pump

Europe is the world leader in heat pump manufacturing. The only problem is that Europeans don’t use them

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Not to get grandiose, but Europe has never had so many renewables underwayhad never made so much clean technology and never had talked so much about energy independence. And yet, winter has arrived again and the ritual is always the same: turning on the heating still means burning imported gas. Although if we reach this point it is not for lack of alternatives, because they are there. The problem is much more mundane: in much of the continent, heating with electricity it’s still more expensive than doing it with gas. The energy shock that changed everything. A recent EMBER report has detailed how Europe abruptly lost access to cheap Russian gas and had to replace it with much more expensive liquefied natural gas in a highly volatile global market. The result was an unprecedented price shock: an accumulated extra cost of 930 billion euros during the energy crisis. More on fossils. Far from being a problem caused by the green transition, the document indicates that the impact was concentrated precisely in the sectors most dependent on imported fossil fuels. Energy-intensive industries reduced production and, in many cases, never returned to pre-Ukraine war levels. This reading coincides with that presented by researcher Jan Rosenowwho rejects the idea that dismantling climate policies would make energy cheaper. The problem, he maintains, was not going too fast, but rather having delayed electrification for decades and having kept gas as the pillar of the system. Here the central contradiction emerges. According to EMBERheat pumps are a mature, efficient and strategic technology: they produce between two and three times more heat than a gas boiler for each unit of energy consumed. Even if that electricity came entirely from a gas plant, the net fuel savings would still exist. However, in practice, the technological advantage is diluted in the bill. In most EU countries, electricity costs 2 to 4 times more than gas for the end consumer. The average electricity-gas ratio in the EU is 2.85, and in some member states it exceeds 4. The problem: the pricing structure. As pointed out in the consultancynon-energy costs —taxes, tolls and public policy surcharges— can represent up to three quarters of the final price of electricity, while gas maintains a much lower tax burden. The result is an obvious distortion: the most efficient technology appears expensive and the most polluting technology appears affordable. You save but not. For an average home, this anomaly has a direct effect, since changing systems reduces energy consumption, but it does not always reduce the bill. And when that happens, adoption slows down. Furthermore, the data confirm that this is not a cultural or climatic issue, but rather an economic one. In countries like the Netherlands, where electricity is only slightly more expensive than gas, heat pump sales are soaring. On the other hand, in Germany, Poland or Hungary —where electricity can cost more than three times as much as gas—, adoption is much lower. The lever that remains to be activated. Solutions exist and many are immediately applicable: transferring the costs of electricity policies to public budgets, reducing electricity VAT, taxing fossil gas more coherently or implementing specific rates for heat pumps. From there, technological deployment is no longer a promise, but a reality. In fact, Europe leads the global heat pump industrywith manufacturers such as Bosch, Vaillant, NIBE or Danfoss, and with industrial projects that already operate on a large scale. These are not prototypes or pilots, but rather functioning infrastructure. Real limits and tensions. None of this eliminates obstacles. Europe still need gas to stabilize its electrical grid. The infrastructures are stressed, the flexibility of the system is insufficient and any cold winter can send prices skyrocketing again. Added to this are the physical frictions of the transition. The massive expansion of offshore wind in the North Sea is generating unprecedented conflicts between countries due to the so-called “wake effect”, which reduces the production of neighboring parks. Electrification is not only a matter of political will, but also of technical coordination and supranational planning. The anomaly that Europe has not yet corrected. Europe already has the technology, the industry and the climate goals. What it has not yet corrected is a basic anomaly: fiscally penalizing electricity while de facto subsidizing fossil gas. As long as that distortion persists, heat pumps will continue to advance more slowly than data, engineering, and economic common sense would allow. As the EMBER report concludeselectrifying heating is not a green whim, but a strategy for energy security, industrial competitiveness and price stability. The transition is not about inventing new machines, but about deciding which energy is made cheaper and which is left behind. And today, in Europe, that decision continues to be reflected—very clearly—in the invoice. Image | freepik Xataka | While the US and China dominate different sectors, Europe leads an unexpected leadership: heat pumps

It seemed difficult for the Galapagos Islands to be more threatened. And then a watchmaking pump arrived: Airbnb

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This summer, and while Spain declared war to the sector, the holiday rental He reached levels that until recently they would have seemed more typical of a dystopia. In fact, the platforms began to do business to the Pool rental for hours. Meanwhile, in places like New York, who closed the tap to Airbnb in 2023, they had discovered that two years later Hotels are happy. With this scenario, the Galapagos Islands have encountered the problem at home. The arrival of Airbnb. I told the weekend The New York Times. In the Galapagos Islands, one of the most delicate natural environments on the planet, the rise of Airbnb after the pandemic has transformed the tourist panorama. Alicia Ayalaknown as “the queen of Airbnb”, Symbolize This turn: rent apartments at affordable prices that attract backpackers and middle -class families, in contrast to elitist tourism that dominated for decades. Figures? Today there is More than 1,300 accommodations of this type compared to about 300 regulated hotels, which has generated an explosion of low -budget visitors who spend less and, according to critics, contribute to environmental deterioration and the banalization of a declared place World Heritage. Impact and tensions. Criticisms focus on the inability of short rentals to meet the Strict environmental standards that do govern for hotels, forced to pay permits, provide conservation funds and manage waste in a territory without drinking water or sustainable energy. The proliferation of uninformed visitors multiplies harmful behaviors: garbage on beaches, protected fauna or consumption of threatened species. In fact, researchers They warn that uncontrolled tourism threatens to convert the islands into a “Venice of Nature”, where the immediate economy of the preservation of unique ecosystems. Mass tourism and local economy. The archipelago went from receiving 6,000 annual visitors in the seventies to a forecast of 300,000 in 2025driven by commercial flights, social networks and the appearance of cheap excursions replacing the traditional luxury cruises. What is happening is A stage that It is repeated in The entire planet. This massification has left family hotels with empty rooms, while competing against Airbnbs that operate with lower costs and low supervision. At the same time, the tourism sector holds 80% Of the 30,000 inhabitants, so the dilemma between immediate income and sustainability becomes more acute in an isolated environment that depends on expensive imports and limited services. The legal (and political) battle. Although the Ecuadorian Constitution and the special legislation of the Galapagos They recognize rights of nature and limit hotel development, the absence of specific regulation for Airbnb generates a void that the hosts have taken advantage of. The Ministry of Tourism He has declared illegal Many of these accommodations and has ordered closures, but lacks effective control mechanisms, while platforms such as Airbnb claim to comply with current regulations and ask for clear rules. UNESCO He has urged Ecuador to stop growth and regulate digital tourism, although the attempts of hoteliers to achieve changes have been left unworthy. Threats and uncertain future. To tensions for tourism problems are added of illegal fishing, drug trafficking And, more recently, the fusion of the Ministry of Environment with that of Energy and Mines, played by experts such as a turn towards The exploitation of resources above conservation. In this context, the dispute between regulated hotels and hosts of Airbnb reflects a deeper conflict: to what extent Ecuador is willing to sacrifice Ecological integrity of the galapagos to sustain their economy. Among the pressure of tourism growth, the lack of effective regulation and the political signals that prioritize extraction on preservation, the future of the archipelago as a natural sanctuary remains, more than ever, in question. Image | Diego Delso In Xataka | In 2023 New York closed the tap to Airbnb to protect his home. Two years later, only hotels are happy In Xataka | Airbnb has just eliminated 65,000 tourist floors. The problem is that consumption has found another 55,000

China begins to build the largest dam in the world. His neighbors fear that they use it as a “water pump”

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The Pharaonic works They are not easy. Tell them The Linethe gigantic Horizontal skyscraper that he was confident years ago and that more and more and more. China, however, does not raise your foot from the accelerator and, every little time, it surprises us with some megaestructure. Now, and after a long planning, they have announced the beginning of the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. And neighboring countries have shouted in the sky for a reason: the possible use of water as a throwing weapon. A monster. China has the largest dam on the planet. The three throats is the largest energy plant in the worldit is so huge that GROUNDS EARTH ROTATION With a refueling, and it is estimated that it has a production capacity of 88.2 million MWH per year. Impressive, but will soon be in a second place because they are preparing an even bigger dam. A set of dams, rather. Located on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Lto new biggest in the world It will have the capacity to generate 300 million MWH per year, you can cover the energy needs of 300 million people each year and “only” will cost 130,000 million euros. That impressive capacity will be possible thanks both to your turbines as to the use of the energy generated by the two -kilometer unevenness presented by the river in certain areas and a construction with five cascade dams. “The project of the century”. The area is one of the richest in hydroelectric resources in the world, and the idea is to drill between four and six tunnels of 20 kilometers in length through a mountain to divert half of the river flow to achieve 2,000 m³ per second and take advantage of all that force. It will not be a simple operation due to the conditions of the area and at the cost of the project, and that is what has led to China’s prime minister to qualify it as “the project of the century”. As we read in The GuardianLi Qiang made the statements during a ceremony in the region to commemorate the beginning of a construction that was announced in 2020 and has Aroused numerous criticisms. Out of China, yes. Risks. First, for natural reasons. Is found in the Tibet area And it is one of the most regions seismically active of the planet. It is where the Indian and Eurasian plates contact and where numerous earthquakes are given every year, some with important magnitudes. In fact, a recent earthquake already damaged five hydroelectric dams in the area, and the weight of accumulated water itself is another factor that can trigger earthquakes, As has happened. On the other hand, human reasons. Apart from the consequences that an earthquake of that magnitude can have for the local population, it is not the first time that displaces a population to build a dam. These population movements is something that fear Tibetan groups that claim to have no visibility on the plans of the Chinese government. And, when they have complained about other hydroelectric projects in Tibet, they have been repressed by the authorities. The area could not be more geologically complicated. Either at the geopolitical level And geopolitics. India and Bangladés too They look at the dam With the arched eyebrow. He Brahmaputra It is essential for agriculture and access to drinking water of millions of people along the river and fear that dams seriously alter their flow. It is something that would directly affect the agriculture and food security of these people and already They drop That the project is a strategic tool from China to exert pressure on neighboring countries, by being able to control or modify water flow at will. Neeraj Singh Manhas is the special advisor for South Asia in the Parley Policy initiative (organization that seeks to solve conflicts through diplomacy) and in statements to BBCHe commented that “China can always use water as a weapon, blocking or diverting it.” Even if they do not do it on purpose, it would not be the first time that a accidentlike him collapse In cascade of the Banqiao dam and another 61 dams in 1975, an event that caused 85,000 direct deaths and displaced 11 million people. “Water pump”. In addition, it is something that can go against the direct interests of India, which aims to build a hydroelectric dam on the Sang River (one of those feeding on the Tsangpo). Apart from the fact that the flow of the river can affect the energy interests of India, there are voices that warn about the possible use of China as a “water pump.” PEMA KHANDU, Minister of Arunachal Pradesh -a state of the Republic of India -, commented In a recent interview that the dam “can cause an existential threat to our tribes and a half visa. It is quite serious because China could use this as a ‘water pump’. Suppose that, suddenly, they release water: all our Siang belt would be destroyed, finished with tribes that would see how all its properties would be destroyed”. Nothing to worry about. From the Chinese government have always been rejected Those criticisms, ensuring that they do not seek “water hegemony” or intend to get benefits at the expense of their neighbors. On the other hand, it is alleged not only that the project will generate employment in the region, but will cover the energy needs and encourage something that China is advancing by leaps and bounds: he Renewable sector. In addition, the Prime Minister said that these concerns about ecological conservation have been taken into account when planning the project to “avoid environmental damage.” We will see what it is, but it is evident that the dam will be built and the intention is that it is operational in record time: by 2030. Images | Yogho, Guganij In Xataka | China is moving whole buildings at the same time to build underneath. Because? Because it can

When the British wanted to terrorize the Nazis during World War II, they chose a peculiar weapon: pump rats

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Think about the Second World War is to think of large -scale battles, tremendous operations and epic skirmishes. And, although it is true that there were imposing deeds, we are also tremendously influenced by cinema and video games. Because doing one spy movie or a ‘Save Soldier Ryan‘is’ easy’, but … and one above the inflatable tanks or of pigeons piloting missiles? That is more complicated. Because, In a moment of despaireverything goes. And if the Americans gave them to devise a bomb -loaded bomb To set the Japanese houses, the British be occurred Something that looks like a joke, but that made a lot of sense: filling rats with plastic explosive and waiting to be triggered in Nazis facilities. The Germans They were caught at firstbut far from being a fudge, it turns out that discovering the pump rats was what made the operation a success. Exploding Kittens Rats 1941 was a key year in the Second World War. The Nazis gave the green light to the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war officially and began the Mass deportation of Jews to the extermination fields. There were too many open fronts and the war had just become a global phenomenon, but the British wore years fighting the Nazis. The first quarter was crazy, with bombings of the British to German possessions and intense German bombings in English territory, attacking cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and, above allLondon, who for almost two months He suffered night bombings. Apart from in the air, the war was fought on land, and one of the plans of British intelligence revolved around the industrial sabotage. Damaging the factories, Germany would lose war power, it is evident. Thus, the British Special Operations Office, or SOE for its acronym in English, devised a strategy which would consist in wasteing pump rats near German infrastructure. They would not put a “backpack” pump to the rat and leave it free out there, no: the plan It consisted In getting dead rats, open them on the channel, empty them, fill them with plastic explosive, place a detonator that would come out for what would be the anus and strategically locate each animal near the boilers of the factories and key buildings of the Nazis. The goal? That when a worker found a rat, he directly threw it into that boiler, turning on the wick and causing the structure to fly through the air, interrupting the Nazi war machine. That said, the truth is that it was a brilliant plan because it was easy to think that workers would not bury the animal or throw it out there, since it could spread diseases, that cremation in the boiler being as fast. And they got with a hundred of them. There was a problem: the Nazis intercepted the first sending of explosive rats before they were deployed. Far from thinking that the plan failed, it turns out that The caught was much more effective that what they could have achieved if the rats had managed to be thrown into the boilers. And the reason is obvious: the Nazis, when discovering the Artimañathey wondered how many explosive rats before that interception they could have placed the British. That sowed a more explosive doubt than the rat itself because the Nazis launched campaigns to search for similar devices and, if they found a dead rat, began to tremble. Would it be a rat or a pump? Although any exploded, the operation was never considered a psychological success for the general paranoia that caused in the German ranks. The possibility of such unconventional sabotage forced the Nazis to divert resources to counteract similar threats. In the official SOE archives, they detail that the device “caused considerable problems to the enemy, but not quite in the way it was intended.” In the end, it was an effective form of psychological war because there were Germans trying to counteract a non -existent threat. As concluded Soe himself, “the problem that rats caused to the Nazis was a much greater success for us than if the rats had really been used.” Today is an anecdote or an object of collecting, like the main image rat, sold In 2017 for more than $ 1,800. Also as a much less crazy idea than those of those pilot pigeons … or that of the incendiary bats. Images | Charles Merrell, The National Archives, Bonhams In Xataka | 80 years ago the US threw a bomb in Japan that nobody agreed again. He has just exploded at an airport

WhatsApp the privacy seemed pump proof. Until a state prosecutor tried to erase incriminating messages

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The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, thought he had eliminated messages that could help incriminate him in a crime of revelation of the secrets. It really wasn’t like that, because It doesn’t matter if you delete your messages on WhatsApp: Google keeps them the same. Now we have known that these messages seem to have been successfully recovered, and the question is: how have you managed to read those messages? Metadata to compare other data. During the investigation, the UCO also registered the electronic devices of the provincial chief prosecutor of Madrid, Pilar Rodríguez, they point out In 20 minutes. The content of the Zip folder held by the magistrate could also have been sent by goal/WhatsApp, which would not have sent the messages – it can not theoretically have no access to them – but the metadata of those conversations of García Ortiz. These metadata could serve to compare and contrast Rodríguez’s messages – which did retain those conversations – thus providing evidence for the attribution of the Attorney General. Of deleted, nothing. As they point out in the confidentialthe magistrate of the Supreme Court, Ángel Luis Hurtado, has indicated that the effort to try to recover the messages deleted by the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, seems to have been “successful.” The latter It is charged for an alleged crime of revelation of secrets. Google and WhatsApp lend their help. The Central Operating Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard will be responsible for making an expert report on the messages. The Supreme Court indicated In the country In January, he made a request to the Irish delegations of Google and WhatsApp (Meta) through Eurojustan agency for judicial cooperation in criminal cases. It is not specified which has responded, but the magistrate has received documentation in a Zip folder that seems to contain the messages deleted by García Ortiz in October 2024. How have you managed to read? The essential question is, of course, how it is possible that justice has ended up having access to those messages. The UCO already proved that García Ortiz erased his WhatsApp messages not one if not twice on October 16, 2024, when he was charged. He even changed telephone and reached the factory that he had been using until that moment. The alleged reason was to prevent such messages from incriminating him, but it turned out that this was not enough. The theory of metadata is a strong option, but there are others. End -to -end encryption is there. To begin with, we must clarify that WhatsApp has been using a protocol for years end -to -end encryption For all conversations. Only who sends the message and who (or who receives it can read them, but no other person or entity can decipher those messages. Not even goalthrough whose servers they send and forward texts, images, video or any other type of content. The key was not there, and there are other ways to access those messages. Option 1: physical access to the device. The most obvious way to access a user’s WhatsApp messages is to have physical access to your mobile device. In that case, forensic experts can, with the appropriate tools, obtain the key to decipher the messages from the WhatsApp database, even if they have been deleted. Here García Ortiz erased the messages and restored the terminal to his factory status, which probably made it impossible to recover them from the device even having physically access. But there was another way. Option 2: Surely Backing Copies. This is probably the key to the success of having recovered the messages of the Attorney General. In WhatsApp users can back up their messages in cloud services such as Google Drive or Apple Iloud, but attention: by default those backup copies are not encrypted. It is the users who must proactively enable encryption in backupsand maybe García Ortiz did not. That would have caused Google, to which help was requested, could access that data to send them to the case magistrate. If you want to delete your messages, be careful with backups. WhatsApp users cannot do anything with metadata, which does keep a finish line, but with the messages if they want to erase them effectively. As this case teaches us, it is not enough to delete them from our phone: if we make backup copies of our messages, it is important to activate the encryption of said backup copies. But special notice about backup copies. Special care with the encryption of backup copies, because it does not work as extreme encryption. The copies are encrypted with a password/password that you only know, and therefore it is convenient that it is strong not to be broken with brute force attacks, for example. WhatsApp in fact gives the option to create a 64 -digit key, but … she does it. Here are suspicions about how they manage that encryption password in Google/Apple/Meta, and if they can decipher it in some way for potential judicial requests. Be that as it may, the other solution, of course, is not to back up the messages of the messages unless you consider it absolutely essential. Image | State Council | Brett Jordan In Xataka | If the question is whether your company can add you to a WhatsApp group of work, the law leaves no doubt: it depends on who pays

China has a new hydrogen pump. It is so destructive that it seems nuclear

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The hydrogen pump is The most terrifying weapon created so far by the human being. A conventional atomic bomb as the ones that launched the USA about the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with which The Second World War concluded In 1945, it triggers a very powerful explosion and the release of a huge amount of energy by firing a uranium -235 or plutonium -239 nucleus. However, a hydrogen pump is even more devastating. It is also known as the thermonuclear weapon, and, very broadly, it uses a small atomic fission pump as a detonator device for induce fusion of the fuel composed of two hydrogen isotopes: deuterium and tritium. The energy that is able to release one of these bombs can be much higher than that of a conventional atomic weapon. In fact, the “Tsar bomb”which is the most powerful thermonuclear weapon so far, was thrown by the Soviet Union on the Barents Sea in 1961 and reached a power of 50 megatones. China has just tested a new type of hydrogen pump To understand with some precision how the bomb that China has developed works and why it is not a nuclear weapon it was necessary to briefly review what are the principles of operation of atomic bombs and thermonuclear weapons. The Complete Prohibition Treaty of Nuclear Essays approved by the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 1996 prohibits any type of nuclear test. Unfortunately, this agreement has not come into force because it has not been ratified by all countries that have nuclear weapons. This weapon uses magnesium hydride (MGH₂) because it is a chemical compound capable of storing hydrogen in a solid way In any case, as I mentioned, the bomb that China has tried is not a nuclear weapon. Unlike the hydrogen pump in which we have investigated a few lines above this weapon uses as a magnesium hydride fuel (MGH₂) because it is a chemical compound Able to store hydrogen in solid way. This fuel is stable from a thermodynamic point of view, but it has a peculiarity: it reacts in a violent way when it comes into contact with water or acidic substances, releasing hydrogen. Once its release has occurred, this chemical element enters into combustion, reaching a temperature of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. However, its destructive capacity is not the consequence only of the temperature reached by the fireball it produces; His devastating power is also linked to the fact that he calls her lasts for more than 2 seconds. It may seem little time, but it is not. It is a long time. In fact, the flame of a TNT explosion hardly lasts 0.12 s, so its destructive capacity is much lower. Of course, the explosion of this hydrogen pump is approximately 60% less powerful than that of a TNT device in terms of pressure. What China has carried out for the moment is just a test, but this country already has a factory capable of producing 150 tons of magnesium hydride per year. It is evident that this nation is serious with this weapon. Presumably it can be used to destroy drone swarms, end objectives endowed with state -of -the -art shields or ravage a wide area of ​​land, among other possibilities. Hopefully neither China nor any other country decides to use this type of weapons in the future. One last note: we do not know what the appearance of this pump is, although it weighs 2 kg, so it is not very large. Of course, the explosion you can see in the cover image of this article is real. Image | 705 Research Institute | PFC Lukas J. Blom More information | SCMP In Xataka | In the Cold War, USA designed something more intimidating than the atomic bomb: a nuclear missile that pursued goals

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