Economist, State commercial technician and former Secretary of State for Energy during the time of José María Aznar, Nemesio Fernández-Cuesta Luca de Tena (Madrid, 1957) has also been president of ABC and vice president of Vocento. Today he is probably the Spaniard with the most complete vision of the energy transition. And he has poured it out with a pedagogical style in a book – ‘It is not about whether it is green or not, but whether it eliminates or reduces emissions’ (Deusto, 2024) – that has become essential. He insists on talking about energy transition and not ecological transition. Why? Because it blurs the issue. Biodiversity is very important, if a river is contaminated it is serious, but it has a local or regional impact. But we are talking about the atmosphere. I believe that emissions must be reduced, because it is indeed the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are accelerating the increase in temperatures. This increase will entail an economic cost for economies located in a latitude such as Spain, which is Mediterranean, but which is between an arid zone and a humid zone. All that latitude is what is going to be progressively transformed. But I don’t believe in the climate apocalypse, because those are other issues and other temporal dimensions. The problem is that, as I write in the book, after the fall of the Wall, in the early 1990s, the left begins to choose flags and choose the climate, but in my opinion it does not do so to combat warming, but to undermine the principles of the market economy. And propose degrowth as an alternative… That is what we are about. Why does rejection occur? Because the left is asking that we give up everything that has made our economies reach these levels of well-being. Since when has economic decline produced more equality, more wealth, more development, more education, more health? The only solution is growth and what I try to explain is that there are alternatives. In some cases they are more expensive, in others they will take time and in no case, as this is the European problem, should they be imposed as a norm. You are very critical of what Brussels has done. It has taken them four years to move from the objectives of the green deal to offering an industrial pact. Why has it taken us so long to realize this? The left has an uncontrollable tendency to think that they are good and that therefore everything they do and everything they think is good, without the need to contrast it with reality. In many cases they are right and I believe that the model that has triumphed in Europe has allowed us to enjoy levels of well-being and equality that were not conceivable decades ago. But the left is not necessarily always right simply because it has thought so. The European green pact is an agreement between socialists and popular ones. And if you take into account that the European center-right does not like to reflect on ideological issues in general, because what it likes is to manage and for that there is already the market economy that solves everything for us, then when a sector does not enter the debate and does not reflect, since it leaves the entire field at the disposal of a left convinced that as they have thought it, it is necessarily good. What got us out of our self-absorption? First, when it is confirmed that many of the things we want to do It means putting ourselves in the hands of China. That is to say, if we want to develop the electric car, it requires batteries and in all the technologies related to batteries, China controls the entire value chain. Sorry, how is it possible that a European idea such as emissions control, which is raised in Copenhagen, endorsed in Paris, has been transformed by China into a driving element of its model to the point of dominating the entire value chain? How have we allowed that? Well, we have allowed it because we believe that the simple statement or the simple approval or promulgation of a norm produces beneficial effects. Because, as I said before, we have thought about it and it is good. But it turns out that you also have to roll up your sleeves. A second issue is that we not only think about reducing emissions, but we think about green, which is another problem. So the Europeans say that they do not want to refine minerals to produce the metals because it pollutes. The result is that China controls 50% of the refining capacity, because the minerals do not come ready to put in a blast furnace. Have I read that in the case of graphite, essential for batteries, they control more than 80%? Battery technology, the anode is graphite and China controls 95%. And they control not only the minerals, but the subsequent elements of the value chain. That is one part of disengagement and the second is that the United States, which has always had a practical approach and understands how the economy works, has decided to give subsidies to new energies instead of taxing old ones. How does the system operate? Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act model? They say: if you want to make green hydrogen, then don’t worry, I already know that it is more expensive and I will give you a subsidy. If you want to manufacture hydrogen in Europe, go ahead and start manufacturing because in 2030 I am going to force you to ensure that 42% of industrial hydrogen is green. Is it more expensive for you to do it? It’s your problem. What the EU is going to do is impose a tax on those who manufacture with emissions, which increases the entire cost of the European economy. The United States, on the other hand, says “I’m going to give a subsidy,” thereby lowering the cost. You have previously mentioned the objective of reaching 5.5 million electric cars in 2030 set in the Comprehensive National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC). He has come to call it an “esoteric plan.” Why? Because it seems esoteric to me. Electric cars are 50% more expensive than combustion cars. The Spanish automobile industry is specialized in small cars. The electric one has to be big. In Spain, 70% of cars sleep on the street. Of course we are not going to reach 5.5 million. The PNIEC’s renewable implementation rates double, in the case of photovoltaics, the previous rates. In the case of wind power, I seem to remember that they quadruple. In my opinion, all the figures have been shoehorned in. He maintains that the European model of cheap Russian energy, military protection from the United States and being able to trade with China is not going to work anymore. It is not going to work because the United States will not It is going to allow it to continue trading with China and what sense does it make that 15% of European gas is still Russian with the issue of Ukraine. Trump has already said that if Europe does not want tariffs, it should buy more American gas and oil. Trade with China, well according to and how. We have already talked about electric cars, but if it is about emptying our industry even more, so that China can sell to us, well, I think we should realize that we are going down a path that leads to turning Europe into a museum. And the United States can continue to protect us to the extent that if before we had to invest 2% of GDP in defense, I think Trump is already talking about 5%. Of these three pillars of what has been the great European strategy of recent years, none of them still stand. What lessons does the ruin of Northvolt, the European battery champion, leave us? One of the most obvious is that it has filed for bankruptcy in USA. European laws do not have the regenerative capacity that Chapter 11 has in the United States. There it is focused on the company surviving in some way, here on all creditors getting paid equally. It has evolved because it is true that they almost no longer use Chapter 10, which was liquidationist…The second lesson is that we are not competitive. Why wasn’t Northvolt competitive? Well, because it does not have access to materials, minerals, and therefore needs time and technological advances. The fundamental thing is to give ourselves time, and for European regulations to be based on the available technologies. If I set the regulations and I don’t have the technology, then I have two options: either I go bankrupt or I import the technology if it exists in another part of the world. Someone has said that the main European added value is regulation. Yes? Well, we have already seen how they have listened to us in the global South, in the war in Ukraine or how they are going to listen to us in any other matter. 60% of China’s electricity comes from the coal side, but in India it is three quarters. Does it make sense for us to close nuclear plants? None. And will someone do something? Well, I suppose everyone has already realized this and They are thinking about it. I think Almaraz already has the closure order and there are those who say that the idea is to close Almaraz as a trophy, but keep the other plants. Because more than 50% of Catalonia’s electricity is of nuclear origin. Are we going to close the two nuclear plants in Catalonia where, also due to other types of internal conditions, it is the autonomous community with the lowest percentage of renewables?
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