Spain. Things might be harder than they seem…

During the last weeks we’ve been seen on the media numerous articles and reports agreeing that the worse part of this crisis is already over, and claiming that the first signs of rebound are a reality.

Much to my regret, this is not the case of Spain. Although the in Spain loose no time to sum to the foreing media and governments in affirming that we’re over the worse part of the crisis and that we should see recovering in the short term. But the reality is very different, and many organizations (OCDE, etc…) are projecting that our GDP will contract more than what was projected months ago, and that Spain will be the last country in Europe to come out of this crisis.

A economic and strategic analysis house in London, Variant Perception, has performed a thorough analysis on the real situation in Spain, examining which are the causes of the current situation and making some basic projections on the future of this country (read the report ‘Spain: the Hole in Europe’s Balance Sheet‘ here or here).

It is very frightening to see solid arguments explaining why the Spanish banking system is not as robust as we supposed. It is scary to read that they are based on assets and loans that are not marked to market value. It is scary to see sound projections saying that more banks will fall and that they are only postponing the fall of construction companies. And it is very discouraging to read that the deflation will lead to higher unemployment and sustained high real interest rates. I certainly recommend reading the full thing…

And then there is everything that they are not telling. We have an enormous pool of immigrant workers that came attracted by Spain’s real state boom, and who where admitted in the country with few restrictions and who where given working and residence permits. Now they are here suffering this situation, and the country is not going to be able to absorb both locals and foreigners. They don’t tell that we have a political class to feel ashamed of. We have no leaders on the horizon who can show integrity and superior skills to lead the country out of recession. Government initiatives show no clear route, and they look like more as experiments than as real ruling actions. And overall, politicians just spend their time blaming each other, and their efforts are only aimed at destroying the opponent. This report also doesn’t mention that Spain’s main sector, tourism, is badly hurt, and its recovery will depend on that of the countries of the tourists coming here. And last but not least, it seems that one of our country’s worse and oldest enemies, terrorism, is trying to take positions to benefit from the current situation.

Things certainly don’t look too promising. We will have to hope for the better, and to be confident that people here will get the best out of them and that a new leader’s class will emerge. They say that the best things come out during the hardest times. Let’s hope this will be true, and that we can catch up with the rest of our peers in Europe.

The Grid an the Electric Car, the other way of looking at a green tech.

During the last years we’ve been hearing about the arrival of the green cars. We already have parallel hybrids as the Toyota Prius (introduced in 1997), and with the advent and improvement of the new Li-ion batteries, we will see a full new range of electric cars: plug-in hybrids, series hybrids (GM planned to launch the Chevy Volt next year), and the purely electric battery-electric cars.

A world full of electric or semi-electric cars might be thought as one with reduced emissions, clean air and no global warming. But  if we think deeper, we will see that the electricity that powers those cars has to be generated somehow. And, many times, this generation methods produce more emissions per watt of generated energy than those produced by combustion engines in conventional cars.

The article, ‘How Green Is My Plug-in?’ by John Voelcker in IEEE’s Spectrum, examines the impact on greenhouse gasses emissions depending on the type of car used and the grid in which the car is charged. In it, very interesting data is presented, and it shows that in some countries, using a plug-in electric vehicle, might lead to higher greenhouse gases emissions than those using a car run only on fuel. This article also includes very interesting concepts, as the ‘well to wheels’ measure, which accounts for all the emissions derived from all the activities needed to bring the energy from the oil camp to the wheels of the vehicle. This is because for the same car, the total emissions might vary hugely from using the car in one country with a very ‘green’ grid to one in which most of the electricity is produced through coal-based methods.

Conclusion is that we do have to take into account where the car is to be used before deciding to go for a plug-in car thinking that this way we will spare the world some CO2 tonnes. Also, it means that the fact that China has an ambitious plan to build nuclear plants, thus reducing its dependence on oil and the heavy use of coal-fired plants, is a very good thing, specially taking into account that it is expected to be one of the main markets for electric cars (Chinese battery maker BYD introduced its first plug-in car earlier this year).

My opinion is that improvements in electric cars and batteries are needed and all efforts in that direction are for good. But all that must necessarily be accompanied by clear studies and policies to boost the use of those cars and technologies where they are to make a real difference in emissions. And, at the same time, to hold back their introduction in those countries in which the use of more electricity would yield higher CO2 emissions than using fuel powered equivalents.

On Oracle, Sun and the EU antitrust comission.

Recently it has been announced that, although the US authorities have given green light to the $7.4bn acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, the EU antitrust officials want to take a deeper and longer examination to the matter (see article on the FT).

In my opinion this is a very bad sign, specially in the current situation. Right now it is not the very best moment to start obstructing operations that, to my understanding, are saving companies and returning confidence to investors, by providing mergers and alliances that in a better situation might have never happened. No doubt that antitrust comissions are important and that thorough examinations are needed. But I think that a unified criteria should be achieved and, given that one administration (which has reportedly taken a toogher attitude on these matters) has already approved it, that should be enough.

Also, taking a closer look to the details, it is amazing that the main issue is just a small fraction of Sun’s business and that competitors claim concerns on the future of the development of an open source product. I think that if they are so worried about it, they could just start their own development efforts. Totally agree with the article that the only ones getting benefits out from this are Sun’s and Oracle’s competitors, MS, IBM and HP.

Hello!

Welcome to my new Blog.

In this Blog I’m gonna include posts about everything I’m interested about. For those you know me, you already know that this means a pretty varied subjects pool. This will probably include: innovation, finance, tech, etc… but also MTB, diving, comics, and more… Also, given my experience I’ll probably will touch a fair deal of China-related topics.

Well, I just hope I’ll manage to arrange it clearly enough so it won’t become a mess, and I’ll do my best to not to mix too much

So, that’s all for now and please keep coming and leaving your comments.

Cheers!

X-G