japan has made its bet: the mixture of fresh and salted water will be part of its energy mix. Image | Umi-No-Nakamich Desalination Plant (Obayashi) In Xataka | Japan has just made a monumental bet for Perovskita’s solar panels: they are his best chance against China

Microsoft opted everything to OpenAi to win the AI ​​race. Start realizing your mistake

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In April 2019, a small group of Openai engineers flew to Seattle to make a demo of a GPT-2 Supervitaminated Version A Bill Gates. Microsoft’s co -founder was impressed, and made clear his intention to invest in the company led by an almost absolutely unknown Sam Altman. In Redmond, Gates’ opinion took into account, and shortly after the events precipitated. The company’s cto, Kevin Scott, wrote an email Shortly after, in June, Nadella already Gates to warn of the danger of being behind. He was “very, very worried.” Nadella agreed. A month later, on July 22, 2019, Microsoft advertisement a Investment of 1,000 million dollars In OpenAi. That seemed love at first glance. That money promoted Openai’s efforts, which continued to develop its models and that in August 2020 launched an amazing GPT-3 But without opening it to the general public. Two years later, the bombing: OpenAi announced chatgpt without knowing that this would detonate the current AI fever. This divorce can be very expensive to Microsoft The initial impact was amazing, and Chatgpt became On the fastest platform he had grown up in history of the Internet. In two months he had already attracted 100 million users, and Microsoft, wanting to take another step in that idyllic relationship with Openai, redoubled its commitment to the company. Or multiplied it, because in January 2023 advertisement a multimillionaire investment that is estimated – although the figure was never detailed— at 10,000 million dollars. That investment It seemed to be perfect For both companies. Among other things, Openai obtained access to Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure to train their models and offer them to the general public (inference). Meanwhile, Microsoft gained priority access to OpenAi models, which it could sell as if they were his. That is just what they did, first with GPT-3 as a Github Copilot baseand then Freaking of other “co -drivers” that were nothing more than a chatgpt rehash. And there began the problems for Microsoft. Above all, because little by little that theoretically idyllic relationship He began teaching his seams. The convenience marriage was no longer so satisfactory for both parties. On the one hand, Openai kept asking for more and more money and better conditions when using the Microsoft computing cloud. On the other, Microsoft, OPENAI’s totally slave For his AI options, he began to look for alternatives. Both decided to look for alternative plans. Openai searched Change girlfriend and of Alliesand After the rumors In April 2025 he announced the greatest financing round in history, which amounted to 40,000 million dollars. For his part, in Microsoft, knowing their Openai absolute dependencethey began to move in March 2024, when they created their own division of AI and put in front of it To Mustafa Suleymanco -founder of Inflection AI and before Deepmind. The objective: to develop their own foundational models to avoid being chained to OpenAI. How was the thing? For now, OpenAi very well. To Microsoft, not so much. The company led by Sam Altman has not stopped growing in users and In income. At the moment they are still insufficient to make it profitable, but there is a clear thing: Nowadays Chatgpt is what Google went to searches. There are options, yes, but for the vast majority of users, (almost) do not count. I may launch of GPT-5 has been disappointingbut still Altman’s strategy to sell promises and Hype -with the Stargate megaproject in front – it works. But for Nadella and yours are much more complicated. Despite Copilot’s absolute integration in all business areas, Microsoft is almost an “coupled” in the world of AI. A pay. Your own modelsPhi-3 and Phi-4 are interesting for their “Edge AI” (artificial intelligence that runs at home, as in our mobiles), but their performance and capacity has made them almost a laboratory experiment. The gigantic infrastructure of Azure is his great asset to make them indirect leaders of AI, but Suleyman’s leadership It is committed to the simple reason that the results of the Microsoft strategy are not especially visible. It doesn’t matter if Microsoft has a powerful Trojan horse in Windows to infiltrate AI solutions in the company: who are winning that battle They are Anthropic and, of course, OpenAi. Meanwhile, Suleyman himself published on his blog An article warning of the dangers of treating AI as a person and ensuring that we are close to seeing a “apparently conscious” that can aggravate that problem. It is a valid and important argument, but it leaves Microsoft just like it was: without its own models and without changes in a strategy of doubtful success. In spite of everything, Microsoft also has its badges For Microsoft the only consolation is that its gigantic investment in OpenAi gives you the right to participate in the benefits of that company. In fact, the tense current relationship between the two adds to Openai’s intentions of becoming a profit company. That has implications for the future of the relationship, and In The Information indicated that Altman has proposed yield to Microsoft 33% of the company But renouncing future benefits. Participation is enormous and very juicy for Redmond’s, especially now that Openai is valued in 300,000 million dollarsbut there is much more at stake. In fact, in that potential divorce the one that seems to be winning is Openai, which has some of the best foundational and popular models in the world (GPT-4O, GPT-5), and who is the beautiful girl in the market: everyone wants to stick to it. Meanwhile, Microsoft is staying absolutely behind in the market, at least compared to its rivals. Let’s see: Google: It has invested a lot and well in own models (Gemini, Deepmind) and has a gigantic infrastructure, software and data. Not to mention Android and his search engine, AI entrance door for billions of users. XAI: Although less remarkable, the startup created by Elon Musk has managed to stand up with a Grok with a very different approach –zero censorship– which has managed to integrate with some … Read more

In Pinto and Sanxenxo they could not sign doctors, so they opted for a radical solution: “give them” a house

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The challenge brings them. In Pinto, a municipality located south of the Community of Madrid has long faced the complicated task of ensuring that their 56,000 inhabitants will meet a doctor when they go to their health center. The reason? Its outpatients are cataloged as “Difficult coverage”a handicap to which the shortage of specialists in family and community medicine nationwide and the cost of housing in the city (11.7 euros/m2), that (although it remains significantly below the prices of the capital) has seen how rents were more expensive 17.5% in a matter of one year. Given that panorama, the City Council of Pinto has opted for a radical measure: ‘give away’ floors to doctors who move to the municipality. It is nothing new. Before He already did For similar reasons another Galician town: Sanxenxo. What happened? That Pinto has opted for a radical measure to capture new doctors and guarantee health care in their health centers and PAC. So that the city squares are more attractive and the house does not involve a problem, the City Council will offer accommodation without cost to the doctors. Literally. The decision was announced by the mayor himself, Solomon Aguado (PP), At the end of Juneduring the debate on the state of the city. And how will it do it? Your idea is to offer up to six municipal ownership homes, apartments from one or two bedrooms in which doctors can settle for free. The agreement will be formalized through the bailment, a contract by which the City Council yields the enjoyment of the floor without cost for a certain time. Once that term is fulfilled the Consistory recovers the house. Except for last minute or unforeseen changes, the objective is that the measure is launched immediately, throughout The second half of the year. What result has you given? For now the offer seems to have aroused interest. Only a few hours after the announcement, in the City Council mailbox There were already applications of doctors from different areas of the country. And since then the drip of curricula has remained. Today The confidential account That Pinto has more than 40 candidates from the Balearic Islands, Galicia, Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha, Canary Islands … and even countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador or Mexico. Their curricula will be transferred to the Community of Madrid to include them in the bag to which, periodically, vacancies available in the town are offered. How serious is the problem? The City Council of Pinto recalls that its health centers are considered “difficult to cover” and, although in recent years the shortage of doctors has softened, the situation in the city’s consultations remains without being the ideal. Hence you want to capture more doctors. The country remember how at its worst moment the town stayed No doctors in the emergency room and the template of its two health centers was reduced to minimum levels. Free housing is not the only claim to attract doctors to Pinto. In 2024 the regional government announced an incentive of 500 euros per month For professionals who work in “difficult coverage” centers, a complement that, as the Executive himself remembered, adds to other pluses already approved. Ayuso recently He influenced again In that line when announcing a salary increase of 280 euros for nurses who work in centers with the same consideration. Is it something new? No. In recent years Other municipalities They have launched to offer Free housing to cover certain services or even stop the depopulation. However, there is a specific town that already resorted to a formula similar to that of Pinto with the same purpose: Sanxenxo, a municipality of Las Rías Baixas of 18,000 neighbors What sees how its population multiplies exponentially During the summer months. Precisely for that reason, a few years ago his City Council He had an idea To ensure that your health care is reinforced from June to September: offer free housing to doctors. The measure was supported by an agreement signed by the Consistory and the Sergas (the Galician service of Saúde) and contemplated that the municipality took charge of the rental of four homes during the summer months. The idea was the same: free house for doctors willing to reinforce attention in the centers of the area, although in its case the offer was temporary, of June 1 and September 30. The initiative worked A timebut It was abandoned This summer. The reason? Sergas can already cover places with their own doctors. In Sanxenxo the M2 for rent reached in June the € 22.8almost 33% more than a year ago. Images | Pinto City Council, Luis Meléndez (UNSPLASH) and Wikipedia (Zarateman) In Xataka | There is a Spain in which housing is built faster than homes are formed. Nor is she getting rid of the price increase

Wikipedia opted for AI to summarize her articles. Its editors have avoided it through a rebellion

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The Wikimedia Foundation has paused an experiment which showed summaries generated by AI in the upper part of the articles after an avalanche of criticism of their own editors. Why is it important. Wikipedia remains one of the last great bastions of human content on the Internet, in front of the survey wave that has degraded other platforms. His model, which is committed to democratic governance, has just stopped an important technological advance. What has happened. He “Simple Summaries” experiment He was born with the intention of making complex articles more accessible through automatic summaries marked as “not verified.” These summaries were made by an aya model of COPE. The editors responded with comments such as “very bad idea”, “my strongest rejection” or simply “Puaj”. The background. OpenAi continues to advance in Your plan to become the next GoogleGoogle herself He has embraced the generative AI even in his search engine. In this environment, Wikipedia has maintained the quality of its articles for its human commitment. In fact, its editors actively filter the content generated by AI, and that makes the platform a reliable information refuge. You know knowing that there will be no Slop. Marked in red, an example of Wikipedia’s summaries. Image: 404 average. Between the lines. These protests speak of something deeper than the simple acceptance of synthetic content: Wikipedia must evolve to attract new generations … … but its editors fear that AI destroys decades of collaborative work. “No other community has dominated collaboration to such a wonderful point, and this would throw it down,” said an editor quoted by 404 average. Yes, but. The Foundation has not ruled out the AI ​​completely, at least for the moment. He has promised that any future function will require “participation of editors” and “human moderation workflows.” It sounds like tactical pause. In addition, the experiment was born precisely from discussions in Wikimania in 2024, when some editors did see this format potential. In summary. The question now is if Wikipedia will be able to maintain its enormous historical relevance, already eroded since Chatgpt reached our lifewithout sacrificing part of the human criterion that distinguishes it. The answer to this question, which will not arrive tomorrow, will be what determines whether Wikipedia remains a reasonably reliable knowledge … or another space in automated internet noise. Outstanding image | Oberon Copeland @seeyinformed.com in Unspash In Xataka | Wikipedia is being filled with content generated by AI. So much, that you already have a team dedicated to finding it

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