Open Access
Learning by doing: the first Spanish nuclear power plant
(Cambridge University Press, 2018) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
In the nuclear sector, turnkey projects can be considered an investment in obtaining information through “learning by doing” to capture rents from the next generation of reactors. As the first U.S. turnkey export project, the first Spanish nuclear power plant served that purpose and paved the way to the subsequent growth of the nuclear sector, for both Spanish and U.S. firms. Making use of archival material, we analyse the networks created by the government, experts, and business leaders, which sought to obtain, accumulate, and learn from the scarce and conflicting information about atomic technology that was available at the time. We also discern how firms on both sides of the Atlantic acquired and perfected the specific capabilities required to build a commercial nuclear reactor.
Open Access
Energy as an indicator of modernization in Latin America, 1890-1925
(Wiley, 2010) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Yáñez, César; Folchi, Mauricio; Carreras, Albert; Economía; Ekonomia
In the absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economies before the 1930s, the apparent consumption of energy is used in this paper as a proxy of the degree of modernization of Latin America and the Caribbean. This paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of modern energies (coal, petroleum, and hydroelectricity) for 30 countries of the region, 1890 to 1925. As a result, it provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernization performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.
Open Access
Freshwater for cooling needs: a long-run approach to the nuclear water footprint in Spain
(Elsevier, 2017) Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
From the invention of the steam engine to the present, water has represented a significant input to the energy system, although this has been mostly ignored in the literature. In Spain, the most arid country in Europe, studies about water footprint typically just consider domestic, agricultural and industrial water uses, but water requirements for the electricity sector are omitted despite our dependence on thermal power. It has been demonstrated that for each available cooling technology, nuclear needs and consumption of water tend to be larger per MWh generated. We calculate a first approximation to the Spanish nuclear water footprint from 1969 to 2015. Our results show that while water consumed by Spanish nuclear power plants are around 3 m3 per capita/year, water withdrawals per capita/year are around 70 m3. Moreover, our analysis allows extracting conclusions focusing on a River Basins approach. What is the water impact of our nuclear power plants? Will water limit our energy future? These are some of the issues at stake.
Open Access
The energy and gross domestic product causality nexus in Latin America 1900-2010
(EconJournals, 2020) Leiva, Benjamín; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
A better understanding of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is important for the less developed regions of the world such as Africa or Latin America, which future might be compromised by the imposition of the transition to a lower carbon economy. Studies on the energy-GDP nexus for Latin America have been few and bounded to short periods. We fill this gap by searching for causal paths between energy and GDP for 20 Latin American countries using a newly compiled dataset spanning the 20th century. Our main identification strategy is based on super exogeneity, which we complement with Granger tests, Toda and Yamamoto and enrich by controlling for structural breaks and the False Discovery Rate. The results highlight the inexistence of a homogeneous relation between energy and GDP in highly heterogeneous spatial and temporal dimensions, and thus the need to enhance our theoretical understanding of this relation. The policy implication is that designing and implementing energy policies coming from a single methodological approach and based on aggregated results should be avoided.
Open Access
Machines and energy. Energy capital ratios in Europe and Latin America 1875 - 1970'
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Ducoing Ruiz, Cristián; Gales, Ben; Hölsgens, Rick; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
The relationship between energy and capital is one of the most important aspects of modern economic growth. Machines need energy to produce all the goods we enjoy; energy would be far less useful for humankind in absence of machines. However, the great majority of the economic models do not take into account the elasticities of substitution (or complementaries) between these two main variables. Actually, energy is absent in many growth models and discussions on diverging economic development paths. We approach this relevant issue from a new perspective: energy and capital relations during 100 years. We use the latest estimations of capital stock (machinery and equipment) and energy consumption for Latin America and compare them with those of Western Europe. The energy–capital ratio (how much energy is used per unit of capital) could be a predictor of economic growth, thus providing stylised facts about the timing and causes of the different modernisation patterns of these regions and showing us some answers on the long-run relationship between energy consumption and capital accumulation.
Open Access
Water for whom?: unravelling the allocation of water storage capacity between irrigation and electricity uses in Spain during the 20th century
(Sociedad Española de Historia Agraria, SEHA, 2024-12-01) Bartolomé-Rodríguez, María Isabel; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Sesma Martín, Diego; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
Esta investigación examina la complejidad de la relación entre la asignación de recursos hídricos, la generación de energía y el regadío en España. Esta tarea se acomete tras el examen de la evolución del marco regulatorio de la asignación de recursos hidráulicos e introduciendo un enfoque novedoso para cuantificar los usos del agua. Por vez primera, se descompone la categoría de usos mixtos, que corresponde a la mayoría de los embalses de propiedad pública, gracias a la información disponible sobre las entidades que disponen no de la propiedad sino de las concesiones de agua. Nuestros resultados revelan el significativo peso de las compañías eléctricas privadas en la gestión de los recursos hidráulicos, pese a la prevalencia de la propiedad pública de las infraestructuras. La hegemonía hidroeléctrica en la asignación del agua contribuye a hacer patente la complejidad de la relación entre la propiedad pública y la gestión privada de las infraestructuras por parte de las compañías eléctricas. Finalmente, la contribución a una mejor comprensión de la singularidad histórica de la gobernanza del agua en España apuntala la necesidad de consideraciones más matizadas en el terreno de políticas que conciernen las relaciones entre agricultura y energía.