Open Access
Historia del uranio en España: de la minería a la fabricación del combustible nuclear, c. 1900-1986: reseña
(Asociación Española de Historia Económica, 2022) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Reseña del libro de Esther Sánchez y Santiago López en el que se aborda la historia del uranio en España que, en términos generales, no ha recibido tanta atención historiográfica como las centrales nucleares. Se trata de un libro de encargo, elaborado en colaboración con la Sociedad Nuclear Española (SNE) y está organizado en cuatro grandes capítulos.
Open Access
España y Euratom
(Sociedad Nuclear Española (SNE), 2024) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia
Mientras que las Agencias nucleares de la ONU y la OECE/OCDE nacieron a posteriori de la organización matriz, la Comunidad Europea de la Energía Atómica (Euratom) nació ya como parte de los Tratados de Roma en 1957 que dieron luz a las Comunidades Europeas, y con sus mismos miembros originales (Bélgica, Francia, Alemania Occidental, Italia, Luxemburgo y los Países Bajos). A diferencia del Organismo Internacional de la Energía Atómica (OIEA) y de la Agencia Europea de la Energía Nuclear (AEN), en cuyas discusiones nucleares intervendría España como uno más antes de 1959, la participación formal en Euratom hubo de esperar hasta la integración en la Comunidad Económica Europea en 1986. Ello no quiere decir que no existieran otro tipo de vínculos y de acceso desde Madrid a lo que ocurría en Euratom antes de esa fecha. En su devenir histórico, Euratom se verá afectada por las crisis y ampliaciones de su organización matriz con mucha más virulencia que los otros organismos internacionales dedicados a la energía atómica. En este capítulo presentamos primero la constitución de Euratom y sus dificultades internas anteriores a la adhesión española, para después adentrarnos en las relaciones de Euratom con España.
Open Access
Energy transition(s)
(Edward Elgar, 2023-09-28) Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Economía; Ekonomia
Any meaningful change from one state of an energy system to another one may constitute an energy transition. Given the many components related to the production, conversion, delivery, and use of energy, it is worth referring to energy transitions in plural. Most of the academic literature about energy transition(s) concentrates on the shifts of the structure of the primary energy supply in the long run, while in parallel, energy systems endure enormous transformations in the quantity, the quality, the methods of conversion and delivery and the destination of final energy. Meanwhile, "the energy transition" has been increasingly adopted as a shorthand for describing a pathway towards transforming the global energy sector away from fossil-based into low carbon emissions, becoming the commonest usage of the term among the public. The concept has evolved from an historical observation about energy systems into a necessary tool for achieving desirable future energy scenarios.
Open Access
Indicators and recommendations for assessing sustainable healthy diets
(MDPI, 2021) Martínez Aldaya, Maite; Ibáñez Moya, Francisco C.; Domínguez-Lacueva, Paula; Murillo Arbizu, María Teresa; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Soret Lafraya, Beatriz; Beriain Apesteguía, María José; Institute on Innovation and Sustainable Development in Food Chain - ISFOOD; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
Research coupling human nutrition and sustainability concerns is a rapidly developing field, which is essential to guide governments' policies. This critical and comprehensive review analyzes indicators and approaches to 'sustainable healthy diets' published in the literature since this discipline's emergence a few years ago, identifying robust gauges and highlighting the flaws of the most commonly used models. The reviewed studies largely focus on one or two domains such as greenhouse gas emissions or water use, while overlooking potential impact shifts to other sectors or resources. The present study covers a comprehensive set of indicators from the health, environmental and socio-economic viewpoints. This assessment concludes that in order to identify the best food option in sustainability assessments and nutrition analysis of diets, some aspects such as the classification and disaggregation of food groups, the impacts of the rates of local food consumption and seasonality, preservation methods, agrobiodiversity and organic food and different production systems, together with consequences for low-income countries, require further analysis and consideration.
Open Access
Nuclear engineering and technology transfer: the Spanish strategies to deal with US, French and German nuclear manufacturers, 1955–1985
(Routledge, 2020) Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Sánchez Sánchez, Esther M.; Sanz Lafuente, María Gloria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
We analysed the process of construction and connection to the electrical grid of four Spanish nuclear power plants with different financial and technological foreign partners: those of Zorita (PWR by Westinghouse), Garoña (BWR by General Electric) and Vandellós I (GCR by EDF) (belonging to the first generation of atomic plants and producing electricity from 1969–72) and that of Trillo I (PWR by KWU, connected in 1988). These four examples allow us to observe how the learning curve of nuclear engineering and the acquisition of skills by Spanish companies evolved. Progressively the domestic industry achieved higher levels of participation, fostered by the Ministry of Industry and Energy. When the atomic plants under construction were paralysed by the nuclear moratorium of 1984, and several other projects were abandoned by the utilities along the way, Spain had developed an industrial sector around the fabrication of service components and engineering for nuclear power plants to compete internationally.
Open Access
The power of persuasion: exploring the relationship between advertising and nuclear energy in Spain
(Emerald, 2024-12-09) Aramendia Muneta, María Elena; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Torre Campo, Joseba de la; Economía; Ekonomia; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA2023–11931
Purpose: this study aims to examine how the nuclear energy issue was used for advertising purposes at the dawn of the atomic era in Spain. Design/methodology/approach: newspapers and magazines from the atomic era were reviewed to assess the impact of nuclear energy on advertising campaigns for all kinds of unrelated products. This study interprets the message and information contained in several marketing campaigns from the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945 until the inauguration of the first nuclear facility in Spain in 1968. Findings: private companies leapt at the chance to use the new technology, with its promises of a brighter future, to promote their products, including watches, Venetian blinds, anisette, chocolates, pencils and fountain pens, spa resorts, books and encyclopaedias, laundry detergents, pressure cookers, concentrate feeds and hair restorers. This study makes a major contribution to the history of marketing literature, focusing on nuclear energy as an influential agent in industry, advertising agencies and popular culture. It shows how advertising campaigns used terms such as 'nuclear', 'atomic' and 'atomic bomb' and images of mushroom clouds or atom symbols to denote modernity and allure and explores how government policies - in this case, concerning nuclear energy - can influence marketers and advertisers. Originality/value: the paper's originality stems from its analysis of Spanish advertisements to explore marketing history through the terms and imagery associated with nuclear energy and its industry. It further contributes to the understanding of how nuclear energy is represented and conceptualised for various purposes in popular culture.
Open Access
The weak data on the water–energy nexus in Spain
(IWA Publishing, 2019) Sesma Martín, Diego; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
This paper focuses on the fact that the water–energy nexus remains an irrelevant issue on the energy policy agenda and on the priorities of the energy leaders in Spain. This is a striking fact given that this takes place in the most arid country in Europe, where almost two-thirds of electricity generation would have to be halted in the absence of an adequate water supply. We contend that part of the explanation may lie in the lack of official statistics and inconsistent sources of information on the water–energy nexus in Spain. To illustrate this point, we provide examples of the uneven data available for one of the most intensive freshwater users in the thermoelectric sector in Spain: nuclear power plants. Our research demonstrates the need for improved indicators as policy instruments in the water–energy nexus in Spain since it is impossible to improve what cannot be measured.
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
At the crossroad between green and thirsty: carbon emissions and water consumption of Spanish thermoelectricity generation, 1969–2019
(Elsevier, 2022) Cano-Rodríguez, Sara; Rubio Varas, María del Mar; Sesma Martín, Diego; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
The energy sector is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and one of the thirstiest sectors worldwide. Within the energy sector, thermoelectricity directly impacts on both emissions and water. This study assesses the evolution of the direct CO2 emissions and operational water consumption of the Spanish thermoelectricity generation from 1969 to 2019. Both carbon emissions and water consumption correlate over time, led by the trends in total thermal generation, although over the past half century, water requirements swelled far more than carbon emissions. This results in a long-term trade-off between carbon emissions and consumptive water use in relative terms: while the CO2 per thermal MWh generated halved since 1969 in Spain, the operational water consumption per MWh of thermoelectricity generated more than doubled due to switching from coal burning to nuclear and combined cycle technologies. We find no real trade-off in absolute levels. Although moving towards smaller environmental impacts since the mid-2000s, thermoelectricity remains one of the largest carbon emitters while becoming one of thirstiest energy technologies in Spain.
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.