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Massive new green hydrogen plant for Albacete

A huge green hydrogen plant is being planned for the Albacete province in central Spain.

Costing around $3bn, it will consist of a 1GW electrolyser powered by an adjacent wind and solar power farm built on the same site.

Industry figures suggest that such a sized plant will produce around 0.15 million tonnes of hydrogen and three million tonnes of water. This assumes an efficiency of 75% for 8,000 hours per year.

German renewables company PNE is behind the project, which it will operate via its Spanish subsidiary, Kolya-PNE. 

Local media say that land for the site has already been purchased, and Kolya-PNE is currently in talks with the local government bodies to develop the project.

PNE is a major renewables operator and already has more than 6.5GW of wind power projects in Europe, North America and South Africa.

It was back in 2022 when it acquired a majority stake in Spanish solar developer Kolya. 

The term green hydrogen is a label for a process which helps mitigate climate change by using renewable fuels to power the process.

The basic process has been used for years and it involves using power to put water through electrolysis, splitting it into its constituent elements, gaseous hydrogen, and oxygen. The gas is captured and stored for various applications. The water can be reused.

Because high levels of energy were previously needed to complete this process, hydrogen gas manufacture has not been environmentally friendly. Now with plentiful renewable resources available, the game has changed and hydrogen becomes a viable source of fuel, which can power a number of applications. 

Spain is an obvious choice for such production techniques, because of its plentiful sunshine and wind. Companies such as PNE are available to take advantage of such natural resources and produce a cost-effective hydrogen gas.

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Warnings over decaf coffee

There’s bad news for those who choose to drink decaf coffee for health reasons.

Decaf coffee, or descafeinado as it’s known in Spain, is a possible chemical hazard.

It all comes down to the way that the caffeine is removed from the pure coffee. 

Decaf is a very popular drink, with many combining drinking caf and decaf throughout their day. It is especially popular at lunchtime and evenings, as people try to avoid the stimulant effect of the caffeine which, of course, in the morning, is the whole point of coffee.

The Spanish have been generally slow to embrace decaf coffee, but it’s hugely popular in many countries, including the US, where over 26 million Americans are said to drink it.

Coffee comes from coffee beans which are grown on a plant and even though there´s some talk of synthetic versions, heaven forbid, the production of it is still on the right side of processed food. The beans are roasted and ground to produce the coffee grounds.

When it comes to the decaf version, things get a little more complicated.

A lot of decaf is produced by effectively cleaning the coffee beans with a chemical solvent, in most cases methylene chloride. Other chemicals involved include benzene, ethylene dichloride and trichloroethylene.

Even the name of these strikes a little bit of fear into us mere mortals. 

I was never any good at chemistry, but this collection of chemicals don´t sound that good for food, or drinks. 

For example, methylene chloride is a chemical which is used in many industrial processes to clean items, especially paint. It is also used to degrease metals. 

The US government is now looking at this, worried that the use of the chemical is dangerous for humans and maybe carcinogenic. 

It doesn’t have to be like this and there are alternative methods of decaffeinating coffee, such as the Swiss Water method. This method involves soaking the pre-roasted bean, the green bean, with water over a long period of time, which sees the caffeine seep out naturally.

So, it might be a good idea to check out how your favourite brands produce their decaf coffee.

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Lisbon and Madrid to be linked by new train line

A new rail route linking Lisbon to Madrid – stopping at Elvas, Badajoz, Merida, Caceres, Toledo, and Madrid – is being planned after it received the go-ahead from the European Parliament. 

The route from Madrid to Badajoz is currently being constructed and should be completed by 2030. 

The Portuguese section of the line, from Lisbon to Elvas (just on the Spanish border), forms part of a major European infrastructure project known as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).

The overall cost is said to be around seven billion euros. 
It was back in 2012 when a rail link between Lisbon and Madrid was first planned. It was abandoned after the collapse of the Portuguese economy.

Dominique Riquet, a MEP for Renew Europe, said: “New rules will strengthen the performance, accessibility, security and resilience of our infrastructure, which is a key element of our sovereignty. It will also help to encourage Europeans to travel and make our economy more competitive.”

Spain boasts one of the most modern European railway networks. 

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Medieval manor hides within Barcelona chocolate factory

Coffee beans spilling out from a cup.

Archaeologists in Barcelona have unearthed a 14th century medieval manor which was hidden within a major chocolate factory created over 500 years later.

The remains of the 19th century factory, poured over by archaeologists, has revealed walls with arches and doors from a medieval home .

The house went through a number of iterations, from home, to hostel and then chocolate factory and workshop.

The team of archaeologists discovered a number of artifacts, including plates and large ceramic vessels.

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Coffee is getting more expensive

Coffee beans

The humble cup of coffee is not so humble nowadays, a fact which will shock drinkers in Spain and beyond.

The price of a cup of coffee is set to rise even further than the highs seen last February.

Back then, the price of coffee in Spanish shops rose by 23% compared to the same month in 2021. The figures come from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The coffee market is predicted to climb higher during the next crop cycle.

The US Department of Agriculture reported that the global demand-supply balance for coffee beans is currently looking fragile.

The trouble stems from what’s left at the end of the last cycle – the 2023-2024 season – that can be used in the following season.

It is reckoned that at the start of the 2023-2024 season, there was barely 16% of future consumption available. Compare this to 33% which was available in the 2005-2006 season.

As to what we’re likely to consume in this season, it comes in at 170 million 60kg bags, higher than any season for the last 20 years. In 2005-2006, the figure was 125 million bags.

Less rainfall is behind the reason for reduced inventories, as both Vietnam and Brazil have been hit by poor growing conditions.

Fears are that the current crop growing in both countries could be hit again by the weather.

Market observers predict that coffee producers might panic before the crop is harvested and push up prices whatever happens with the next harvest.

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Cava production decimated by drought in Catalonia

The lack of water in Spain’s Catalonia region is having real implications for the local wine industry and major player Freixenet has signalled it will have to potentially place its workers on short-time.

Grupo Freixenet, which is based in Barcelona and is owned by the German group Henkell and the Ferrer family, is famous for its cava brand.

It expects the continuing drought to cut production capacity by 30%, forcing it to present a temporary employment regulation file (ERTE) for more than 600 workers.

The ERTE was legally justified due to “force majeure,” meaning it has had to take the exceptional action. 

Last year’s rainfall plummeted by half in the area and 80 million bottles were lost.

The proposal has been sent to the Catalan Generalitat and will be passed onto the workers’ unions. 

The group said in a statement: “The measure, implemented as an exercise of responsibility, aims to guarantee the operation of the business and preserve employability to be able to face external causes and force majeure caused by the serious drought.

“Seeing that global demand for cava is booming and that we cannot produce enough bottles to adequately satisfy it in the short term, the situation is really complicated at all levels.”

The group has 778 workers, with 615 affected by the order. Much will now depend on how much it rains over the coming months.

Despite the water worries, the group posted an increase in turnover for 2023 of 4%.

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Has coffee been around longer than the modern form of humans?

With experts now saying coffee is 600,000 years old, it’s sobering to think that the modern form of humans only evolved around 200,000 years ago.

Okay, human life has been around for around six million years, but popping into Starbucks for a skinny latte was maybe the last thing on their minds.

So how do we know coffee has a longer history than we originally throught? Well, it comes down to how long a coffee plant has been growing on the planet. Researchers built a family tree based on the coffea arabica plant, which supplies our most favorite type of coffee, and found the species evolved over half-a-million years ago via the natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species.

The researchers main objective was to discover more about the plants and help protect them from pests and climate change.

Wild coffee plants were first observed in Ethiopia. But as to when the coffee bean was first roasted and brewed to produce a cup of coffee, this was thought to be in the 15th century in Yemen. Two centuries later and legend has it that Indian monk Baba Budan smuggled some raw coffee beans back to his homeland, and Starbucks was born (well, to be precise, Starbucks started in 1971 in the US, so a little off).

Arabica is the world’s most popular coffee flavour, accounting for around 70% of the market.

The journal Nature Genetic published the study which was co-led by University of Buffalo.

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Spain’s latest population figures

Spain´s population is just over 48 million. On 1 January 2023 the official number of people in Spain was 48,085,361, an increase of 598,634 during 2022. This was mostly down to an increase in foreigner nationals, whose number grew by 580,574.

The figures come from the annual Population Census which publish the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The number of foreigners in 2023, in Spain, was 6,089,620, a record, and steadily increasing over the years. At the turn of the century, they numbered just 1,572,013.

The most numerous nationalities currently in Spain are:

  • Moroccons (893,953);
  • Romanians (629,755);
  • Colombians (453,911);
  • Italians (301,791);
  • British (284,037);
  • Venezuelians (278,159).
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New solar park to power 200,000 households

Plenitude, a company which produces electricity from renewable sources, is building a new solar park in Extremadura, the province of Badajoz.

The site is called Renopool and consists of seven photovoltaic plants. They will generate 660 GWh per year, equivalent to the energy consumption of around 200,000 households.

It will be the largest solar park ever undertaken by the company.

The deal was announced by Plenitude’s CEO Stefano Goberti, alongside Ignacio Gragera, Mayor of Badajoz, and D Víctor del Moral Agúndez, General Secretary for Sustainable Development of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Sustainable Development of the Regional Government of Extremadura.

Renopool will be built by construction companies OHLA, Sacyr and Sarpel, and will be finished in 2025.

Goberti said: “The construction of the Renopool solar park, the largest photovoltaic plant built by Plenitude, confirms our commitment to the Spanish renewable energy sector, where we operate about 400 MW of wind and photovoltaic plants in operation, more than 1,000 MW under construction, and more than 2,000 MW under development.

“In addition, thanks to our integrated business model, we are also growing in the country’s retail market, with more than 300,000 customers, and we have recently begun to expand our network of electric vehicle charging points in the Iberian Peninsula as well.”

Renopool will be connected to the national transmission grid via three connection nodes and a high-voltage line built and shared with other developers.

Plenitude is part of the Italian power group Eni.

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Spanish olive oil giants merge

The world’s most successful seller of olive oil, Deoleo, and the world’s largest producer of the oil, Hojiblanca, are to merge.

The deal is set after CNC, Spain’s competition authority, gave the go-ahead following Deoleo agreeing to certain undertakings, including not to share market sensitive information.

Deoleo markets three of the globe’s top-four olive oil companies: Bertolli, Carapelli and Carbonell.

Hojiblanca has over 95 co-ops and is said to have around a 10% stake in Deoleo.

The idea is to create a group is a leader of the entire process, from production to shop.