Open Access
El Estado y el desarrollo de la energía nuclear en España, c. 1950-1985
(Asociación Española de Historia Económica (AEHE), 2014) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Tres décadas después de la decisión gubernamental de paralizar y replantear el programa atómico español que se había diseñado en los años del desarrollismo, la controversia permanece abierta. Pese a su relevancia, la historiografía económica de la energía nuclear está tan sólo en sus inicios. Este trabajo analiza el papel que el Estado jugó para conseguir que uno de los países más pobres de Europa occidental entrara en el exclusivo club de países productores de esa energía. Proponemos una nueva periodización del avance de la energía nuclear en España basada en la evolución político‐económica del sector que va más allá de los estadios tecnológicos que se describen en la literatura.
Open Access
La financiación exterior del desarrollo industrial español a través del IEME
(Banco de España, 2015) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia
El objetivo central del trabajo es, en primer lugar, reconstruir las grandes cifras del capital exterior que contribuyó a la financiación del desarrollo industrial de España entre 1950 y 1982; y, en segundo lugar, estudiar la vertiente financiera de las inversiones que las grandes empresas nacionales y extranjeras practicaron en dos sectores estratégicos a lo largo de ese período: el sector eléctrico y la industria del automóvil.
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
Agua dulce para refrigeración: una visión a largo plazo de la huella hídrica de las centrales nucleares en España
(2016) Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
Objectives: our research pioneers a first approximation to the water footprint of the Spanish nuclear power plants operating with freshwater from 1969 to the present. Our aim is to calculate the consumptive use of water (i.e. the amount of water evaporated, transpired, or incorporated in energy production) for Spanish nuclear power plants, and the amounts of water withdrawals required for running nuclear power plants. To sum up, what is the water impact of our nuclear power plants? Will water limit our energy future? Should water be considered when planning the electricity mix in the future? These are some of the questions to solve.
Open Access
"Spain-Eximbank's billion dollar client": the role of the us financing the Spanish nuclear program
(Asociación Española de Historia Económica (AEHE), 2016) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia
En 1972, Henry Kearns, presidente y director del Export-Import Bank de los Estados Unidos (Eximbank), visitó la Cámara Oficial de Comercio e Industria de Madrid. El título de su discurso'España – el cliente del billón de dólares del Eximbank' daba cuenta del importante papel que el banco público estadounidense jugaba en la financiación de las compras españolas de bienes de equipo, como aviones, fábricas de acero, estaciones satelitales y plantas eléctricas, entre otros. La concentración en nuevas instalaciones de generación eléctrica convertía a España en aquel momento en el país con el más rápido desarrollo de energía nuclear de Europa, y el mayor comprador de tecnología nuclear de los EE.UU. mano a mano con Japón. Ninguna otra nación se acercó a estos dos en ese sentido. Utilizando materiales de archivo del Eximbank y la Administración Nacional de Archivos y Registro de los Estados Unidos (NARA), exploramos las facilidades financieras que los EE.UU. proporcionaron al programa nuclear español, el tamaño de los créditos autorizados y su evolución en el tiempo. Se hace evidente que el bombeo de dinero público norteamericano para la exportación de las instalaciones nucleares en el mundo explica en gran medida el cuasimonopolio del mercado nuclear mundial que los EE.UU. tuvieron antes de la década de 1980, y en particular su importancia para convertir a España en uno de los pioneros y líder en la adopción de la tecnología nuclear.
Open Access
200 years diversifying the energy mix? Diversification paths of the energy baskets of European early comers vs. latecomers
(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2017) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Muñoz Delgado, Beatriz; Economía; Ekonomia
The changes in the composition of the energy basket in the long run lead to energy transitions. Primary energy substitution models allow addressing these phenomena. However, the diversification paths of the energy mix of different countries in a long term compared perspective have not been studied yet. This paper proposes an indicator, based on the Herfindahl‐Hirschman Index, the Energy Mix Concentration Index (EMCI), to quantify the degree of diversification of the primary energy basket of eight European countries over the last two centuries. The results reveal that early comers, which are large energy consumers, required a huge concentration of their energy basket in the 19th century; however, the observed countries had converged to similar levels of diversification of their energy mixes from the second half of the 20th century, and more crucially after the oil crises. For some countries, today’s degree of diversification is the largest in their energy histories, but it is not the case for all of them. Our results suggest that small energy consuming countries would be able to achieve higher diversification, and therefore to do a faster transition to a low carbón economy, than large energy consumers.
Open Access
Will small energy consumers be faster in transition? Evidence from the early shift from coal to oil in Latin America
(Elsevier, 2012) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Folchi, Mauricio; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper provide evidence of the early transition from coal to oil for 20 Latin American countries over the first half of the 20th century, which does not fit the transition experiences of large energy consumers. These small energy consumers had earlier and faster transitions than leading nations. We also provide evidence for alternative sequences (inverse, revertible) in the transition from coal to oil. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ‘leapfrogging’ allowed a set of follower economies to reach the next rung of the energy ladder (oil domination) 30 years in advance of the most developed economies. We examine these follower economies, where transition took place earlier and faster than the cases historically known, in order to understand variation within the energy transitions and to expand the array of feasible pathways of future energy transitions. We find that being a small energy consumer makes a difference for the way the energy transition takes place; but also path dependence (including trade and technological partnerships), domestic energy endowment (which dictates relative prices) and policy decisions seem to be the variables that shaped past energy transitions.
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
Las dimensiones sociales de la percepción de la energía nuclear. Un análisis del caso español (1960-2015)
(CSIC, 2017) Espluga Trenc, Josep; Medina, Beatriz; Presas, Albert; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia
La energía nuclear es una tecnología compleja, que requiere un uso muy intensivo de recursos y una toma de decisiones muy centralizada, cuya gobernanza supone un auténtico reto para las sociedades democráticas. En el presente artículo se exploran las percepciones sociales sobre la energía nuclear en España a partir de un análisis de encuestas de opinión y de los argumentos de actores de tres estudios de caso (Vandellós I, Valdecaballeros y ATC). Los resultados muestran cómo las argumentaciones de unos y otros actores se basan en diferentes dimensiones del riesgo, a menudo ignoradas en las encuestas y por varios de los actores, lo cual supone una seria dificultad para superar las controversias suscitadas por este tipo de energía.
Open Access
Energy and economic growth: the stylized facts
(IAEE, 2016) Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Stern, David I.; Economía; Ekonomia
We summarize what we know about energy and economic growth in a set of stylized facts. We combine analysis of a panel data set of 99 countries from 1971 to 2010 with analysis of some longer run historical data. Our key result is that over the last 40 years there has been a stable cross-sectional relationship between per capita energy use and income per capita with an elasticity of energy use with respect to income of less than unity. This implies that energy intensity has tended to decrease in countries that have become richer but not in others. We also find that over the last two centuries there has been convergence in energy intensity towards the current distribution, per capita energy use has tended to rise and energy quality to increase, and, though evidence is limited, the cost share of energy has declined.