silently

the technical imbalance that is silently killing Spanish reservoirs

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In a window of just 72 hours, Spain’s water reserve has experienced unprecedented growth. The data has gone from 693 cubic hectometers in one day, shooting up to 2,349 hm³ in just three days. However, behind this photograph of abundance and a blue-tinted map of Spain, Greenpeace has warned that we are facing an optical illusion. What we see shining in the sun is water, yes, but what accumulates at the bottom, invisible and silent, is mud. And there are more and more. The denunciation of silent death. The environmental organization Greenpeace has issued an alert: The useful life of Spanish reservoirs is running out. This is not an imminent risk of the concrete walls collapsing – the dams are sound from a civil engineering point of view – but rather what they call a “dramatic loss of operational efficiency.” The underlying problem is the calendar. The bulk of our hydraulic infrastructure was built during the dictatorship (1950-1975). This means, according to the data managed by the organization, that “a large part of the dams is now crossing the threshold of their theoretical project useful life”, estimated between 50 and 75 years. The concrete holds, but the steel mechanisms, such as valves and drains, suffer the passage of time. The physics of “solid avenues.” To understand why reservoirs are losing capacity, we must look at the violence of recent rains. As explained by the organizationthe new explosive storms fall on highly eroded basins. The water carries tons of earth, stones and debris into the reservoir. Older infrastructures lack the agility to manage this mix. The technical data is alarming. According to reports from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) and the CEDEX (Center for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works), the Ebro River has radically changed his behavior. Before the dams, the river transported 5.16 million tons of sediment per year to the Delta. Today, trapped by concrete walls, it only allows 0.37 million tons to pass through. The rest remains trapped, reducing the useful space for water. Chronicle of an ignored obsolescence. This is not an unforeseen accident; It is the result of managing the climate of the 21st century with tools from the mid-20th century. Greenpeace insists the dams operate under “climatic pressure for which they were not designed.” In the province of León, iconic reservoirs such as Villameca (inaugurated in 1946) or Barrios de Luna (1956) were designed under stable climatic parameters that have little to do with with the current extreme variability. Experts have been warning for years: geologists from the University of Barcelona They already warned in 2018 that the uncertainty about the real amount of sediment is high, because monitoring the bottom of all the swamps is complex and expensive. When the mud becomes a threat. This accumulation of materials is not just a capacity issue; It is a physical security risk that is already showing its most dangerous side in the south. While we celebrate the rain, a silent battle is being waged in Huelva against toxic sludge. Just a few days ago, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) has had to be deployed in “anticipation” in the mining ponds of the province. There, torrential rains—which have tripled forecasts in some areas—have saturated the terrain to the limit. The risk is no longer just that the reservoir will lose site, but also the liquefaction of the sludge: that the pressure of the water converts the solid waste into an uncontrollable tide. It is the most graphic reminder that our infrastructures, whether water dams or waste ponds, are suffering stress for which they are hardly prepared. From the dredge to the forest. If the reservoirs are full of mud, logic would dictate removing it; but the economic reality makes it unviable. CEDEX technical notes cited in the context of the Greenpeace complaint show that the cost of extracting The sediment “far outweighs the cost of preventing it.” Cleaning a small reservoir of just 10 hm³ could cost between 50 and 150 million euros. If the sludge needs pretreatment before going to the landfill, the price skyrockets. For its part, the MITECO has started “pilot tests” to mobilize sediments in the Mequinenza-Ribarroja section, with a budget of 1.2 million euros, but they are surgical interventions in a systemic problem. For Greenpeace, the solution is not in concrete, but in the mountains. “The solution does not end at the dam or reservoir, it begins in its surroundings,” they say. The organization demands an urgent hydrological-forest restoration, where a healthy riverbed and a basin full of trees act as a “sponge.” The roots retain the soil and prevent the mountain from falling apart when it rains heavily and ending up at the bottom of the swamp. The risk of illusory guarantee. The EU Nature Restoration Regulation, approved in 2024, obliges Spain to present a National Plan by August 2026. It is the last opportunity to change the strategy. Julio Barea, head of water at Greenpeace, issues a final warning that should resonate beyond the current rain: “The technical obsolescence of our reservoirs will make us increasingly vulnerable to the next great water crisis.” If the bottom drains are not modernized (so that the mud can leave) and the headwaters of the rivers are not reforested (so that the mud does not reach), the “water guarantee” will be a statistical fantasy. Image | freepik Xataka | Far from Grazalema and the reservoirs, Andalusia has another serious problem: completely collapsed mining ponds

Extremadura has silently taken over 99% of an unexpected crop: Spanish tobacco

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These are not good times for tobacco cultivation. At least in the European Union, which has seen how in recent decades its weight has been decreasing in the fields. If at the beginning of the 90s I harvested 400,000 tonsat the end of the last decade that figure was already at 140,000. In Spain the situation is not much better: in 2024 The production volume (and hectares) was much lower than just ten years ago. That does not mean that tobacco does not continue to play a relevant role in part of the Spanish agrarian map. In fact there is a region that stands out for its contribution at national and European level: Extremadura. Only there it is concentrated 99% of the crop and the transformation of tobacco in Spain, which leads the sector to boast an economic impact of 126 million. Tobacco “made in” Extremadura. In Spain it is impossible to talk about tobacco without also talking about Extremadura. This was recently claimed by the sector in a report of AFI that leaves an eloquent figure: the cultivation and the first processing of the tobacco leaf generates in the region 69 million euros of added value, more or less 99% of the national total. The percentage is so overwhelming that the industry itself emphasizes that Extremadura is “the main producing center in the country and the first producing region at the European level.” If the focus is expanded, the Tobacco Roundtable estimates that the sector has a total impact of 126 million in the community and generates hundreds of jobs. To be more precise, it speaks of more than a thousand of direct positions, a figure that rises to 2,000 contracts full-time if indirect and induced workers are included. X-raying the sector. The Tobacco Table is not the only one that highlights the overwhelming weight of Extremadura. The Ministry of Agriculture itself recognizes that, according to data from the 2020 Agrarian Census (the latest available), the region brings together 94% of the 1,052 farms that exist in Spain. The activity focuses mainly on the north of the province of Cáceresin the regions of Campo Arañuelo, La Vera, Alagón, Talayuela and Navalmoral de la Mata. Beyond Extremadura. The agricultural map is basically completed with Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha and Navarra, although they dedicate many fewer hectares to tobacco. In 2024 Extremadura allocated 6,121compared to the 19 in Castilla y León, the 18 in Castilla-La Mancha and the three in Navarra. global photography of the sector is, however, much more complex. In the Canary Islands there is an outstanding manufacturing hub, in Cantabria there is the Entrambasaguas factoryfrom Altadis, “the main industrial production center on the peninsula”, and the Community of Madrid also benefits from hosting the headquarters of the Spanish subsidiaries of the large multinationals in the sector. In general, the Tobacco Table estimates that the sector contributes to the national GDP with 1,825 million eurosa figure that would exceed 3,700 if the total impact is included. Tobacco taxes are another source of substantial income for the State. The group speaks of around 6,700 million collected through the Tax on Tobacco Products, although the total fiscal contribution of the sector would be very high and would exceed 10,100 million euros annually. Getting perspective. Extremadura plays a prominent role on the Spanish (even European) tobacco map, but in reality our country accounts for a tiny part of the sector worldwide. Although the Spanish contribution represents about 19% of the total of the European Union, which usually places our country among the main producersrepresents 0.5% of global production. Your footprint It is very far from the big ones manufacturing powers like China, India or Brazil. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Spain would occupy 36th place among tobacco producers by area. Its 8,450 hectares (2021) are in fact nothing when compared to China (1,014,553), India (431,146) or other producers in America and Africa. better times. After years of regulation and awareness campaigns, the European industry is not going through its best moment either. In 2018 the EC calculated that around 140,000 tonnes of tobacco were grown in the Union as a whole, a far cry from the 400,000 at the beginning of the 1990s. The cultivated area has also been reduced. Nothing surprising if we take into account the increasingly complex scenario facing the sector and the collapse of consumption. In fact Extremadura exports about 74% of the tobacco leaf he collects. The MAP data They also note the drop in production (and cultivated area) in recent years in Spain, although performance improves. Images | Rusty Watson (Unsplash), Uitbundig (Unsplash), MAP and Tobacco Table In Xataka | Extremadura promised them very happy with its powerful Spanish tomato industry. Until China arrived

is falling silently since 2022

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After escalating during the pandemic to higher levels of its history, the price of rent in the United States started to retreat for the first time in years. The shift is neither punctual nor local: it is now observed on a sustained basis in most large cities and has lasted long enough to be considered a phase change in the market, not a seasonal blip. The question seems clear: why on earth did the rent begin to be transferred precisely now and not before? An unusual twist. After two years of historic increases driven by the pandemic shockrents in the United States have almost three consecutive years correcting National data places the average rent 3-3.5% below from the maximum of August 2022, with interannual decreases chained in the 50 largest markets. That correction is striking for a reason. very simple: It occurs in a country with a chronic housing deficit and with a still stressed cost of living. It is not a collapse, but a normalization after an extreme phase: because even with the decrease, the typical rent is still 20-22% above 2021. Austin as a laboratory. It we count a few months ago. Austin possibly offers the compressed version of what has happened on a national scale: after a boom in demand (internal migration, arrival of companies, cheap credit), the market responded with an expansion of unprecedented offer (an increase of more than 8% in the housing stock in a few years, with permits at rates that surpassed other comparable cities) and a subsequent slowdown due to the rapid rise in interest rates. The combined effect has led to rent drops of 22% from highs and sales price declines of 10-18%. The Austin case demonstrates that when the bottleneck is attacked on the supply side, the price falls before demand is destroyed due to poverty: it cools due to saturation, not due to collapse. National evidence. The pattern is common: in 2024 they were delivered more than 600,000 homes multifamily, the largest flow since 1986. There are still 686,000 under construction (well above the historical average) and 7.1% vacancymaximum of the series. A greater number of competing units forces prices to be lowered or free weeks to be granted to accelerate occupancy. The time that passes from when a home is published on the market until the contract is signed with a tenant now takes longer: 31 days on average compared to 19-20 days at the peak of tightness in 2021. The macro result is the loss of owners’ ability to raise prices in a market where the tenant has regained the margin of choice. Fall mechanics. The 2020-2022 phase combined demand shock (sudden migration + very low rates + change in preferences) with insufficient supply After a decade of under-construction post-2008, the price rose. In 2023-2025 reverse the asymmetry: the pipeline (the set of homes in the process of entering the market, but that have not yet become available) during the boom is delivered just when demand is cools due to high rates and the return of some migratory flows. What happens then? That the excess of units leads to greater vacancy, and vacancy is the nuclear variable that sets the price: after a certain threshold the expected income per empty unit falls more than it is worth keeping the rent high, and the owner adjust the price before than empty time. The fall is not structural but cyclical: if the supply were to stop completely, the pressure would return, as analysts already warn in the same Austin case. Uneven geography. The most intense decreases are concentrated in the Sun Belt markets (Austin, Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio, Orlando, Dallas), where production was faster and vacancy was higher. Markets with expensive land and regulatory barriers (cities such as San Francisco, New York, the NE coast and some Midwest nodes) show even rises because there the supply adjustment arrived late or simply did not arrive. This also confirms the direct relationship between the pace of permits/construction and price moderation: where construction was allowed, the rent fell, and where it was not, it continued to rise. It’s a correction. Most analysts agree on the same explanation. Despite the “rents are falling” narrative, the benchmark matters: the current absolute level is still well above pre-COVID, and the rent-to-income ratio has only returned to “manageable” zone (~23%) in a section of cities, and in areas like Miami or the NE coast it is still overflowing. That is why the experts they underline That anyone who expects to return to 2019 prices does not understand the basis: the new housing built is higher because the cost factors (land, insurance, construction, structural inflation) have not reversed, which suggests that the downward phase has a ceiling. Exportable lesson. The factor that can be copied is not the United States Federal Reserve or migration, but rather the supply elasticity: Austin proves, with an example empirical and measurablethat by authorizing and delivering new housing in large and sustained volumes, the rent stops being a fatalistic variable and begins to behave as an acceptable price due to competition. The rest of the country reproduces the same pattern where supply entered on a scale, and where it did not enter, the price simply did not weaken. Image | Pexels, Eric R. Bechtold, Apartment List In Xataka | Austin has managed to see its rents drop 22% in a year and a half. And there is a word that explains it: overconstruction In Xataka | Brussels has thousands of empty homes. So he’s going to start confiscating them and renting them at a social price

It turns out that in the US people pay more for not having a taxi driver. The added value of going silently offers and works

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According to The data Offered by OBI, an app that offers real -time prices on the different taxi and transport services in the United States, Waymo’s autonomous cars They cost average $ 20.43 by journey compared to 14.44 of Lyft and the 15.58 of Uber. Even so, users are willing to pay the premium for traveling without a driver. The conquest of the robotaxis. The analysis of the platform, based on almost 90,000 real trips in San Francisco, reveals that Waymo It charges up to $ 11 more than its competitors at peak hours. However, the demand does not stop growing: the company already makes 250,000 payment trips a week in its first four cities where the service is available. Everything indicates that users value both the experience without driver than are willing to pay a good amount of more for her. Waymo weekly paths in California. Image: Nat Bullard Data Different pricing model. Waymo operates with a more basic system of pure supply and demand, while Uber and Lyft have refined their algorithms for more than a decade. Robotaxis have a fixed fleet that grows slowly, which generates greater variability in prices. Short paths They are especially expensive: Less than 1.4 kilometers can cost about $ 26 per kilometer, between 31% and 41% more than competition. A strategy that works. Surveys show that 70% of those who have tried Waymo prefer to travel without driver. Almost 40% are willing to pay the same price or more, and 16% would agree to pay up to 10 extra dollars per trip. The key is in that “personal bubble” offered by the autonomous car, where the client can travel comfortably without human interaction. And this attracts many. Safety first. Despite the enthusiasm, 74% of respondents Consider Security His greatest concern about robotaxis. About 70% believe there should be some kind of remote human supervision during the paths, something that It is already practiced usually in the sector. Lower deployment and expansion times. Waymo Atlanta has just entered and soon it will arrive in Miami and Washington DC. It is collecting data in Las Vegas, Dallas, San Antonio, Nashville and New Orleans. The entry process in new markets is accelerating: now it takes only between one and two years since mapping vans arrive until customers can get on board one of these vehicles. And in Europe we are also at all. And from 2026, we will begin to see the first circular robotaxis through the United Kingdom and Germany. The surprise is that It will be Lyft, in collaboration with Baiduthose that seem to take the lead to this side of the puddle. Cover image | Waymo In Xataka | Tesla Robotaxis have been programmed to drive as a human. So when they see the police hit a brake

How Radio María has silently won a community of millions of faithful

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Radio María is one of the most important radio phenomena in Spain. With a community of listeners that are counted by millions worldwide, its history is not exempt from controversies. However, when the entire country succumbed to last week’s blackoutRadio María endured firmly without interrupting its programming. This is how this unique dissemination chain of Catholic thought works. Stop Radio María. He Past black that left the whole country disconnected did not affect all radio stationswhich made the little and old -fashioned transistors In very precious goods. Among the chains that endured the envy with, among other means, electricity generators such as Those of HospitalsThey were RNE, Zero Onda, La Cope wave BE. But among all, Radio María highlighted for its apparent modesty: indefatigable, it was still arriving at all points in Spain thanks to its large number of repeaters, 2,000 worldwide. A figure comparable to that of any large radio chain. Maria for the world. The devotees of the station will not be surprised: Radio Maríaof Italian origin, it is heard in points of Spain where the rest of the chains, even the big ones, arrive with difficulty, thanks to the 225 stations that have distributed throughout the country. And even beyond: it has 93 radio stations in the world, reaching points as remote as Asia or Oceania, which add 11 stations. Radio María presumes 500 million listeners (potential) that are sustained thanks to a network of volunteers that make possible the propagation of the radio faith: since 1998, since 1998, World Family of Radio Maria It is a non -profit association that brings together all these stations. A radio consecrated to faith. Radio María was born in Italy in 1983, as a parish radio in the diocese. Safe and priests wanted to develop an evangelization work with explicitly religious programming. This has been respected in radio growth throughout the world, and is noticed in its Spanish incarnation, where it arrived in 1999. On its grill the religious dissemination programs with all the spasible approaches (Jívenes, elders, marriages, psychology, theology, sacral music, news related to the Pope and the Church) and, of course, the religious acts, with prayer programs and two daily masses. Armando Lío. One of the aspects that Radio María takes care of is its relationship with younger Catholics. It has a program, in fact, entitled “Armando Lío”, such as Hakuna’s slogan, the Youth Catholic Activism Association that He congregated 85,000 people in Cibeles chanting their religious pop hymns. Although Radio María is little given to facilitate audience figures for its programs, the attention on their grill to spaces oriented to the youngest public, such as’Armando Lío‘,’Breaking molds‘Or also musical’Sing and walk‘They are proof that generating a community that supports the project is an important objective for the survival of the station. Niche community. Radio María is the perfect example of how beyond the attention of the great media and the general public live very numerous and involved communities, to the point of sustaining one of the most effective and listened radio stations of the country only with donations. “Our goal is to reach everywhere and we act to achieve it. It may sound very rare, but we do not move for the number of possible listeners or the possibilities of a station, we have some principles different from those of conventional radio,” said Quintanilla in the confidential. Undoubtedly, a criterion that has led the station to highlight in a situation as adverse as a national blackout. How is financed. It is the big question, the great enigma around Radio María. Officially, the station makes it very clear on its website: Maintaining the issuance costs 573 euros at the time, and the options for the faithful are multiple: periodic or punctual donations, income and transfers, checks, bizums .. until the fiscal deductions that correspond by donations are specified, which make up the 99% of the issuing income. The other leg of support to Radio María is the network volunteerwhich also admits multiple variants: in the promotion, in the dioceses, from home … Currently, they have more than 1,500 volunteers throughout Spain, which generate 90% of the programming. However, doubts also arise. Recent doubts. Of course, not everything is very clear accounts: yesterday The Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León annulled the order by which the Board had awarded 124 radio licenses, 27 of them to Radio María. One of the reasons for the complaint, filed by the being, is that the stations were awarded irregularly: both Radio María and another of the main beneficiaries, the eleventh hour (owned by the Adventist Church), are non -profit stations and the bases of the Award Contest spoke of “provision of commercial audiovisual services.” Radio María and the eleventh hour monopolized 30% of the licenses awarded. Everywhere. Diffusion strategies like this or how to buy Rodrigo Rato in 2012 six radio licenses For a million euros They assured him total coverage in the Balearic Islands are those that have guaranteed his brutal expansion. Although its president, José Manuel Díez Quintanilla, affirms that certain activities that root the illegality They are a thing of the pastRadio María has taken advantage of its non -commercial condition to invade foreign frequencies or expand power above what was allowed, which earned them in their day the occasional fine like one of 126,000 euros from the Junta de Andalucía In 2012. Header | Jacob Hodgson in Unspash In Xataka | Listen to the radio on the mobile: options to do so and main problems of each

Deepseek is expanding silently through the Chinese bureaucracy. And he is giving us a lesson about the future of AI

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China is rapid Deepseekits open source AI model, in public administrations and strategic companies. At least Eight cities have already integrated this system into their government networksin addition to Chinese giants like byd – and not Chinese as Nissan– They are incorporating it into their electric cars. Why is it important. The speed with which Depseek is being adopted shows the two sides of the same currency: On the one hand, the ease with which an open source model can expand. On the other, the ability of the Chinese system to implement technological changes without the usual bureaucratic obstacles in Western democracies. Obviously, the second is subject to the unique party system. The facts. Guangzhou has been a pioneer by integrating Depseek into its government network: It has managed to reduce the waiting time in citizens by 43%. Has reached 97% precision in its consultation management. The system has made citizens more quickly access public policies information in addition to expediting official documents processing. For its part, Hohhot, capital of Interior Mongolia, has already completed the deployment of the model Deepseek R1 in its government extranet. Your management office Big Data Plan to expand the use of the system, from call attention to multimodal data analysis, including texts, images and videos to improve the shared use of public data. Six other Chinese municipal governments have already announced their integration with Deepseek. Zhengzhou has started training sessions about AI for its officials. In Dalian, more than 1,300 officials and representatives of 500 companies have received training on the system. The background. The rapid adoption of Deepseek by the Chinese administration contrasts with western caution and slowness before AI in the public sector. Europe is more focused on Set regulatory frameworks While China takes advantage of its centralized system to accelerate the transformation of its bureaucracy towards a more efficient format. The success – or not – of this implementation can demonstrate that the adoption rate can be so important or more than the innovation itself. China is able to convert a disadvantage (its unique party system) into a competitive advantage for AI. In Xataka | Deepseek exposed: how money earns and what role does the Chinese government have in this AI Outstanding image | Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio

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