produces

Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s advanced chips. Its natural gas reserves last exactly 12 days

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In global energy markets, alarm bells do not always ring loudly; Sometimes all you have to do is watch where the boats are sailing. While the West observes the already known Third Gulf War With a mixture of horror and remoteness, Asia is suffering the direct impact. The colossal Ras Laffan facility in Qatar—which processes about a fifth of global liquefied natural gas (LNG)— has suffered damage by 17% of its infrastructure after the Iranian attacks. 12 days. At the exact center of the geopolitical target is Taiwan. The island has a practical monopoly on the world’s most advanced chips, but its “silicon shield” hangs by an extremely fragile logistical thread: an energy supply chain whose legal security threshold requires a minimum of just 11 to 12 days of natural gas reserves. The fatal panorama in Asia. Asia is on the front line of this fuel crisis as it buys more than 80% of the crude oil that transits through the blocked Strait of Hormuz. The nations of the region have had to quickly dust off the survival manuals of the COVID-19 era. Philippines has become the first country in declaring a state of “national energy emergency”, warning of an imminent danger and turning to coal to reduce costs. In South Korea, the government has asked its citizens Take shorter showers, use public transportation, and avoid charging your phones at night. Sri Lanka declared on Wednesdays as a holiday to save fuel, and in Thailand, officials have received the order to take off their suits, use the stairs and telework. china from chill. However, the contrast with China it’s abysmal. While its neighbors panic, the Asian giant observes the chaos coldly. Five years ago, Xi Jinping ordered to secure the country’s “energy rice bowl.” Today, thanks to a massive accumulation of sanctioned crude oil (bought cheaply from Russia or Iran), the shielding of renewables and a vehicle park where electric cars are the majority, China has built an invisible Great Wall that isolates it from fossil volatility. A trade war against the clock. This hydrocarbon drought not only turns off the lights, but paralyzes the industry. According to Commonwealth Magazinethe petrochemical and plastics sector has been the first major victim. The giant Formosa Petrochemical has had to issue force majeure notices after running out of raw materials, and prices of key materials such as ABS (used in car parts) have soared by up to 50%. At a logistical level, a trade war has broken out ruthless battle between Europe and Asia to seize the few available LNG shipments. Spot prices in Asia have doubled, and ships originally sailing to Spain or France are diverting their course to the Pacific in the face of more lucrative offers. In this Darwinian scenario, South Asia is acting as the global “shock absorber”: price-sensitive countries, such as Pakistan or Bangladesh, cannot compete and are forced to destroy demand or paralyze industries, leaving gas available for the giants that can afford it. To mitigate the blow on their own streets, governments like Japan They plan to inject billions in subsidies, while Taiwan has committed to absorb 60% of the increase in crude oil prices. Taiwan’s “Achilles heel” and the check on chips. If there is a critical point in this crisis, It is the island of Taiwan. In 2025, Taiwan relied on imports to meet 95% of its energy needs, including more than 99% of its oil and natural gas demand. Before the war, it received more than 38% of its annual natural gas supply and approximately 70% of its crude oil from the Middle East. The structural problem is time. While nations like South Korea have the capacity to store gas for 52 days and Japan for three weeks, Taiwan is walking on the wire. As pointed out Bloombergis an almost non-existent room for maneuver for an island where electricity generation based on natural gas has expanded to almost 48%. An immediate buffer. To avoid collapse in the short term, the Taiwanese Ministry of Economy has acted quickly with a checkbook. Minister Kung Ming-hsin has confirmed that supply planning is already covered for March, April and May, and they have even secured half of their replacement agreements for the month of June. Away from the imminent blackout, the island’s reserves have managed to remain above the safety threshold of 12 days since the fighting broke out. However, this short-term patch does not turn off the alarms. The real danger lurks in the summer, when high temperatures historically trigger electricity demand. A prolonged blackout: global chaos. The semiconductor sector contributes around 20% of Taiwan’s GDP. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which produces about 90% of the chips most advanced in the world (vital for AI and military technology), alone consumes approximately 9% of all electricity on the island. But gas is not the only missing input; Added to this is the disruption in the supply of secretive but vital raw materials such as bromine and helium (a third of which is processed in Qatar). The experts They warn that if the interruption of helium exceeds 14 days, the chip production lines will go into technical stoppage. With summer just around the corner and electricity demand about to skyrocket, the island operates at its limit. The pressure is so immense that the historically reluctant Taiwanese government is already openly debating the reactivation of nuclear energy, recognizing that the explosive growth in electricity demand linked to the development of Artificial Intelligence is changing all the rules of the energy game. The geopolitical board: opportunism and contradictions. Beijing has not been slow to intervene. Taking advantage of the panic, the Chinese government has thrown a poisoned lifeline. According to Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, collected in South China Morning Postthe Asian giant offered the island a stable, abundant and cheap energy supply in exchange for accepting “peaceful reunification.” Taipei’s response was blunt: Vice Minister of Economy, Ho Chin-tsang, rejected the offer, calling it “cognitive … Read more

Aragón produces so much energy that it no longer knows what to do with it. And that’s great news for data centers

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Aragon has always served as a great battery for the rest of the country, sending gigawatts to the industrial centers of Catalonia or the Basque Country, but now the script has changed. The community now has a “problem” that many would envy: it produces so much energy that it has attracted those who need it most. As if it were a magnet, the technological giants have landed in the Ebro valley to convert the region in what The Country already calls “Spanish Virginia”, in reference to the North American state with the highest concentration of data centers in the world. The x-ray of a bittersweet record. To understand the magnitude of the change, you have to look at the counter. According to the data collected by The Aragon Newspaperthe community once again broke its historical record for electricity production in 2025, reaching 22,365 gigawatt hours (GWh), 2.1% more than the previous year. However, this milestone hides an important small print: the record was not achieved thanks to the wind or the sun, since these fell by 4.8% due to the drought (which sank the hydraulics by 19.1%) and a less windy year. Here comes the bittersweet part, to compensate for the green decline and cover the gap left after the great blackout in April, the gas combined cycles increased their activity by 112.2%. But the data that really confirms the change of era is not how much is produced, but how much is spent. While electricity demand in Spain grew by a modest 2.7%, in Aragon internal consumption shot up by 7.1%, a figure that the provincial media describes as “true structural change” and that it attributes directly to the takeoff of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) complexes in Villanueva de Gállego, El Burgo and Huesca. The rain of millions (and megawatts) This energetic appetite is no coincidence; It is the fuel for an unprecedented investment. As we have explained in Xatakathe autonomous government has given the green light to the expansion of AWS, which contemplates an investment of 15.7 billion euros in a ten-year plan. It is not about building isolated ships, but about creating an “AWS Region” (Europe Spain), a system of eight campuses interconnected by fiber optics that function as a single operational unit protected against failures. But it’s not all servers and algorithms in the cloud. From the Herald have detailed that Amazon will not only save data, but will also build a server recycling factory in Aragon. With an additional investment of 200 million euros, this circular economy plant promises to create up to 1,100 direct jobs, a balloon of labor oxygen that goes beyond highly qualified technical profiles. Jam in the network and flight to Teruel. The Aragonese paradox is that, although there is plenty of energy, there are no “roads” to transport it. The electrical distribution network in the community is at its limit, with an occupancy of 94.3%well above the national average. There is electricity, but there are no free outlets for so much industry. This saturation in the Zaragoza logistics hub has caused an unexpected movement towards “emptied Spain.” As my colleague in XatakaGiven the impossibility of connecting in the capital, AWS has decided to take one of its new centers to La Puebla de Híjar, a town in Teruel with barely 900 inhabitants. The choice is strategic: the N-232 highway acts as the backbone and, there, the electrical grid has the capacity (100 MW guaranteed) to feed the beast. Side B: water and territory. Every revolution has a cost, and in this case it is measured in natural resources. Digital euphoria collides with the physical reality of a dry land. The alarms went off, as reported The Countrywhen Amazon requested to expand its water concession by 48% to cool its servers. The conflict is palpable on the ground, the Gaén irrigation community in Teruel keeps negotiations blockedrefusing to give up water from the Ebro if that compromises the agricultural future of the area. The most critical view brings it Ecologists in Action. Its renewable viewer warns that the deployment is not harmless: there are more than 12,000 hectares of authorized solar plants and thousands of wind turbines in the pipeline. The organization warns that, if all the data center projects in the portfolio are approved, their electrical consumption could reach five times the current demand of the entire community, turning the Aragonese landscape into a continuous industrial estate and drying up its water resources. The new balance. Aragón closed the year 2025 at a fascinating crossroads. How to conclude The Aragon Newspaperthe community continues to be surplus, but less and less. Electricity exports have fallen from 56% to 52% in just one year. The region has achieved what seemed impossible: from being a mere service station to becoming the engine of the digital economy. But the question that remains in the air, between million-dollar investment figures and environmental warnings, is whether the electricity grid and water resources will withstand the weight of being Europe’s hard drive. Image | freepik Xataka | Aragón is not afraid of AI: it has just approved three more new mega data centers in full commitment to renewables

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

Spain produces more electricity than it can manage

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Spain has gone from being the renewable envy of Europe to becoming a case study in the dangers of saturation. This summer, the country reached a historic milestone where the combined generation of sun and wind exceeded 10,500 GWh per month. This disconnection has caused an unexpected effect: there is so much electricity that its value has plummeted. For companies that invested millions in solar panels, the business has ceased to be profitable, transforming what was a success story into a “saturation crisis” that puts the Spanish market in check. The “discount” market and its collapse. The current outlook for solar park owners is bleak. “It’s discount season,” says Carmen Izquierdo, co-founder of nTeaser, speaking to the Financial Times. The saturation is such that operational solar plants have seen their valuation fall from €916,000/MW at the beginning of 2024 to just €648,000/MW today. The situation is more dramatic in “ready to build” projects (with land and permits but without work). As detailed by the Financial Timesthe market is so flooded that some developers, desperate to avoid government sanctions for not being able to execute agreed construction plans, have gone so far as to offer projects for the symbolic value of 1 euro. This situation has led to a wave of fire sales or liquidation sales, where companies sacrifice part of their portfolios to try to save the rest of their capital. Anatomy of a bottleneck. Why does the bill continue to rise if there is too much energy? The answer lies in outdated infrastructure. According to an analysis by EmberSpain only invests 30 cents in electrical networks for every euro allocated to renewables, a figure that is less than half of the European average. Added to this lack of investment is the impact of the “Great Blackout” of April 28. After that incident, Red Eléctrica began to operate in “reinforced mode”activating (more expensive) gas plants constantly to stabilize the network tension. This emergency strategy has cost consumers an additional billion euros. Furthermore, given the inability of the grid to absorb all the energy generated at noon, the curtailment (clean energy that is wasted) has tripled, going from 1.8% to 7.2% in just a few months. The race for flexibility. The industry is no longer looking to install more panels, but rather to survive the ones it already has. According to the Financial Timesthe great hope is the batteries. Installing storage allows producers to “save” unprofitable projects by storing energy when the price is zero—or negative—during the day and selling it at night. Other solutions in progress: PPA Contracts: Companies like Zelestra sign long-term agreements with giants like Microsoft or Amazon to power data centers, although the prices requested by buyers are falling dangerously below the profitability threshold of €30/MWh. Export: Spain seeks to break its “energy isolation” with projects such as the submarine cable with Irelandscheduled for 2030, which will allow the solar surplus to be sent to northern Europe. Regulatory reforms: After the rejection of Royal Decree-Law 7/2025 in Congress, the Government is looking for alternative ways to encourage microgrids and grid forming (technology so that batteries stabilize the network as if they were traditional power plants). A structural “January Cost”. Despite technological advances, the citizen’s pocketbook faces a contradictory scenario. According to the latest resolution of the CNMCthe total remuneration that companies will receive for maintaining the transport and distribution networks will rise by 4.1%, reaching 6,608 million euros. However, the final impact is a puzzle of forecasts. The CNMC estimates that for homes (2.0 TD rate) tolls could drop by 1.3%, as long as their forecast that energy demand rises by 3.6% is met. but here conflict appears: while the Ministry for the Ecological Transition is very optimistic and proposes an increase in charges of 10.5% based on a consumption growth of 4.5%, the regulator (the CNMC) is more cautious. This imbalance of figures is dangerous. If demand does not grow as much as the Government expects, the system will not collect what is expected to cover the costs of renewables and networks. This would once again open the door to the feared tariff deficit, a historic debt that took Spain more than a decade to absorb. Furthermore, for those who sought refuge in self-consumption, the lesson of the April blackout was bitter: only the 33% of domestic installations In Spain they have batteries. Without that extra outlay, the solar panels automatically disconnect during a general outage due to safety regulations, leaving the user in the dark despite having the sun on their side. Europe’s energy laboratory. Spain has become the world showcase of the energy transition. It has shown that coal can be expelled from the system — taking place since July without generating it for the first time in 140 years—, but it has also shown that abundance without management is inefficient. How Ember’s analysis concludesthe challenge for 2026 is not to install more panels, but to modernize the network and focus on flexibility. As an executive cited by the Financial Times summarizes:the mistake was not putting up panels, but forgetting about the networks. The bill we pay at the end of the month is not going to improve by breaking production records, but by being able to take advantage of every ray of sunshine. Today, the future of our energy does not depend on it getting warmer, but on cables and batteries finally arriving on time. Image | Unsplash Xataka | 2026 has not yet started but it has already managed to produce the first bad news: the light goes up

China seeks that each glass facade produces clean energy

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In recent decades, electric self -consumption has grown unstoppable in many countries. First were the roofs covered with photovoltaic panelsThen they arrived The solar balconies. Now, innovation points even higher: converting each glass window into a clean and transparent energy generator. A team of Chinese researchers has just presented a technology that could transform the glazed facades of buildings into invisible solar centrals. A panel that is not a solar panel. The research of the University of Nanjing, Posted in Photonix magazinepresents a transparent, colorless and unidirectional solar concentrator (CUSC). The device is applied directly to the standard glass of a window and allows you to capture sunlight without altering its appearance. How does it work? A simple explanation of the process would be that the window looks the same as always, but the special coating causes part of the sunlight to “slide” to the edges of the glass. There, small solar cells transform that light into electricity. In summary: the window is still transparent, but behaves like a hidden solar panel. From a more technical point. The secret is in some layers of colestric liquid crystals (CLC), which redirect sunlight selectively. The glass maintains a visible transparency of 64.2% and a chromatic reproduction index of 91.3, very similar to that of a normal window. The tests are promising: a prototype of just an inch moved a 10 MW fan under the sun. And the simulations show that a two -meter window could concentrate the light 50 times and reduce by 75% the amount of solar cells necessary, As explained in the investigation. Self -consumption reinvents itself. The rise of these innovations fits the global bipv tendency (Building Integrated Photovoltaics), the integration of photovoltaic into architectural elements. As we have detailed Xatakathere are already solar railings such as the solar system, developed by the Canadian Miterx, which turns balconies into electric generators. Europe will also force all new construction buildings to be zero emissions from 2030. This accelerates the search for solutions that not only produce energy, but also respect urban aesthetics and take advantage of each possible surface. China steps on the accelerator. It is no accident that this innovation arises in China. The country has become the largest World Laboratory of Solar Energy, with a deployment at an unprecedented pace. As we have indicated Xatakaonly in the first quarter of 2025 installed 36 GW of solar energy on roofs, more than Europe in several years. In total, there were 60 GW in just three months, figures that show the magnitude of its bet. With this context, the transparent solar window is not only a laboratory experiment, but one more piece in a national large -scale electrification and decarbonization strategy. While Europe progresses with bureaucratic procedures, China seems determined to cover roofs, balconies and now also facades with technologies that generate clean electricity. Forecasts The Nanjing equipment already works to improve broadband efficiency, optimize polarization control and apply this technology beyond skyscrapers: agricultural greenhouses and transparent solar screens are two of the fields in which its use is raised. “The design of the CUSC is a step forward in the integration of solar technology in the environment built without sacrificing aesthetics,” He has underlined Eurekalert Professor Wei Hucorresponding author of the study. A future of generating facades. The cities of the future could be covered with glass that not only lets the light pass, but also feeds with it. From solar balconies to photovoltaic railings, self -consumption is evolving towards complete integration in urban architecture. The window that does not seem solar panel, but it is, is emerging as one of the most promising innovations to meet the climate challenge: each facade as an invisible solar plant. Image | Freepik and Center for Liquid Crystal and Photony/ Nanjing University Xataka | One of the most arid areas in China is reverde. The reason: a plant with seven million solar panels

How much electricity produces each country with renewable energy, exposed in a graphic

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Europe has been Up on the Renewable Train. This summer they have SOLAR ENERGY PRODUCTION REGRESSESwe are installing new huge wind turbines And, although with contradictions such as import energy from Africait is evident that the continent carries a Cruise speed in renewables. However, that train goes to two speeds, with countries in which renewables are hardly nothing in their electricity generation. And it is something that we can perfectly appreciate on this map elaborated by Visual Capitalist. Vanguard. With Eurostat data until December 2024, we can see that The transition to renewables He goes with the wind in favor. The generation of energy from wind, solar, hydroelectric, the Geothermal and the biofuels They already represent values ​​that exceed 99% of the net electricity generation of some countries. In general, it is estimated that, as of December 2024, the European Union obtained almost 42% of its net electricity from the renewable sources, being wind and hydroelectric plant the fundamental legs of this change. Interestingly, despite all Advances in panel technology and wind turbines, the countries in which renewables are more important have as the protagonist the hydroelectric. This is the case of Albania, which leads the list by generating more than 99% of its electricity from renewables, or Norway. In the case of Denmark, a country that occupies third place, it is the wind that marks the guideline. To the tail… When we said that the train goes to two speeds, we refer to cases such as the Czech Republic, Moldova and Malta. In some areas of Central and Eastern Europe, the fossil fuels are still crucialand the three countries mentioned are the least proportion of renewables in their electricity generation. As a red lantern, we have Kosovo with just 8.8% of its energy from renewables. The sources. Something interesting is to know which are those renewables that are pushing clean energy in Europe. In Spain, for example, We throw ourselves into the arms of the plotbut the energy mix that has contributed to these numbers, depends a lot on each country, and in the European photo, the plot is in third place. According to Eurostat, wind energy meant 39.1% of the renewable energy produced in 2024, followed by 29.9% of the hydroelectric and 22.4% of the solar. The biofuel is far, with 8.1%, and the geothermal energy is marginal, contributing only 0.5%. Situation in 2024 A devastating advance. And beyond distinguishing in countries, if we look at the global situation, we see that more than 40% of the net energy produced by the EU in 2024 comes from renewables. According to Eurostat, 47.3% of electric production, which translates into 1.31 million GW/Hy an increase of 7.7% compared to 2023. Evolution of energy production during the last 35 years In that same graph We can see that fossil fuels have fallen by 7.2% compared to the previous year (almost the same as renewables) and nuclear, despite the plans of some countries, grew by 4.8%. We will see what course this has in 2026, since a Eurobarometer survey carried out in June 2025 Indian Strong support from EU citizens to the adoption of renewables, but we will have to see if that renewable deployment is compatible with another that is being performing ambitious and You need huge amounts of energy: the one Data centers. Images | Eurostat In Xataka | Something is happening with wind energy. Its deployment has stopped while solar energy grows unstoppable

Spain produces more solar energy than ever, but it only gets a cheap time of electricity a day

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In full July, with the air conditioning Working tirelessly and The tuned light billin Spain there is a single moment of the day when electricity consumption does not hurt so much in the pocket. That little energy respite is concentrated at noon, a time strip in which electricity costs half or even less than in the rest of the day, but why is it just time? The fire triggered. On Wednesday, July 16, the average price of electricity had been in the € 164.06/MWh at the regulated rate (PVPC), According to data from Electrica de España. For this Thursday 17, a slight drop is expected to € 102.85/MWh, but that half hides an unequal reality: for much of the day, the cost exceeds 120 euros per megavatio hour, As the Iberian energy market operator has collected (OMIE). Only for a single hour there is a “affordable” price. In just seven hours, electricity will go from relatively affordable to almost double its price. At 15:00, it will cost € 73.00/MWh. At 22:00, it will reach € 129.85/MWh. The explanation is not in a peak of consumption, but in a change of source: the sun is exhausted, the gas enters and the market reacts. Why only in that time strip? The reason is in the sun. From three in the afternoon, the solar production curve increases considerably. The electrical system then enters an overoferta phase: there is more renewable generation than real demand. This surplus translates into an abrupt fall in the price in the wholesale market (‘pool’), which reflects in real time the imbalance between what is produced and what is consumed. The problem is that this surplus cannot be stored properly. Spain still does not have batteries No infrastructure sufficient pumping to save That cheap energy and release it when it is most needed. Thus, the system is forced to sell cheap at noon and buy expensive at dusk. To this lack of storage is added a less visible problem: he Curtailment. Although more renewable than ever, part of that energy is lost due to saturation of the network. According to Red Eléctrica, in some knots of the central-south peninsular-such as Arenas de San Juan or Caroyuelas— It has wasted up to 30 % of the electricity generated due to lack of capacity to evacuate it. Meanwhile, the price of light continues to rise. This schedule imbalance generates what experts call a daily “spread”: a price difference that can exceed € 200/MWh between the cheapest time and the most expensive of the day. It is what makes an invoice shoot although part of electricity is generated almost free. It is not just guilt of the sun. The price of light not only depends solely on solar radiation. From the blackout of April 28, Red Electrica has activated A reinforced operational modewith more weight of the combined gas cycles to stabilize the network. This emergency measure It has become the new normality While structural reforms are implemented that will not be ready until next year. The direct impact on the invoice. Consumers with regulated rate (PVPC) are the most exposed to this volatility. Every day, your bill depends on the price hour by time. But even free market customers are noticing uploads: some electrical companies are transferring the contracts to the contracts, As Facua has warnedwhat could be illegal if it is not foreseen contractually. With this panorama, many consumers try to concentrate the use of appliances such as washing machines, ovens or air conditioners during that cheap time of the day. However, not everyone has room to reorganize their life around a single low cost strip. The solution is more than clear. In this environment we have spoken many times: it goes through More energy storage, greater demand management, More local micro -redes and best interconnections with Europe. The government already has launched Royal Decree-Law 7/2025 To accelerate these changes, and has initiated the creation of a capacity market to guarantee the supply. But none of these measures is immediate. Some have deadlines until September, but others will lengthen until mid -2026. Meanwhile, the gas dependence will continue to mark night prices. A race against clock. Every day, the Spanish electrical system offers a single cheap electricity window. It is the reflection of an energy paradox: there has never been so much renewable energy, and it has never been so difficult to take advantage of it efficiently. As long as storage and flexibility deficiencies are not resolved, the cheap time will be a timely privilege and not a guarantee. In a summer marked by heat waves, the cost of not acting on time will be measured not only in euros, but also in emissions, social vulnerability and energy dependence. Image | Unspash Xataka | Broady in April, more expensive invoice in May: thus has affected the system reinforcement

There is a region in Latin America that has more oil than all Saudi Arabia. And yet it produces 12 times less

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To the east of Venezuela, the Orinoco oil strip wants to return to its golden age, but faces political, economic and technical challenges. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserve in the world: 300,878 million barrels. To put it in perspective, Saudi Arabia has in its territory a reserve of 267,000 million barrels. A Treasury. The Venezuelan crude is concentrated in the Orinoco oil strip, a region of 55,314 square kilometers east of the country that extends over the Orinoco River basin. The Orinoco oil girdle It is rich in heavy and extrapeted oil, a type of dense and viscous crude that requires more expensive and challenging refining processes to transform into usable products, such as gasoline and diesel. The twenty -first country in oil production. The Orinoco oil strip has been known since January 1936, when the American company Standard Oil of New Jersey did the first well: “La Canoa-1”, in the state of Anzoátegui. But gigantic. Despite its age, the Orinoco oil strip remains the largest crude oil reserve. And yet, he has been unable to lift his head for years due to the political and technical and economic sanctions that surround it. In its oil peak, Venezuela produced three million barrels per day. Today is the Twenty -first country in the world In oil production with 770,000 barrels a day, from behind even neighboring Colombia. The United States, Saudi Russia and Arabia lead the ranking with 8-12 million barrels per day. A challenge and an opportunity. The sanctions on Venezuelan oil, led by the United States government, rose for six months in October 2023, which allowed a shy return of foreign companies to the Orinoco oil strip. The moratorium evidenced that the Venezuelan oil sector has problems beyond the political; structural problems. After years of negligence, corruption and economic crisis, Venezuelan oil needs foreign investment to modernize the expensive infrastructure with which it extracts and processes heavy crude. Although the sanctions were activated last year as a pressure measure of the Biden administration against the government of Nicolás Maduro, now foreign companies have the opportunity to obtain individual licenses to mitigate their effect, which shows some sprout of hope for a country in which oil remains an economic engine. The Petroleum Momentum of Latin America. The modernization of infrastructure, the attraction of foreign investment and the stabilization of the economy are crucial steps, but we do not know if enough to recover all the economic potential of the Orinoco oil strip. The context seems flattering. Latin American countries are involved in A “gold fever” of oil in which the most extreme case is that of the also Guyana neighbor, which has seen a growth of 33% of GDP thanks to the reserves discovered in its coasts in 2015. Meanwhile, Brazil has climbed to the 8th place in the world production of oil and Mexico is in the 11th place. What if falling? The question that floats in the air is the same for all these countries, what will happen to their investments when the expected drop in oil demand By effect of energy transition? For now, much of the world moves as if we were going to continue burning oil for many years. Maybe that is the answer. Images | EFOFAC, Wilfredor In Xataka | The Falkland Islands rest over 500 million barrels of oil. Now the United Kingdom wants to authorize its extraction *An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024

The director of ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Tomorrow’ produces this apocalyptic epic that has just come to streaming

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If you are interested in catastrophes cinema, you have undoubtedly heard of Roland Emmerich: ‘Tomorrow’ or ‘2012’ until the most recent and hilarious ‘Moonfall’, his Cite has always been synonymous with the joggy and shameless show, as he demonstrated since his beginnings in classics such as ‘Independence Day’, ‘Universal Soldier’ ​​or ‘Stargate’. Now it comes to us To Filmin A film in which Emmerich assumed the role of a producer, but that maintains his vibrant rhythm and his vision of science fiction as a warning about our future: ‘The Colony‘. The film is directed by Tim Fehlbaum, which was already seen in a similar situation with ‘Hell’, in which a group of survivors had to protect themselves from the solar rays that had ended life on earth. Fehlhaum has also been nominated this year to the Oscar for Best Screenplay for his film about the kidnapping of several Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics. On this occasion, climatic disasters have left the land completely uninhabitable, and the population has had to abandon it. However, on other planets, settlers are not able to reproduce, and a woman returns to earth to discover the cause of that infertility. In our desolate planet you will encounter an explorer with which it concludes that it is time for the settlers to return to the earth. But the few remaining land do not agree that it is a good idea. Undoubtedly, the most suggestive (and scary) of the film is the vision of the planet, whose surface, After climate change, it has been flooded by immense masses of water. Survivors take refuge in stranded loaders, in an aesthetic that partly reminds the world described in ‘Waterworld’. Not without some visual pessimistic poetry, ‘The Colony’ raises a bleak future, but in which there is space for hope. In Xataka | ‘Mickey 17’ is the new dystopian science fiction film that leads the box office. The problem is not enough

Madrid only produces 4.8% of the energy it consumes, but has found a place to solve it: the subsoil

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In 1980, a group of geologists set out to investigate the depths of Madrid and I did not speak of the Movebut discover if under its soil there was oil. The black gold fever had reached the Castilian plateau. However, what seemed like a dream of energy self -sufficiency ended up opening the door to unexpected energy. Today, that story continues to be written, but with a turn that nobody anticipated. The search. One of the first and most serious drilling attempts was the one made by Shell in 1980 in the well known as “El Pradillo-1” where no hydrocarbons were found. At that time the Spanish capital dreamed of becoming an oil city attentive to the prevalence of fossil fuel above other alternatives at that time not yet sufficiently exploited. More than 3,500 meters deep, engineers did not find oil but very valuable data about the subsoil temperature, which gave rise to the exploration of geothermal energy. Thus, They found a geothermal aquifer with temperatures between 70ºC and 90ºC at depths that range between 1,500 and 2,150 meters. Over the years, More perforations were performed In nearby areas, such as three songs, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Geomadrid-1, where multicapa aquifers found with temperatures to produce geothermal energy. Although exploitation has not yet been developed on a large scale, investigations continue, and this renewable resource is expected to be used in the future as an alternative energy source in Madrid. Among the pros of this discovery, intrinsic characteristics of this type of clean energy that are based on the use of heat stored in groundwater stand out to generate electricity and for homes. But why isn’t it exploited? Despite the discovery of a significant geothermal potential in the Madrid subsoil, the exploitation of this energy source has not yet developed on a large scale Due to several factors Among those that include, in the first place, the high cost of initial investigations and perforations, the infrastructure necessary to take advantage of the heat of the subsoil efficiently, such as the construction of geothermal plants and water reinjection systems. Energy comes from other communities. Madrid only produces 4.8% of the energy it consumes. This fact only represents the urgency that the Autonomous Community should have to resolve the scarce of alternatives to meet its domestic demand. At present, the ranquin between the communities that more depends on the energy of other areas. If the Madrid region will diversify its energy mix through the use of geothermal energy, not only would it increase its self -sufficiency, but also contribute to a more balanced energy model between the different autonomous communities with economic redundancies throughout the country. In addition, it would lead to rethinking The installation of data centersamong other alternatives, and would reduce Energy generation concentration In certain areas of the country, the pressure on energy transport and distribution infrastructures, which would benefit the entire national energy system by reducing the carbon footprint. The forecasts. With the progress of drilling technologies and improvements in thermal use systems, such as geothermal heat pumps, Madrid could already be able to begin to take advantage of their geothermal resources more efficiently. This is what the Basque Country has done with Geothermal rings at the university. Another possible alternative is to take an example to Iceland, which has turned geothermal energy at the base of its energy model, representing 66% of the total primary energy consumption of the country. Image | Unspash and Unspash Xataka | Huelva has been the forgotten industrial pole of Spain for decades. We are realizing the consequences

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