stations

Without gas stations in space we will not reach Mars. NASA knows this and is finally doing something about it

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Much of a spacecraft’s fuel is consumed in maneuvers to leave Earth’s orbit. For this reason, as manned missions move further away from our planet, we must begin to think about use space gas stations. These are not fuel pumps floating in space, but satellites, or even ships, capable of transferring fuel to a ship that needs it to travel further. At the moment, this is one of the weak points of many missions, so it is important to start working on technologies that allow it. At NASA they are very aware of this problem, hence this year they are going to launch LOXSATa mission that will test 11 different technologies to guarantee the transfer of propellants. 9 months ahead. LOXSAT is a NASA mission in collaboration with the company Eta Space. The objective of this mission is to test different cryogenic fluid management technologies so that in the future propellant tanks can be created in space. The mission will remain in low Earth orbit for 9 months. Meanwhile, 11 technologies will be tested focused on achieving four objectives: reducing boiling, improving propellant transfer, maintaining stable pressure and measuring propellant levels. The big problem. Cryogenic propellants, such as liquid oxygen at extremely low temperatures, are very efficient, but they have a major disadvantage. And in microgravity conditions, when the transfer between ships is carried out, the temperature cannot be kept low enough, so the fuel boils and suddenly transforms into gas. This causes a huge increase in pressure, which can endanger the ships involved. It seems to be that precisely this problem is the one that is giving SpaceX the most headaches. Like Blue Origin, this company must demonstrate its ability to refuel in space to be part of the Artemis missions, but it is not being easy. This is the reason why with LOXSAT methods will be tested to maintain stable pressure and reduce boiling. Space gas stations. The objective of this mission is to perfect the technology so that in the future there can be fixed propellant tanks in space. In other words, they hope that as we colonize space terrain we have gas stations so as not to run out of fuel. China on the heels. Ideally, in the future, large ships could exchange propellant. No space agency has achieved anything like this. However, China has indeed achieved it with satellites, in their Shijian missions. Plus, they did it in a higher orbit, so they are ahead of NASA in the particular race that has been uniting them for so long. Of course, at the moment, China has not tested cryogenic propellants, but tried hydrazine replenishment. There is still room for improvement. Write down the date. The mission will depart aboard an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab. The launch will be in the summer, no earlier than July 17, from New Zealand. Images | POT In Xataka | Jeff Bezos’ space company has overtaken SpaceX in a key milestone to go to the Moon and Mars: zero evaporation

In 2008 China was installing metro stations in the middle of nowhere. In 2026 we have discovered how naive we were

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Last year it moved a video which showed that, when it comes to building construction, China looks far ahead of those sacred five-year plans. In fact, something fascinating happens in Beijing: you can find an empty subway entrance where there is no development, a wasteland. The reality is different, because if you return to the same place a few years later, the photo is completely different. Yes, China is an expert in long-term planning. For decades to come. The Chinese urban expansion of the last twenty years has consolidated a structural feature: infrastructure (particularly the metro) is built before the city exists that will do. This deliberate advancement produces a phase visible “empty”: stations buried in open fields, access through weeds without streets or commerce, deep deserted platforms under soils without residents. However, for the Chinese State this phase is not a failure but a transitory state within a horizon of 10–20 years where infrastructure precedes to induce and anchor the development that will come. The called “ghost cities” (from Lanzhou New Area to Xiongan) are less a symptom of error than an intermediate frame of a long temporal script that assumes that urbanization is safe even though its sequence is asymmetrical: first the subway, then the people. Station as a lever. The data from a Wuhan study show that the simple fact of having a metro nearby sharply increases the value of commercial premises within a radius of up to 400 meterseven if there is no city around yet: the line works as a future proof that can be monetized. On a large scale, since 2008 the State launched a wave of new cities and networks (thousands of kilometers of metro in a few years) that reduced congestion and attracted investment. But this anticipated layout was not always accompanied by schools, hospitals or good last-mile connections, which stopped people from leaving the saturated centers and extended the phase in which the new areas seem empty. The infrastructure came first… and the city took longer to appear. First there was the stop, and then Chongqing The Chongqing case. Possibly the most publicized. Caojiawan (the “nowhere station”) condensed the thesis in image: hidden accesses among weeds without streets or residents, surveillance of the viral world, and employees recognizing minimal use “for now” with the central argument of planning: the lane anticipated the neighborhood. Chongqing reinforces the pattern with its deep engineering (Hongtudimore than 60 meters and extension to more than 94), the extreme intermodal connection and the overinvestment in topology before demand. At the city scale, the same pattern runs through its network of viaducts and lines: radically anticipated infrastructure to induce future urban trajectories. Lanzhou New Area Map Ghost cities as a phase. Lanzhou New Area (with razed mountains, free zones, artificial lakes and replicas of monuments) first went through years of silence and then through a slow awakening, with the arrival of people in dribs and drabs, although there are still doubts about the figures. Urban planners who have followed its evolution maintain that calling a “ghost city” is to confuse a phase with the final destination: these projects are conceived for 15–20 yearsnot to be judged at 3–5. In other words, the State does not build for the present, but for the moment when transportation connects, density closes and the population crosses a certain threshold. From that perspective, the initial emptiness does not clash with the bet, it is simply part of the planned schedule. Between ambition and sustainability. Bloomberg recalled a while ago that the model has a cost: most meters they are not profitablethey increase the debt of local governments and there is a risk of building more than necessary in medium-sized cities. The national authority first relaxed the requirements (asking for less population to authorize lines) and then tightened them again and stopped projects, realizing that what helps create value can also sink finances. Various analysts have pointed out that in many places the subway was chosen “out of inertia”, when solutions such as a good bus system with a reserved platform could have provided almost the same with much less debt. The dilemma is no longer whether there will be extensive networks (because they already exist) but whetherat what point to invest in advance it stops being a gamble and becomes a burden. From building to operating. Once built the physical networkthe main problem is no longer digging tunnels but making that work well. There are a large number of stations with a single entrance that get stuck, long and poorly resolved transfers, lack of large connection points between lines and absence of tracks prepared for fast trains to overtake slow ones, because these decisions were not thought out from the beginning. The same logic of “first we build and then we’ll see” now causes circulation problemssecurity, accessibility and response to extreme rains as shown by the Zhengzhou case. They counted in The Guardian that to go from “building fast” to “running well” it is necessary to redesign with the traveler’s experience in mind, not just that of the construction engineer. The temporary strategy. In short, China has turned into a norm an idea that inverts the usual order in the West: the subway is not built because there is already a city, but so that the city ​​exists after. The station tickets today empty are, in their logic, the first material step of future neighborhoods, within a plan that assumes long deadlines and accepts periods of emptiness as part of the price of forcing urbanization. The risk is in the financial cost and in going from “building” to “making it work”, but the advantage is be able to capture value and shape the city in advance. What to today’s eyes seems like an unproductive excess, on a twenty-year scale is only the first phase. A version of this article was published in November 2025 Image | Luke PusateriLanzhou Government Bulletin System, Unusual Places In Xataka | There are skyscrapers so monstrously tall … Read more

The problem is that there are already gas stations that have absorbed them

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The liter of diesel reached 1.96 euros on average last Saturday, its highest since the conflict broke out in Iran, and gasoline was dangerously close to two euros. However, that same weekend, it came into effect the government’s tax reduction. Prices have dropped, but now the question is how long it will last. Why has fuel increased? The conflict in the Persian Gulf has increased diesel prices by 44.8 euro cents per liter, and gasoline by 28.2 euro cents, according to a study published by the OCU. The trigger is the war in Iran, which has strained the crude oil markets through the Strait of Hormuzan artery through which nearly 20% of the world’s oil transits. In just three weeks since the start of the conflict, prices at the pumps ended up skyrocketing to levels not seen since the Ukraine crisis. What has the Government done? The Executive approved on Friday, March 21 a shock package which includes, among its most important measures, lowering the VAT on fuel from 21% to 10% and temporarily eliminating the special tax on hydrocarbons. The estimated savings were around 30 cents per liter, which represents around 20 euros of savings per tank, according to the estimates of the Government itself. The measure published in the BOE on Saturday it came into force immediately, although it will have to be validated in Congress this Thursday. The Government has set the validity of this temporary reduction until June 30, at which time it will review the impact of the measure depending on how the energy markets evolve. How much have prices really dropped? This Monday, March 23, the average price of 95 gasoline in Spain was located at 1,595 euros per liter and diesel at 1,786 euros. The drop is real and significant. And in fact, if you go to almost any gas station, you will see that the prices have nothing to do with those of a few days ago. However, it is worth putting it in perspective. And the average price of a liter of diesel on March 19 was 1,917 euros, and the VAT reduction reduces it by about 17.4 cents. That is still well below the average increase of 45 cents that we were able to verify between March 2 and 19. Likewise, the tax decrease does not fully compensate for what fuel prices have increased in recent weeks. ANDl rocket and feather effect. The fact that VAT drops on paper does not guarantee that the price at the pump will drop just as quickly or completely. Economists call this the rocket and feather effect: When the price of oil rises, fuels immediately reflect that increase, while the declines are much slower. Part of this slowness also has an explanation: the cut in the hydrocarbon tax has not yet been applied to all gas stations because many are depleting the stock they had bought with the previous tax. ANDthe first day of the descent. In about 42% of service stations the VAT reduction from 21% to 10% did not fully materialize the first day, and the situation was even worse in agricultural and transport cooperatives, which in most cases had not yet passed on the discount. Some have attributed this to the lack of time to adapt the computer systems (the announcement came on Friday, the publication in the BOE on Saturday and the reduction was to be effective on Sunday) since many stations had purchased fuel at higher prices just the day before. The director of the Spanish Confederation of Service Station Employers (CEEES), Nacho Rabadán, has indicated that in many cases there have been service station managers who the day before purchased fuel with a price increase greater than the impact of the VAT cut. And a quarter of gas stations took the opportunity to go up. The most striking thing comes from FACUA. And it is that according to the data According to the consumer organization, 1,837 gas stations that communicated new prices to the Ministry on Sunday took advantage of the VAT reduction to apply a new increase. Of them, 177 completely absorbed the tax reduction by maintaining their prices without adjustment, and another 40 even increased it compared to the previous price. In the specific case of diesel, FACUA calculates that, if the tax reduction had been fully transferred, the decrease would have reached 17.8 cents, placing the average price at 1.785 euros; However, the real price was somewhat higher. FACUA concludes that lowering taxes without setting price ceilings is “exactly the measure that speculators have been demanding.” 2022 is not that far away. We have the most recent precedent in the bonus of 20 cents per liter that the Government applied during the Ukraine crisis. This cost us around 4.25 billion euros, according to a study of the economists Juan Luis Jiménez, Jordi Perdiguero and José Manuel Cazorla-Artiles. The effectiveness of the bonus was, to say the least, questionable. And in addition to the study, other independent reports from Esade and Funcas They also concluded that a significant portion of that aid did not reach consumers. The CNMC began an investigation that concluded last February with a fine of 20.5 million euros to Repsol group companies for abusing their dominant position. This history is precisely the reason why the Government has opted this time for a direct tax reduction that acts on taxes instead of repeating the universal bonus. From the CEEES, Rabadán had already qualified the 2022 bonus as “well-intentioned, but poorly designed and worse executed.” What a difference the measurement makes this time. Unlike the 2022 bonus, the VAT reduction acts directly on the tax included in the final price, which theoretically makes it more difficult for gas stations to appropriate the benefit. However, given FACUA’s complaint after the events of the first day of the sale, we see that the fact that it is more difficult for the price to be absorbed does not mean that it is not impossible. Given the … Read more

Spaniards, the price war at gas stations has begun. And Repsol is the first to launch its attack

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The price of gasoline has skyrocketed. Diesel is through the roof. It has already been dropped that The Government has studied discounts on purchases of fuel as it already did in 2022. And while the Spanish are looking for the cheapest gas stations to refuel, service stations have just opened a war to continue attracting customers. through the clouds. If we talk about average prices, we are still far from the figures that we end up paying for gasoline and diesel in 2022. In the days that followed the first stages of the Ukrainian War, gasoline came to reflect an average price in Spain of 2.152 euros/liter and diesel 2.106 euros/liter, according to the portal dieselgasolina.com which monitors the price of all service stations in the country. Today, March 19, gasoline reflects an average price of 1,784 euros/liter on average. 98 gasoline already scales at 1,938 euros/liter. The basic diesel is already paid at 1,906 euros/liter and the “premium” at 1,988 euros/liter. With these data, gasoline is about 40 cents/liter of what was paid in 2022 but diesel is already at 20 cents/liter. Not only that. If we look back we find a brutal increase in prices. On March 1, the average price of gasoline was 1.495 euros/liter. That is, in 19 days the average price has increased by almost 30 cents/liter. Diesel is even more worrying, rising almost 50 cents/liter from the 1,447 that it reflected on average on March 1. A relief to the pocket. At least cosmetically. That is what happened in 2022 when the Government applied a fuel reduction of 20 cents/liter. It was a flat rate for all drivers which partially alleviated the effect of rising fuel prices, without taking into account if the client was doing it for recreational useto go to work or because he was a professional who needed it to provide his services. However, prices continued to rise and just a few days after the aid began to be applied, which arrived when gasoline was 1.84 euros/liter, we were already paying the same than before the subsidy. Did the marketers take advantage to continue raising prices and increase their business? The CNMC suspected so. Repsol tightens. Although rumors point to a possible subsidy again, oil companies have already begun to take positions in the face of a new price war. The most ambitious has been Repsol, which has in its Waylet program the best tool to build customer loyalty. The company has announced that double your discounts with Waylet. That is, now they deduct 10 cents/liter for each refueling. But Repsol has turned Waylet into its own ecosystem from which it is difficult to get out. If you have electricity contracted with Repsol, the savings double and go from 10 cents/liter to 20 cents/liter. And if you have other contracted services, such as car or home insurance, the discount is 40 cents/liter. Added to this are the discounts with every electric car recharge and domestic rates or subscriptions outside the home, which is why they have managed to position themselves as a very attractive option for those who have both technologies at home, combustion and electricity. A price war. Repsol, yes, is the company that has the highest prices on the market, according to dieselgasolina.com. On average, gasoline at Repsol costs 1,763 euros/liter and diesel 1,861 euros/liter. Moeve, the second most expensive supplier, is very far away, with an average price of 1,693 euros/liter and 1,760 euros/liter for gasoline and diesel respectively. The gap with low cost is gigantic. Alcampo currently sells gasoline at 1,594 euros/liter and diesel at 1,706 euros/liter. However, Repsol has a reason to push: low cost. They explain in Expansion that these service stations are more sensitive to price increases because the volume of each purchase is smaller. They do not have the storage capacity of large companies, which forces them to buy more often and, therefore, increasingly more expensive when the price skyrockets. This reduces your profit margins. And although in the middle they assure that the low cost ones continue to be cheaper, the truth is that the margin is narrowing. When the difference is small, it is easier for Repsol to gain followers and build customer loyalty with large discounts since “cheap gasoline” loses much of its appeal. This loss of competitiveness translates into the results of dieselgasolina.com that collects that Ballenoil has, right now, gasoline more expensive than Moeve, just one step below Repsol. under the magnifying glass. The aggressive discounts on gasoline have fueled the debate about the extent to which oil companies are taking advantage of the situation. In 2022, Repsol has already taken the opportunity to make aggressive discounts. Those, according to the CNMCthey took advantage to try to take smaller gas stations out of the market. Those days, low-cost service stations already assured that the Government subsidy was suffocating them due to the particularities of their business model. Just a few days ago, The OCU has already filed a complaint with the CNMC that the increases that were occurring in the price of fuel were being abusive. They noted that according to the Official Gazette of the European Union, Spain was the third country in which prices had increased the most and that the cost of diesel was higher than the European average. As in the case of Expansion According to his calculations, the low cost ones were the ones that reflected the most striking increases. It remains to be seen what the response of the rest of the service stations is. Repsol has already shown that it has room for maneuver. In 2022, the oil companies that entered the game did so in the same way, with wide discounts within their loyalty plans. And that has some clear losers: the low cost ones. Photo | Juanedc In Xataka | Fear of gasoline at 2 euros per liter: the sector is already preparing for the worst after the start of the war in Iran

three new stations with connection to a new neighborhood

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Plans to bring Madrid Metro Line 1 north are already underway. The Department of Transport of the Community of Madrid has published the informative study with the alternatives to take the metro to Madrid Nuevo Norte, which is where the capital is focusing its efforts on transforming the entire Chamartín station. Taking L1 to the north has been one of the five options on the table of the regional administration, and at the moment the favorite. The idea is to create three new stations and reorganize the current final section of the line to integrate with L4. We tell you all the details. What exactly is proposed. The alternative proposes extending L1 from Chamartín–Clara Campoamor about three kilometers to the north, with three new stops that have been nicknamed with provisional names: Business Center, Fuencarral Sur and Fuencarral Norte. The first would cover the office area planned next to Chamartín; The other two would serve the new residential neighborhoods that will be built on the old Castellana roads, and also the residents who already live in Fuencarral. The preferred option. The Ministry describes it, according to collect 20 Minutes, as “the most favorable option for carrying out this project after analyzing the different functional, environmental, territorial and economic issues.” The other four alternatives were committed to creating an independent driverless line exclusively for Madrid Nuevo Norte, but technicians ruled it out for being less efficient and more expensive in comparison. Of course, the initial budget of the chosen option is not exactly modest: the study, to which Somos Madrid had access, estimates it at 401 million euros (VAT included). The change that affects Line 4. This solution has a direct consequence on the current network, since the Bambú and Pinar de Chamartín stations, which today belong to L1, will become part of Line 4. This line, which currently ends in Pinar de Chamartín, will be extended to Chamartín, where it will connect with L1 and L10. On paper it is a reorganization that aims to benefit everyone, since L4 users will gain direct access to the train station, and L1 will become a continuous axis between the center of Madrid (Sol, Gran Vía, Atocha) and the new northern neighborhood. How and when it will be built. The works will not be done with a tunnel boring machine. As it is a short section and on land that has not yet been developed, the Belgian method (or classic Madrid method) will be used, which involves excavating from the surface. Just like they count from 20 Minutes, the cut and cover technique will be used for the stations (the same one that is being used in the expansion of L11) and for connections with L4 the German method will be applied. It is projected in two phases: First the redistribution of lines 1 and 4. Then the extension to Madrid Nuevo Norte. Work on the first phase is expected to be completed around 2030. Who will benefit. According to the estimates of demand from the studio itself, the extension will serve an environment with more than 200,000 residents and 140,000 jobs. The Community also estimates that the expansion will generate about 175,000 new daily users for L1. Where is the project now? With the publication of the five alternativesthe Ministry has opened a 20-day public information period so that citizens, associations and administrations can present allegations from the Transparency Portal of the Community of Madrid. Once the proposals have been studied, the final informative study must be approved, and from there the project would advance. Along with this, a tender has also been put out to draft the draft the future garageswhich would have a capacity of about 15,000 m² on the surface and 26,000 m² below ground, and also the commission to develop the construction project for the expansion, although for the latter we must first wait for the final study to be approved. Cover image | Madrid Metro In Xataka | Mayrit, the 1,500-ton “underground factory”, is about to start its engines with one objective: to transform Madrid’s L11

The lack of additives at low-cost gas stations does not keep drivers up at night. That’s why Moeve wants to be more Ballenoil

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Moeve has changed its strategy and has done so in a big way. In just 12 months, the company has converted 50 of its service stations traditional to Ballenoil, its low-cost brand. And since this type of gas stations began to become popular, the ‘lack’ of additives It has not been a concern for consumers who, above all, prioritize their pockets. The transformation has been especially intense since this summer, when the oil company decided to accelerate the process of further prioritizing its low-cost brand in strategic points throughout the Peninsula. Transformation. The old one Cepsa bought Ballenoil in November 2023 with a clear objective: to challenge Repsol for the crown, which maintains the largest share of the Spanish market. But it is not only about growing the number of gas stations. And it seems that Moeve has understood that the future involves being present in two worlds: the premium, where it maintains its traditional brand, and the low cost, where the customer seeks to fill the tank at a lower cost. From Moeve confirm to the Vozpópuli medium that “both premium and low cost are important to respond to the expectations of our customers.” The perfect timing. Although fuel prices have fallen since all-time highs which they reached after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (when they exceeded two euros per liter), continue to remain at high levels. The liter of 95 octane gasoline exceeds 1.45 euros on average and diesel is close to 1.40 euros, according to data from CincoDías. Logically, given the rise in fuel prices, many drivers are looking for specifically economical gas stations, and that is where the low-cost ones come in. All in a context in which traditional oil companies focus on attracting customers through their promises of premium fuel and additives. Figures. The integration of Ballenoil has made Moeve exceed 2,000 service stations in the Iberian Peninsula for the first time, reaching 2,040 gas stations, according to 2024 financial data. The figure is expected to increase before the end of the year. The pace of transformation accelerated in June, when 16 stations changed their image in a single month. Just like affirms In the middle, during September and October the conversions continued, prioritizing territories where the company already has a greater presence. Madrid leads this transformation with nine gas stations that become Ballenoil, followed by Barcelona, ​​Navarra, Albacete, Ciudad Real, Granada, Seville and Badajoz. The Ballenoil network has also allowed Moeve to penetrate areas where it did not previously have a presence, especially in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Andalusia and several regions of Castile. The rise of low cost. Low cost gas stations already represent 20% of all stations in Spain, according to inform the EconomíaDigital medium, with more than 2,400 installations spread throughout the country. As the media explains, the savings for the driver can exceed 0.18 euros per liter compared to traditional brands, a difference that ends up being noticed with each refueling. And the forecasts point high, which could mean a major structural change in the national oil panorama. Ballenoil, Plenergy and Petroprix are leading this transformation, betting on automated systems and simplified infrastructure that allow them to reduce costs. Manuel Sáez, CEO of Ballenoil, declared to CincoDías that the objective is to “exceed 380 operational service stations” in the second half of the year and “reach 500 throughout 2027.” Competence. Ballenoil has reached 350 service stations in Spain, becoming the leader in number of points of sale within the low cost segment. Plenergy follows closely, with 340 gas stations (331 in Spain and 9 in Portugal) and plans to reach 370 this year. However, Plenergy leads in business volume: closed 2024 with 1,385 million liters sold, a growth of 43% compared to the previous year. For its part, Petroprix, with 165 stations in Spain, has opted for a different strategy, prioritizing international expansion in markets such as Portugal, Chile, Panama and Poland. Cover image | engin akyurt In Xataka | Catalonia wants to make variable speed limits a reality. And he is already experimenting to improve the sleep of his neighbors

How to use Ruta-E, the government app to find cheap gas stations and charging points in your city or your route

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We are going to tell you how to use Route-Ethe new application of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, creators of My Citizen Folder among many other apps. It is an application that seeks to help you find the cheapest gas stations and electric charging points. It is a simple but versatile application. You can choose between gasoline or electric chargers, and then you have the options of exploring on the map or trace a route and see all the gas stations or charging points along with the price of fuel, so you know which one allows you to save a little money on your trips. Look at the price of gasoline with Ruta-E The first thing you have to do is download the Ruta-E application, available on Google Play for Android and in the App Store of iPhones. Once inside you will have a map, and at the top right you will have a filter in which you can choose fuel type for which you want to find a gas station or charging station. When you choose the type of fuel, you will see information about all the pumps in your city. But you can navigate the map to explore the entire country in case you want to look at those of some place you are going to visit. In the gasoline pump preview you will see the price of the fuel you have chosen. The app also has an option to trace the route of a trip what you want to do, with origin and destination point. When you do, you will see all the gas stations you have along the route along with the prices of the type of fuel you have chosen, and also the charging points. When you press at a gas stationyou will be able to see their hours and prices, and thus compare the cheapest ones or those that are open. And if you click on a charging point you will not see the price, but you will see the types of plugs available. In Xataka Basics | Gasoline price on Google Maps: how to see nearby gas stations and their prices on Android or iOS

The future is filled with AI work stations so you can have your chatgpt at home

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Acer He has just presented Its Veriton GN100, a small workstation with a single purpose: allow you to train and run local models and without depending on the cloud. The proposal is not entirely new, but points to a future in which the PC mutates to give us that promising ability to have a kind of chatgpt in local. A hardware that sounds like. This team has a GB10 Nvidia chip with Grace Blackwell architecture, and is accompanied by 128 GB of GDDR5 memory and 4 TB of storage. It is practically the same configuration of the workstation NVIDIA DGX Sparkwhich was announced in March but still without being on sale. In that case, the storage was 1 TB, which makes we can have less downloaded models. An upward trend. The new Acer Veriton GN100 is a small step that can confirm an interesting trend: that of being able to enjoy small work stations that are specifically designed so that we can install and even train AI models locally. Flag privacy. That is important above all in privacy: our conversations and use of these models will remain totally private, and there are no data that can end up staying on OpenAi, Google or Anthropic servers, for example. Thus, we can use financial, medical or confidential data without fear to consult with the AI ​​models, because that information does not come out of our team. And potential savings. Not only that: to be able to execute a local AI model allows you to avoid expenses in the use of cloud models, whether we subscribe to plans such as those proposed for example Chatgpt plus As if we use the API and pay for use. With the local model the consultations come out “free” or almost: all we pay is the equipment and its energy consumption. But. The models that we can run at home are open models as call, Deepseek R1, Qwen or The new OpenAi GPT-Oss. With them it is possible to have notable benefits, but it is very difficult to match the quality of the models as GPT-5Gemini or Claude 4 Opus Because these are gigantic models that are executed in data centers with thousands of GPUS. Competing in that sense is practically impossible, but for certain scenarios we simply do not need it, and these Open Source models can be a fantastic alternative. Acer Veriton GN100 Graphic memory to power. The larger the models of the best usually behave, but there is a problem: to be able to use them we need a lot of graphic memory and the current PCs do not stand out in that section. The most powerful graphics for consumers, The GeForce RTX 5090It has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, which is fantastic in bandwidth but limits the size of the models to be executed. Apple has a winning hand. Fortunately we have alternatives and especially the future points to relevant changes in this area. On the one hand we have the Mac Studio with up to 512 GB of unified memory – and also, with an excellent bandwidth – in which it is possible to execute large models Open Source without problems. System Memory bandwidth (GB/s) NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5090 (GDDR7) 1,792 Mac Studio M3 Ultra (Unified Memory) 819 NVIDIA DGX SPARK (Unified LPDDR5X) 273 Framework Desktop (LPDDR5X memory) 256 But the PCs also begin to aim high. On the other, Teams such as Framework Desktop that have a similar memory system and that include 128 GB of GDDR5 memory also enable that possibility. Nvidia and Acer’s work stations use a very similar scheme and also integrate 128 GB of GDDR5 memory with a decent bandwidth – but not spectacular – for AI applications This promises. We are thus given the potential takeoff of a trend in the PCS market. Until now the manufacturers had specialized in gaming equipment, but the rise of artificial intelligence allows to glimpse a future in which we have “PCs for AI” that have huge amounts of graphic memory and that are perfect for this area. In Xataka | The B300 GPU is the new Nvidia beast for Ia. And we already know what prepares for 2026 and 2027

They are Russian gas stations

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Petroleum prices will rebound again in recent weeks. Brent rose 2.7% and the West Texas intermediate 1.1% this week, According to Reuters. Behind this volatility are the low, presumable expectations, of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. This uncertainty is immediately reflected in the markets, which already discourage tougher sanctions against Moscow and a long war. In fact, while Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were gathered in Alaska, thousands of kilometers, Ukrainian drones reached a Russian refinery. Suggesting that war is no longer freed in Donbás. Now hits where Kremlin hurts most: oil. Shortage in front of the bombings. In Russia, wholesale gasoline prices have shot at record levels. In a Financial Times report It is detailed That the most common fuel, the A95, reached 82,300 rubles per ton in the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, 55% more than at the beginning of the year. The climb responds to a double pressure: the seasonal rebound in demand and damage to the Russian energy infrastructure caused by Ukrainian attacks with drones. The population begins to suffer consequences. The drivers are already evidencing it: long lines, empty suppliers and rationing in regions such as Zabaikalsky, Crimea and the East end. According to the Moscow TimesRussia has lost about 13% of its refining capacity since the beginning of August, after attacks that forced the closure of at least four refineries. In Vladivostok, motorists wait up to two hours to refuel. “The suppliers are covered with posters of ‘out of service’,” said a driver to the local press. Scarcity also has a historic echo. In some areas they have introduced “coupons” of fuel, a rationing mechanism that evokes the memories of the last years of the USSR. Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, suffers supply cuts. Sergei Aksyonov, regional chief designated by Moscow, has admitted to FT “Interruptions in some stations” and requested patience “until the end of the special military operation.” However, despite trying to contain the crisis with subsidies and prohibiting the export of gasoline on July 28, domestic demand remains without satisfying. The drone offensive. According to the countryUkraine has launched in August a systematic offensive against the Russian oil industry, hitting refineries and distribution centers to hundreds and even thousands of kilometers from the border. On August 10, Ukrainian drones reached a Lukoil installation in the Republic of Komi, more than 2,000 kilometers, a record record. The attack stopped for days the production of one of Rosneft’s key refineries in Saratov. These attacks are not new, but now they are more frequent and coordinated. The Financial Times He has stressed that unlike 2023 – when the damages were repaired quickly – in 2024 the campaign aims to leave several plants simultaneously for longer. The strategic objective, As the country explainedIt is double: show the Kremlin that it is vulnerable in its own territory and hit its main source of income, hydrocarbons, in the middle of the peace negotiations. The chaos of the drones. Kyiv’s weapon are swarms of low and long -range drones, produced by mass. As my partner has detailed in XatakaUkraine manufactured 2.2 million drones in 2024 and wants to double that figure in 2025. But the battlefield has also become an electronic chaos: up to 60 drones can fly at just a kilometer in front, interfering mutually. Sometimes, Ukrainian countermeasures themselves against Russian drones leave their devices inoperative. In others, operators connect unwittingly to enemy transmissions. Even so, the strategic message is clear: drones allow Ukraine to hit away and erode the Russian war economy. The forecasts. Analysts expect that gasoline prices in Russia will continue high at least until September, According to the Financial Times. Although a generalized national crisis is not anticipated – because the low demand after summer and part of the damaged capacity can be recovered – it is expected that the problems in remote and poorly connected regions are expected. Moscow could resort to imports from refined products from Belarus to cover part of the deficit. However, Ukraine seems determined to maintain his campaign. “There will be more,” warned the Ukrainian General Staff after an attack on the Syzran refinery in Samara. A war laboratory. Beyond the economic, the conflict reveals two long -range trends. On the one hand, the war in Ukraine has become a military innovation laboratory, where drones resistant to interference, platforms with artificial intelligence and new electronic warfters are rehearsed, As we have pointed in Xataka. These lessons learned will mark the armies of the future. On the other hand, within Russia, the appearance of rationing by coupons connects the current war with collective memories of Soviet scarcity, an uncomfortable reminder that the costs of the invasion also reach everyday life. A new front. The war in Ukraine has displaced its most visible forehead: it is no longer only in the trenches of Donbás, but in the tails of Russian gas stations. While Putin insists that Moscow maintains the military initiative, citizens face rations, queues and rising prices. History suggests that shortage hits stronger than any projectile. The tsaries learned him at the beginning of the 20th century, when popular discontent undermined his power. Today, more than a century later, Kremlin see how the internal front can become its greatest vulnerability: if drones continue to attack refineries, the price will not only pay the economy, but also the population. Image | Unspash and National Police of Ukraine Xataka | Less oil ships are scrolled, and there is only one reasonable explanation: Russia’s ghost fleet

Japan has just found a way to drastically accelerate the construction of train stations: print them in 3D

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3D impression continues to make way in the world of architecture. After seeing the first houses and even data centers 3D printednow is the turn of rail infrastructure. The latest novelty It arrives from Japanwhere they have already installed a train station built with this technology. According to those responsible, the main advantages against traditional methods are speed and sustainability. As can be seen in the images, we are not facing a station that impresss its size or monumental design. On the contrary: it is a simple, functional and compact construction. At first glance it may seem plastic, but in reality it is printed in concrete. The structure, of less than 10 square meters, is based on several reinforcement bars and has two openings for the passage of passengers. The first 3D printed station in the world The structure was printed a few kilometers and was subsequently transferred in a truck to Hatsushima Station, in the Wakayama Prefecture, about 96 kilometers south of Osaka. There the final assembly was carried out. Naohiro Ohashi, spokesman for Jr West Japan, explained to NHK that “Normally it takes about two months in building a station of this size ”, and that in this case the priority was the speed to complete the work. The assembly of the structure was completed in about two hours with the help of a crane, and all the work ended before the first train departure to Wakayama. The pieces, of several tons, were manipulated by only six operators, including the crane operator. With this experience, the company already has a more precise estimate of the time necessary to install this type of stations, which are part of future projects. From now on, the company will evaluate the profitability of both construction and maintenance. Depending on the performance of this first station, they consider Extend the use of this technology to other locations. They point out that 3D impression facilitates a planned renewal of the railway facilities, especially before the Crecent labor shortage. The objective, they point out, is to move towards a more sustainable rail infrastructure. According to Nikkeithe current building of the Hatsushima station was built in 1948 and currently functions as a station without staff. The oldest structure, larger, showed a remarkable deterioration and its maintenance had become increasingly expensive. Jr West decided to replace it with a new 3D printed version, more adjusted to the actual level of use and also useful to assess the impact of saline air that blows from the sea. Images | @handakunihio (x) | JR West Japan In Xataka | We have discovered (again) the secret of Roman concrete. Is less impressive than it seems

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