sea

has reclaimed 25% of land from the sea and converts wastewater into drinking water

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There is a country in the world that, when it runs out of space, manufactures more. And when it doesn’t have water, it recycles it infinitely. It’s not science fiction: it’s Singapore, a city-state that surpasses the six million inhabitants concentrated on an island that was barely 580 square kilometers and that today it occupies 736 square kilometers. A growth of almost 25% in just over half a century. It is not ambition, but necessity: it does not have enough land or its own rivers or aquifers, so it has had to cook everything for itself. Since its independence from the United Kingdom, it has not only increased its surface area: it has also built one of the most sophisticated water management systems on the planet, capable of converting wastewater into drinking water. of superior quality to standards of the World Health Organization. Singapore’s territorial resilience. Singapore has understood that its land and water (scarcity) problems are not independent, so it is solving them jointly and in a long-term plan (its sewage system is literally designed to last 100 years). It is the urban resilience applied to territorial development in its maximum expression, that is, the capacity of a territory to face climate, demographic and economic change through its infrastructure. A concept promoted by organizations such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction of which Singapore is today the most advanced student. A living laboratory in real time. If those southern geometric shapes don’t seem natural, it’s because they aren’t. Google Earth Context. The quick response to why is Singapore doing all this? It is because it lacks land and water, but reality is based on three essential axes that invite urgency: Geography. Singapore is a small island (more than New York) with a brutal population density, it does not have mountains that function as a natural reservoir or large rivers or aquifers. The rain is abundantbut collecting it in such a small field is a challenge. Strategic dependence. Historically, it has imported water from Malaysia through different agreements (the last one expires in 2061) but that represents a strategic vulnerability of the first order. Also they have imported sand from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Climate change. Singapore is especially vulnerable to the threat of sea level rise as 30% of the territory is less than 5 meters above mean sea level. How to gain land. We enter first-class public works engineering. The traditional method consists of dredging sand from the seabed, transporting it to where it is required and filling the hole. The problem is that Singapore has run out of sand to dredge and no countries to sell it to it. As own governmentcountries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Malaysia have banned sand exports to Singapore over the years citing environmental reasons. The second method is the dutch poldera construction that consists of setting up a dam to gain land, so that the water is then pumped outside and the soil is kept dry permanently with a drainage and pumping system, so that the land created remains below sea level. Less sand is needed, but it requires sophisticated and permanent hydraulic engineering. In any case, gaining land is increasingly expensive, complex and more delicate from an environmental point of view. Polder operation diagram. Dutch Water Sector Megaprojects to gain land. It is enough to look at a satellite map of the south of the country to see geometric shapes that do not exist in nature and that are geographical proof of their projects. And more specifically, a glimpse of some of the most impressive: Pulau Tekong. The best example of a polder is this project started in 2008 and completed in September 2025 from the hand of the Dutch Deltaresinvolved the recovery of 810 hectares of land located 1.2 meters below sea level. Jurong Island It is today a petrochemical hub, an industrial estate that was born from the merger of seven islands: Pulau Merlimau, Pulau Ayer Chawan, Pulau Ayer Merbau, Pulau Seraya, Pulau Sakra, Pulau Pesek and Pulau Pesek Kecil. Long Island It is his most ambitious and futuristic project. It will join three strips of land in the east (from Marina East to Tanah Merah) to gain 20 kilometers of coastline and about 800 hectares. How to gain water. Singapore’s water strategy is an absolute global benchmark and is carried out by the National Water Agency. Its strategy is articulated around four sources of supply (its four national taps): water from the local basin, imported water, desalination and NE water (from NEWater). The idea is simple but effective: diversify supply sources as much as possible so that, no matter what happens, the city’s supply is not compromised. And that no drop of water leaves the cycle without being reused. The first two consist of the local capture of rainwater in its network of 17 reservoirs and the agreement with the State of Johor (Malaysia), which began in 1962 and expires in 2061. For desalination they use reverse osmosis through membranes and have five plants in operation. But he tap More interesting is the NEWater, capable of covering 40% of the total demand of the country. How do they do it? With a three-stage treatment consisting of microfiltration, reverse osmosis and disinfection. The resulting water is so pure that it is used for industrial and cooling purposes. Megaprojects to gain water. Although we have already outlined the main lines of Singapore’s water strategy, there are truly impressive specific projects: DTSS (the deep tunnel sewage system): is a huge underground network for wastewater management 206 km long that is centralized in three recovery plants in Changi, Kranji and Tuas. The recovered wastewater is what is then passed to NEWater. Marina Barrage. A project that serves to get an idea of ​​the Singapore mentality: it is a reservoir built in the center of the city thanks to a 350-meter dam. It combines three functions: producing drinking water, keeping possible floods at bay … Read more

resort to the waves of the sea

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If we take a look at the weight of renewable energies in energy generation (for example, in Europe), we are going to find that some, such as wind and solar, are the ones that call the shots while others have a testimonial contribution: this is the case of wave drivebetter known as wave energy. Yes, the resource is there to take advantage of (and in some places like the Cantabrian coast to give and give away), but it is one thing to surf and another to obtain energy. Because the waves that reach the buoy this morning have nothing to do with those that do so in the afternoon: another height, another rhythm, another direction… it is part of the charm of surfing but it is also a nightmare to get electricity. The wave works, but it is unpredictable and not constant, which reduces efficiency. So Takahito Iida, a researcher at the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at Osaka University, has come up with a solution to that problem that he has published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics: a rotating steering wheel. The invention. The device is called GWEC (Gyroscopic Wave Energy Converter). The idea in essence is a rotating flywheel inside a floating buoy that allows you to extract maximum energy from the waves regardless of their frequency. It does not follow the movement of the waves, but rather converts it into a perpendicular rotation that drives a generator. The trick is to adjust the rotation speed of the steering wheel in real time: this way the system adapts to the sea instead of waiting for the sea to adapt to the ideal conditions of the device. Why is it important. Because wave energy continues to be the eternal promise of energy and the oceans They cover 71% of the Earthaccumulating a large amount of energy. All previous systems failed in something: they are optimized for the resonant frequency, a single and specific one. At that moment it reaches its maximum efficiency of 50%, the maximum that physics allows. Iida’s GWEC is capable of maintaining it across the entire frequency band. Context. The time to publish the paper could not be better: the price of oil exceeds 100 dollars the barrel and Japan 95% matters its own in the Middle East, so the search for alternatives is urgent. The basic idea is not new, the novelty is knowing how to control it so that it performs at its maximum regardless of the sea. In fact, the concept was patented in 1981 by engineers Laithwaite and Salter and prototypes have been tested since then in Japan, Spain and Italy. What no one had done until now is a complete theoretical analysis that explains how to “tune” the system in any wave condition. How do you do it. Iida develops for the first time the complete equations of the entire system, including the waves, the platform and the gyroscope, and also identifies the optimal control parameters (the stiffness of the generator, its damping and the speed of the flywheel). Likewise, it shows that with the system well adjusted, the system can reach the theoretical physical limit of energy absorption: exactly half of the energy carried by each wave. Why half? A wave arriving at a symmetrical body is divided equally between symmetrical and asymmetrical components. A device with only one type of movement can only capture the asymmetric component. Be careful, it’s not that more can’t be absorbed, but it would be necessary to have asymmetric geometries (such as the salter duck) or more complex systems. Yes, but. Iida has tested his device and equations on a laboratory scale, where practice has been adjusted to theory, but it is still a device under controlled conditions. The declared next step is tests with a physical model in the wave channel of Osaka University Additionally, there are other limitations such as it only works with small waves (if the waves grow, the physics is no longer linear), which reduces its efficiency. The author is clear: the valid range of the amplitude is too small for real use. Similarly, mechanical losses have not yet been quantified. In Xataka | Something is happening in the oceans for which we have no convincing explanation: the waves are disappearing In Xataka | When an earthquake hit Kamchatka, tens of thousands of people in Japan did the same: climb onto the roofs Cover | Jeremy Bishop and David Edelstein

It turns out that there is a Soviet submarine at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea releasing radiation for 40 years

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On April 7, 1989, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-278 Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian Sea after an uncontrolled fire fruit probably short circuit in the electrical panels of compartment 7, which led to a massive and uncontrollable deflagration because the atmosphere was critically enriched with oxygen due to failures in the air regeneration system. Of the 69 people on board, only 27 survived. It wasn’t just any submarine: it had a double titanium helmet that allowed him descend to unreachable depths for his rivals of the time. Its cutting-edge technology hid a dangerous core: a nuclear reactor and two plutonium warheads that have since lain at the bottom of the sea, 180 kilometers southwest of Bear Island, in the Svalbard archipelago. And according to the most complete study carried out to date, published a few days ago in the scientific journal PNASthe Komsomolets remains an active source of radioactive contamination in the Arctic. The discovery. In 2019, a Norwegian research team went down with the Ægir 6000 underwater robot to thoroughly inspect the submarine using cutting-edge technology. As they approached the ventilation tube they found a visibly distorted column of water, as if it were smoke, as you can see in the video immediately after this block. It is a leak with intermittent behavior. They took samples and the results were overwhelming: concentrations of Cesium-137 800,000 times the normal radiation of seawater in the area and Strontium-90 400,000 times. Both isotopes are direct products of nuclear reactor fission. The analysis shows that the radiation comes from the propulsion system (the nuclear reactor) and that the reactor fuel is in the process of corrosion with the environment. Why is it important. The good news is that this radioactive leak does not come from the nuclear warheads: two torpedoes with atomic warheads. For now, that threat is under control: the Soviets sealed the torpedo compartment with titanium plates in the early 1990s and judging by analysis, the sealing continues to work because they have not detected weapons-grade plutonium in the marine environment. The bad news is the reactor. It does not explode or disappear, but simply the zirconium cylinders that protect the uranium and plutonium are corroding, leaking these isotopes into the sea in a slow and invisible leak that is diluted in the ocean. Fortunately, samples taken in relatively close areas show that dilution is rapid, as they return values ​​close to normal. In fact, the hull is full of sponges, corals and anemones and its samples contain low traces of cesium-137, but without detectable damage. Context. Man-made radioactivity in the oceans has three main sources according to the International Atomic Energy Agency: the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 60s and 70s, the Chernobyl accident and the authorized discharges from the Sellafield and La Hague reprocessing plants, in the United Kingdom and France respectively. The sunken nuclear submarines, where the Komsomolets would enter, have a marginal contribution. Their importance is more qualitative than quantitative: they are point sources, localized and that tend to worsen over time. After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the Soviet Union came under great international pressure. When the Komsomolets sank three years later, Moscow organized inspection missions with MIR submersibles. When he confirmed that the warheads had been in contact with sea water, he acted: in 1994, with the economy in free fall and western funds involvedRussian technicians they sealed the cracks of the torpedo compartment with titanium plates. Since 2007, Norway has undertaken regular monitoring of the wreck as part of its nuclear safety responsibilities in the Arctic. Current risk status. For now the nuclear warheads are contained, their sealing works and there are no signs of weapons-grade plutonium in the water. The reactor is the active problem now: the fuel is corroding, the emissions are real, and the research team does not understand why they are intermittent or what the rate is. Any attempt to recover or physically manipulate the submarine would probably be more dangerous than leaving it where it is, since if the radioactive materials reached the atmosphere, the contamination could reach land with worse consequences than today. . A nuclear laboratory under the sea. The research team has two goals ahead: to understand why the leak is intermittent and whether that corrosion rate is accelerating over time. Inadvertently, the Komsomolets is now a natural laboratory to study what happens to submerged nuclear reactors in the long term. Information that is not trivial, given the number of nuclear devices that sleep on the seabed. In Xataka | Russia’s most advanced nuclear submarine was a secret. Until Ukraine has revealed everything, including its failures In Xataka | The Soviet Union needed to save millions of people from hunger so something was invented: the art of making sausages Cover | Karina Victoria

Throwing concrete into the sea is usually a disaster or cause for conflict. The United Kingdom is using it to revive an ecosystem

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When huge blocks of concrete are thrown to the bottom of the sea, we can think that whoever is doing it is looking for a territorial conflict or even to ruin the ecosystem, as It was already seen in Gibraltar in 2013 in order to prevent fishing. However, on the coast of the United Kingdom, this same action of throw concrete blocks It has become the spearhead of one of the most ambitious bioengineering and ecological restoration projects in Europe, despite being contradictory. The objective. The objective of throwing these blocks is to bring reefs back to life of native North Sea oysters, lost more than a century ago due to overfishing, pollution and the destruction of their habitat. Heavy engineering. At first glance, it seems simple to take some concrete blocks and throw them over the side of a boat. But in reality the 20 blocks recently deployed off the coast of Tyne and Wear are actually pieces of green high-tech. And it’s no wonder, because have been developed ARC Marine under the name Reef Cubes and made with a special material called “Marine Crete”. Furthermore, they are not small at all, because each of these cubes weighs six tons and measures one and a half meters high. Why this weight? This initiative promoted by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the Wild Oysters project and Groundwork, leaves nothing to chance, since the fact of launching these heavy masses of concrete is explained by the British climate. In the previous phases of this project, the team encountered devastating storms that destroyed all restoration attempts. That is why these six-tonne masses ensure that the violent ocean currents and waves of the North Sea do not move the structures even one centimeter so that they can develop their final objective. Its usefulness. The magic actually happens on the surface of the block, as these cubes are not entirely smooth, but are designed with complex rough textures and artificial pores that perfectly mimic natural marine surfaces. These automatically become the perfect anchorage for life to thrive and an ideal refuge for fish and crustaceans. The role of oysters In addition to the roughness, 4,000 native European oysters have been placed inside each of these 20 immense cubes thanks to the efforts of 190 local volunteers. And it makes all the sense in the world, because beyond their great gastronomic value, oysters They are the great “purifiers” of the ocean. To give us an idea, a single adult oyster is capable of filtering up to 200 liters of water per day. In this way, when they feed they eliminate pollutants, nitrogen and excess nutrients, radically improving the quality of coastal water and allowing sunlight to penetrate deeper, which in turn stimulates the growth of marine flora. In short, these blocks act as a new ‘home’ for the animals that live on the seabed, but also as a way to clean their environment. It already gave results. The robustness of using thousands of tonnes of concrete on the seabed has already been tested in Scotland with great success, and now this project is just the beginning of what is to come. That is why, while these artificial reefs begin to filter millions of liters of water daily in the north, other projects are taking note to scale the idea to titanic proportions. In Norfolk, initiatives such as Oyster Heaven and Norfolk Seaweed are already planning the deployment of 40,000 clay “Mother Reefs” by the end of 2026. Their goal is to house 4 million juvenile oysters, which would officially be crowned the largest restored reef in all of Europe. In this way, throwing blocks into the sea has gone from being a technique to create conflicts between regions to being able to recover part of an ecosystem. Images | Robert Katzki Nicolas Arnold In Xataka | The “green belt” of the Earth had been stable for centuries: now it is moving towards the northern hemisphere in a worrying way

Mitsubishi built a remote, car-free city in the middle of the sea with one goal: mining coal

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About 15 kilometers off the coast of Nagasaki, in the East China Sea, there is a small island that houses blocks of concrete and semi-ruined buildings, surrounded by a retaining wall that protects them from the Pacific. The island is called Hashimaalthough it is also known as “Gunkanjima”which in Japanese means “battleship island.” and its history It is fascinating and dark in equal parts.. An island that was born from coal. All infrastructure was built for one reason: coal. The mineral was detected on the seabed beneath the island around 1810, but its systematic exploitation did not begin until 1887. In 1890, the Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha company purchased the island and took control of the underwater mines. Extracting coal from the bottom of the sea was extraordinarily complicated, as the miners worked in tunnels that went up to a kilometer below the surface, with temperatures of 30 degrees and very high humidity. Between 1891 and 1974, the island produced some 15.7 million tons of coal. A decision that changed everything. Moving workers daily from Nagasaki was expensive and inefficient, which is why Mitsubishi made the decision to build an entire city on the island. In 1916, the company erected the first concrete building armed of large dimensions in the history of Japan, and it was precisely on this same island. These types of buildings were the only way for the buildings to withstand the typhoons that hit the region every autumn. A compressed city. During the following decades, Hashima grew upwards because he could not grow sideways. The island measures just 480 meters long and 160 meters wide. And yet, at its peak, in 1959, It housed 5,259 peoplemaking it the most densely populated place on the planet at that time. On that small piece of land there were apartments, schools, a hospital, shops, a cinema, public baths, a swimming pool, rooftop gardens, a pachinko parlor and even a cemetery. Of course, there were no cars, since there was neither space for them nor did it make much sense. a hidden face. Hashima’s story has, however, a deep shadow that for decades tried to ignore. From the 1930s until the end of World War II, Mitsubishi used forced labor at its facilities on the island. There, both Korean conscript civilians and Chinese prisoners of war were forced to work in extreme conditions. According to an academic article published on Tandfonline, around 1,000 Koreans were taken to Hashima between 1939 and 1945. Estimates of the death toll vary. On the one hand, in the book “Life in Gunkanjima 1952-1970: Report of the investigation into the Hashima homes”, by academic Uzō Nishiyama, the death toll is estimated at 137; other non-Japanese sources raise that figure to more than 1,300. The workers descended into the mines during extreme hours, and any resistance was punished brutally. They were not workers, they were slaves, and escape was practically impossible, since the nearest coast was more than 18 kilometers away by open swim. Abandonment. In the 1960s, oil began to displace coal as an energy source in Japan. Mines across the country were closing one after another. Hashima’s was no exception. Mitsubishi officially closed the mine in January 1974. and the residents left the island on April 20 of that same year. The exodus was so rapid that many left behind furniture, clothing, photographs and all kinds of personal belongings. In a matter of weeks, a city of more than five thousand people was turned into a ghost scene. For the next thirty years, Hashima remained closed to the public and was slowly devoured by typhoons and sea salt. movie set. In 2002, Swedish filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad visited the island accompanied by Doutoku Sakamoto, a man who had grown up there as a child, and filmed a short documentary. Years later, Nordanstad met Daniel Craig in Stockholm, while he was filming ‘The men who didn’t love women‘. He told him the story of Hashima. According to collect world, Nordanstad thought for a time that the actor wanted to buy the rights to the documentary, but that was not the case. Two years later it was released skyfall (2012). In the film, the abandoned island serves as the lair of the villain Raoul Silva, played by Javier Bardem. The producers traveled to Hashima to consider filming there, but concluded that the buildings were too unstable and dangerous. Therefore, they ended up building a replica at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. The exterior images of the island that appear in the film are the only ones shot on location. World Heritage with controversy. In 2015, the island It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, within the category “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution”. However, this designation came accompanied by diplomatic problems. South Korea initially objected because Japan did not recognize the use of forced labor on the island. In the end they reached an agreement: Japan agreed to include that part of the story in its materials, but they didn’t do their part. In 2021, the UNESCO Committee issued a resolution in which they expressed regret that Japan had not provided sufficient information on forced laborers. In fact, the Industrial Heritage Information Center, opened in Tokyo in 2020 to lend credibility to that narrative, was criticized for including testimonies that denied the existence of slavery conditions on the island. As of today, the debate has not yet been closed. A tourist destination with scars. Since 2009, Hashima can be visited in small groups organized from the port of Nagasaki. The tour lasts approximately one hour and is strictly delimited for safety reasons. In fact, 95% of the island remains restricted to visitors. Images | Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | The most extreme symbol of the touristification of Madrid are the TukTuk. And there is already an initiative to ban them

The rain has transformed the driest desert on the planet into a sea of ​​flowers. It’s a sight to behold and a problem for experts

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The Atacama Desert bloomed again in spring. After the August rains, more than 200 species from the Chilean region were activated and provoked the first major flowering since 2017. The Internet was filled with impressive photos, but (beyond the hype) there is a central problem: increasingly clear signs of a destabilized climate system. What has happened? In August 2025, a storm left accumulated between 40 and 60 mm in the Chilean Atacama Region. Specifically in the south: in Huasco, Freirina, Vallenar and the Llanos de Challe National Park. As a consequence, flowering started in the third week of September and reached its peak between the end of September and mid-October. He show was amazing: a mantle of red and yellow añañucas, of sighs, of huilles, of guanaco legs and lion’s claws. And why are we talking about this now? It’s a good question. Historically desert blooms occurred between 5 and 7 years. Typically linked to El Niño phenomena. In the last 40 years, Chile has recorded about 15 superblooms. The striking thing about this case (as happened in 2022 and 2025) is that it is linked to La Niña conditions. And, indeed, one may be a coincidence, but three so close together mark a trend. And the problem is that more blooms are not always good news. And so? As explained Maria Fernanda Pérezan ecologist at the PUC of Chile, out-of-season blooms generate a gap between flowering and pollinators. What’s the point of having pollen if we don’t have bees to do their job? Indeed: absolutely nothing. What’s more, if climate change causes this type of blooms on a regular basis, this deregulation could cause very serious problems. After all, just think that a guanaco paw seed can spend fifteen years on the desert floor until its time comes; If it germinates and there is no one to pollinate it, there will not be another seed. Climate change is going to cause us more problems than we are able to imagine. Because the serious thing is not the sea level, the melting of the glaciers or the rise in temperatures (that too). The most important thing is these little things that change everything. Things so small that we haven’t thought about them. Image | In Xataka | The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet. And right there a bunch of “crazies” are trying to get water out of the fog.

Iran is planting sea mines in Hormuz. And what threatens to blow up is not ships: it is the world economy

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On the maps it looks like just a gap of water between deserts, but it passes through that narrow corridor every day. a gigantic portion of the energy that moves the planet. So narrow that in some sections the ships navigate in maritime lanes of just a few kilometers, constantly monitored by radars, drones and military fleets. For decades, any tension at that point in the Persian Gulf has been capable of shake up prices of oil in a matter of minutes. Imagine if will plant mines. A war also at sea. As bombings and missiles focus attention on the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, a parallel battle has begun to unfold in the Persian Gulf. From the start of the warUS intelligence services They detected signs that Tehran could try to disrupt maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by deploying naval mines and small fast boats. The threat is serious enough to have triggered public warnings of Washington and preventive military operations against Iranian ships suspected of participating in these maneuvers. In this context, the control of this narrow maritime corridor has become one of the strategic points more delicate of the conflict, because any disturbance there has immediate repercussions on the global energy supply. The strait, the global energy artery. There is no doubt, the tension is explained by the central role that Hormuz plays in the global energy system. Approximately a fifth of the oil consumed by the planet circulates through this strait of just a few dozen kilometers, in addition to a similar proportion of the international trade in liquefied natural gas. Every day they go through it in normal conditions about twenty million of barrels of crude oil from the producing countries of the Gulf heading to Asia, Europe and America. Powers like China, India, Japan or South Korea depend largely of this step to secure its energy supply, which turns any threat in these waters into an immediate global problem. It is no coincidence that even rumors or minor incidents in the area provoke immediate reactions in the oil markets. The new war. In that scenario it has begun a new phase of the conflict: that of oil tankers navigating between the risk of mines capable of shaking the planet’s economies. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran has begun deploying dozens of these explosives in the strait and keeps intact most of its fleet of small boats capable of planting hundreds more in a short time. The Revolutionary Guard controls much of the area next to the Iranian navy and has a combination of speedboats, minelayer boats, drones and coastal missile batteries that can turn the sea passage into a navigation trap. The goal would not necessarily be to sink large numbers of ships, that too, but to create enough uncertainty enough to paralyze global energy traffic, raise transportation costs and trigger a shock in international markets. In other words, a well-placed mine in these waters can have an economic impact that goes much further of the ship that hits it. First shocks. Faced with this threat, Washington has chosen for acting before mine deployment reaches a larger scale. The US military has confirmed (with videos included) a few hours ago the destruction of at least sixteen Iranian vessels involved in mining operations near the strait, in what US officials describe as pre-emptive strikes based on intelligence about Tehran’s operational plans. These actions seek to prevent Iran from turning the strait into a practically closed area to navigation before the deployment of explosives multiplies. At the same time, the White House has warned that any attempt to block the flow of oil will provoke a much more forceful military response than the operations carried out so far. Trapped oil and markets in panic. The economic consequences are already beginning to become visible. Since the start of the war, oil transit from the Gulf has seriously upsetwith millions of barrels per day that cannot leave the region normally. Countries like Iraq or Kuwait depend almost exclusively of this route to export its crude, which amplifies the potential impact of any interruption. Energy companies have started diverting ships or to look for alternative routeswhile Saudi Arabia tries to compensate for part of the problem by increasing the use of its oil pipeline to the Red Sea. In parallel, the International Energy Agency studies a massive liberation of strategic reserves to contain the impact of the energy crisis. A few kilometers to shake the world. The fragility of the situation is also explained by the geography of the enclave itself. At its narrowest point it barely has 34 kilometers wide and the navigation lanes through which the ships circulate barely exceed three kilometers in each direction. This narrowness makes the place extremely vulnerable to mines, drone attacks or coastal missiles. It is not the first time this has happened, in fact, since how do we countduring the so-called “tanker war” in the eighties, Iran already used mines in these same waters to pressure its adversaries during the conflict with Iraq. History, therefore, suggests that these types of tactics can be surprisingly effective in destabilizing global trade. A planetary blow. The extreme sensitivity of the energy markets to any news coming from Hormuz was fully demonstrated very recently, when a wrong message on social media suggested that the US Navy had successfully escorted a tanker through the strait. The simple rumor caused an immediate collapse of crude oil prices and a shake-up in financial markets before authorities clarified that no such operation had occurred. The episode illustrates the extent to which the world watches every movement in these waters with nervousness. In a global energy system so dependent on a few strategic corridors, the mine threat in the Strait of Hormuz has opened a new dimension of war: one in which fate of the world economy it may depend on a maritime corridor just a few kilometers wide. Image | nara, Picryl, naraNZ … Read more

The Canary Islands have been suffering total blackouts for years. Their salvation is a beast of engineering 1,145 meters under the sea

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A month ago, the destabilization of an old generator at the El Palmar thermal power plant in La Gomera caused a dramatic “cascade effect” that left more than 15,000 people without electricity, and without mobile coverage. This incident showed the extreme fragility from living in an isolated electrical system. However, the solution to this historical vulnerability no longer looks to the sky, but to the depths of the Atlantic. To overcome the abrupt volcanic orography and the extreme pressures of the Canary Islands seabed, engineering has had to design an “umbilical cord” unprecedented in the world, marking a before and after in the history of the archipelago. The end of isolation. In an effort to protect supply, Red Eléctrica de España (REE) has officially inaugurated the underwater interconnection between La Gomera and Tenerife. As confirmed by the REE itselfthe magnitude of the project translates into historic figures: an investment of 145 million euros for the cable laying, to which are added another 32 million destined for the two link substations located in Chío (Tenerife) and El Palmar (La Gomera). It is not a capricious work. How they collect local mediathe Canary Islands have suffered nine major “energy zeros” (total blackouts) since 2009. Tenerife and La Gomera have been among the islands hardest hit, so this infrastructure was born as a vital antidote to darkness. More than light. The implementation of this system completely alters the energy paradigm. As indicated ANDldiario.esboth islands cease to be solitary island systems and become a single network. From now on, if the rubber plant fails, Tenerife will inject energy instantly to avoid a blackout, and vice versa. But the scope of the work transcends mere security. As explained in detail in the REE statementcable is the key to decarbonization. La Gomera will now be able to generate much more renewable energy – mainly wind – than its population consumes. This green surplus will not be lost, but will travel along the seabed to Tenerife, drastically reducing the burning of fossil fuels on both shores. The technical challenge: engineering to the limit. Connecting two volcanic islands separated by abyssal trenches is not an easy task. As emphasized The Daythe 36 kilometer length of the cable descends to 1,145 meters below sea level. This extreme depth makes it the deepest tripolar alternating current link on the entire planet, snatching the record that linked Crete and the Peloponnese since 2021. To withstand the weight and crushing pressure of the ocean at these levels, engineering had to reinvent itself. To do this, they had to discard the traditional use of steel and lead, opting instead for an ultralight synthetic material armor and an insulation based on ethylene and propylene rubber. Caring for the environment was also a priority. In order not to destroy coastal biodiversity or alter shallow volcanic beds, from The Confidential detail that it was used the “directed drilling” technique: an underground microtunnel that allows the cable to exit to the sea hundreds of meters from the beach. Likewise, the terrestrial substations use GIS (gas-insulated) technology to occupy the minimum possible space, and their buildings have been camouflaged imitating greenhouses and agricultural terraces to integrate into the landscape. Laying underwater bridges. The milestone of La Gomera and Tenerife is just the beginning. Future planning, as pointed out The Daycontemplates the colossal challenge of joining Fuerteventura with Gran Canaria, an even greater challenge given that the distance between the two exceeds 100 kilometers. Parallel to the electrical revolution, the Canary Islands are experiencing an unprecedented leap in their telecommunications. As these local media detailthere are more projects like BASE 6, promoted by the public company Canalink. This is a new 328 kilometer fiber optic cable with a budget of 19 million euros that will link Tenerife with El Hierro, landing through a drilling on Tamaduste beach. This data highway, with a capacity of 5 terabits per second, seeks to eradicate the digital divide on the most remote island, guaranteeing services such as telemedicine or online education. The invisible network. The Canary Islands not only look inward. As contextualized by OCTSI (Canary Telecommunications Observatory), the archipelago has been functioning for decades as a global strategic node, surrounded by historic fiber rings and international connections such as Telefónica’s PENCAN cables, currently in the process of renovation. However, this strategic position has its geopolitical edges. An extensive report from my colleague for Xataka focuses on network extension from Canalink to Africa. The Canary Islands are financing a cable to the Moroccan city of Tarfaya with European funds. The problem lies in the fact that Morocco intends to extend this infrastructure towards Western Sahara, a movement that clashes head-on with the rulings of the EU Court of Justice and that threatens to place Spain at the center of a complex diplomatic and legal conflict with the Polisario Front. Overcoming geographic isolation. At 1,145 meters under the scrutiny of the waves, where sunlight does not reach and the pressure is unbearable, the heartbeat that unites two islands now runs. The Canary Islands are managing to transform their greatest geographical weakness—fragmentation and isolation—into a true global showcase of technological innovation. Little by little, the old and noisy combustion engines give way to a future that will be inescapably green, and deeply interconnected. Image | OCTSI Xataka | The Canary Islands are going to lay a submarine cable to Morocco. If Morocco decides to extend it, Spain is going to have a big problem

turning the “sea of ​​death” into a carbon sink

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For decades, the Taklamakan desertin the Chinese region of Xinjiang, has had a nickname quite eloquent: “the sea of ​​death.” And it is no wonder, since it is the second largest mobile dune desert in the world and a place where, historically, whoever enters does not usually leave. But faced with this major problem with sand for the surrounding areas, China decided to find a solution. The solution. China since 1978 has been waging an ecological engineering war against sand with a very specific weapon: the Three North Shelter Belt Programbetter known as the Great Green Wall. A name that seems to come out of Game of Thrones, but its objective is to stop erosion and sandstorms. But a new massive study published in PNAS has just revealed an unexpected and monumental side effect: human intervention has turned the edges of one of the driest places on Earth into an active carbon sink. The data. The study has focused on 25 years of data obtained through field work and also with satellites. What the team has found on the margins of the Taklamakan is what they call a “cold spot” of carbon dioxide. This means that in reforested areas the concentration of CO₂ is between 1 and 2 parts per million smaller than in the surrounding environment. And although it may not seem like much, in climatology it is an outrage. The trend in this case is quite clear, since The vegetation cover is increasing every yearand there is also a tendency for soil and plants to be “eating” more carbon than they are emitting. How is it possible? The million-dollar question here is pretty clear: how do you keep 66 billion trees alive in a place where it barely rains? The answer lies in water management technology and species selection. In this case, the project does not focus on planting oaks or pines, but is based on Extremophilous species like him Tamarixhe Haloxylon and the Euphrates poplar, which are plants evolutionarily designed to survive on very little. But the technological key has been the use of drip risk with saline water. Origin of water. China discovered that under the Taklamakan there are immense aquifers, but they are too saline for traditional agriculture. However, these “halophytic” plants can tolerate it, so it seemed like it was done on purpose. That is why groundwater is used to irrigate the protective strips that exist, especially around the famous tarim desert highway. The result with this is that soil moisture drops drastically between waterings, but the plants survive. And, although the salinity of the superficial soil increases, studies indicate that it is manageable in the long term and does not salinize the deep layers. This has made it possible to complete in 2024 a “green belt” of 3,046 kilometers that encloses the desert, stabilizing dunes that previously moved meters each year. Its stability. Unlike the Great Green Wall attempts in the Sahara, which have suffered from political instability and a lack of continued funding, the Chinese project has maintained its course since 1978. This continuity has allowed a “40-year experiment” that is now bearing fruit with important conclusions. The Chinese authorities themselves cite that national forest coverage has gone from 10% in 1949 to 25% today, thanks in large part to this project. As a result, in places like Maigaiti in Xinjiang, sandstorm days have dropped from 150 a year to fewer than 50. It is not the panacea. The source article warns of the limitations of this project: photosynthesis and carbon sequestration are strongly correlated with seasonal precipitation. This means that at least 16 liters of rainfall per month is needed in high season to maximize its effect. But behind it is climate change that is drastically altering rainfall patterns in Central Asia, which could weaken the carbon sink. Although what is happening in Taklamakan is causing a paradigm shift, since now where we see reforestation of deserts, we also see a way to cool our planet by reducing the concentration of CO₂. Images | Wikipedia Jasmine Milton In Xataka | Someone has counted each and every tree in China. Because? Well because now it is possible

China needed space to power millions of homes, so it built a mega solar plant in the open sea

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That China is building power plants As if there were no secret, it is not a secret. Without going any further, in the last four years it has been able to replicate the power of the United States, the largest electrical grid in the West. And a good part of the blame solar energy has it. In fact, in 2023 it installed more solar panels than the United States in all of history, as reported by Bloomberg. Solar energy requires space, so China is finding the most varied gaps, from the tibetan plateau to the open sea, where from the end of 2025 It is already connected to the electrical network a mega solar plant that breaks records. In China there are solar panels even in the soup. The largest offshore solar plant in the world. We are talking about the solar plant located off the coast of Kenli district in Dongying city, Shandong province. This engineering project is carried out by China Energy Investment Corporation (CHN Energy) and has a nominal capacity of 1 GW. As explains People’s Dailythe official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is China’s first gigawatt-level offshore photovoltaic project and currently the largest offshore solar installation in the world. This is what the Shandong plant looks like. Via: People’s Daily The context: why at sea. Because land space near its large coastal cities is a precious commodity. The Chinese government has a policy of red line to safeguard land used for agriculture and solve the line “Hu Huanyong Line“: while its great solar and wind potential is concentrated in the west, in the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia, the megacities and their most powerful industrial fabric are in the east. China is already developing parks of renewables in their deserts, but running Ultra High Voltage lines is very expensive, involves losses along the way and crosses complicated orography. The logical but technically infernal solution is to jump into the water. Until now, floating solar energy was limited to calm waters, such as what Germany is doing with its lakesbut China is another story. The open sea brings salt corrosion, typhoons and waves. Why is it important. Because China’s coastal provinces such as Shandong or Jiangsu constitute large centers of industrial consumption. Generating energy right there avoids those transportation losses of thousands of kilometers from the Gobi desert. If it works within the expected design parameters and the maintenance costs are affordable, it will be a good boost to take advantage of the coasts within the energy transition process from fossil to renewables. The panels are simply colossal. Via: X from People’s Daily A prodigious work of engineering. We are talking about an area of ​​more than 1,200 hectares where 2,934 enormous marine photovoltaic panels are located with standardized dimensions of 60 meters long and 35 meters wide. And they are not drifting panels: it is a large infrastructure designed to withstand extreme conditions ranging from storms to freezing water. In addition, it is hybridized: under the panels the project integrates fish farms, that is, producing electricity above and fish below. This type of combination is not new, as in Guizhou province there is a giant solar plant in whose basement mushrooms are grown. Shandong is aquavoltaic and Guizhou is agrivoltaic. Some numbers that make you dizzy. This installed power of 1 Gigawatt is similar to that of a modern nuclear reactor, so that according to estimates, it will be capable of producing 1,780 million kWh of energy that will be fed into the grid each year and thus supply 2.6 million homes in the region. approximately 60% of your demand. According to the estimates of the engineering company behind it, 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide will no longer be emitted. In Xataka | Germany has had a crazy idea to solve one of the problems of renewables: covering a lake with solar panels In Xataka | The great myth of solar panels: producing them emits hundreds of times less than coal and gas Cover | People’s Daily

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