Leading olive oil producer Spain turns to olive stones for fuel

“We use olive pits from our trees to heat the swimming pool, the underfloor heating system and get hot water,” said the 48-year-old. (AFP)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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Leading olive oil producer Spain turns to olive stones for fuel

  • “We use olive pits from our trees to heat the swimming pool, the underfloor heating system and get hot water,” said the 48-year-old

MADRID: Farmer David Jimenez Zamora barely flinched when gas and electricity prices in Spain soared with the energy crisis.
He kept heating the covered pool in the 18th century farmhouse he rents to tourists and the hot water running for as many as 26 guests at once without getting the terrifying energy bills hammering fellow Spaniards.
His secret? Olive stones.
“We use olive pits from our trees to heat the swimming pool, the underfloor heating system and get hot water,” said the 48-year-old.
“This is normally used from September onwards,” he said, standing by a store holding 5,000 kilos of stones overlooking a sea of olive trees in the province of Granada, in the southern Andalusia region.
Olive stones also power the machines producing Spain’s famed “liquid gold” olive oil at two agricultural cooperatives he’s part of. Solar panels cover the rest of their energy needs.
The use of pits to fuel boilers in homes and small enterprises, mills and even flights in Spain’s olive-growing heartland shows the role the industry and the country’s vast agricultural sector can play in helping decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors, like aviation.
Using stones as biomass isn’t new in olive-producing countries like Spain and Italy. However, the energy shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s decarbonization push and the olive oil industry’s struggles in recent years with fluctuating prices have sparked renewed interest in getting maximum value out of the crop, farmers and industry groups said.
Spain’s olive oil industry is also a natural ally for companies like Repsol and Cepsa, which are investing heavily to boost capacity to turn organic waste into biofuels.
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil, accounting for up to half of the global output in recent years, 80 percent of that from Andalusia.
In the ten years through 2019, the country accounted on average for over half of Europe’s stock of olive stones, Spanish biomass association Avebiom estimates.
A byproduct of olive oil production, pits account for between 8 and 10 percent of a ton of processed olives. On average, Spain produces around 400,000 tons of olive pits a year, Avebiom’s Pablo Rodero said.
Roughly a third of this is refined to reduce moisture content and get a clean product that can fuel domestic boilers, fetching the highest prices — up to twice as much as unrefined stones, according to Rodero. The rest is used to produce thermal energy to drive the almazaras – as the traditional mills are known – and in industrial boilers, according to the association.

PRICE ROLLERCOASTER More and more mills and companies are refining the stones for sale to domestic users, Rodero said.
At the end of last year, Spain had 31 firms refining and producing olives stones as biomass, up from 25 in 2020.
Many, like Pelaez Renovables, are in Andalusia. Every year, it refines up to 25,000 tons of stones for sale to domestic and industrial customers, with an added value of between 60-80 euros a ton, managing partner Jose Pelaez said.
The past couple of years have been difficult, he added.
Scorching temperatures devastated Spain’s olive crop. With fewer stones on the market, prices soared, upending years of stability and leading to a 40 percent drop in demand, Pelaez said.
Last year, consumers had to shell out up to 400 euros a ton, or some 8 euro cents per kilowatt-hours (kWh), for olive pits, including transport and taxes, more than double the price in 2021, according to Avebiom data.
Stones remained cheaper than diesel and the government-regulated gas tariff but in line with wood pellets and more expensive than wood chips.
In the second quarter of this year, prices fell toward 300 euros a ton, a decline Pelaez hopes will bring higher sales.
“I would be happy with an increase of 5-10 percent per year,” he said.
Biomass and biofuels should play a limited role in the energy mix when electrification isn’t an option, Sara Pizzinato and Helena Moreno of Greenpeace Spain said, as burning biomass still has an environmental impact and releases contaminants.
“The sector is attracting private equity firms eager to industrialize the production, making it unsustainable,” Moreno said.
Oil company Cepsa even took the humble pits to the sky. In 2022, it used them and other olive industry waste to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that powered more than 200 flights out of Andalusia’s Seville airport.
Large companies have focused on cheaper waste, equally or better suited to become biofuels, like used cooking oil, Rodero and other industry sources said.
Stones and other organic waste are though an increasingly important income source for mills, said Macarena Sanchez, director of Almazaras Federadas de Espana which represents more than 200 mills, accounting for up to a third of their revenue.
This marks a drastic change for an industry that in the past didn’t know what to do with its waste, said Rodero.
“Now everything is used,” he said. “Olives are like pigs: Nothing goes to waste.”


BBC Weather app wrongly shows 18,995 mph wind speeds in Britain

Updated 10 October 2024
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BBC Weather app wrongly shows 18,995 mph wind speeds in Britain

  • App malfunction suggested winds were 150 times stronger than Hurricane Milton currently battering Florida

LONDON: Britons woke up to alarming news on Thursday, with the widely used BBC Weather app forecasting winds 150 times stronger than Hurricane Milton, due to a data malfunction.
With television news channels showing Milton smashing into Florida in the United States, the unprecedented winds forecast on the BBC Weather app prompted many people to turn to social media for an explanation.
“Go home BBC weather app, you’re drunk. It’s about 37mph,” said one X user, posting under the username Larky McRory, next to a screenshot of the app showing wind speeds of 18,995 mph.
Hurricane Milton was registered as a Category 3 hurricane in Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph).
BBC Weather sought to reassure the public that they did not in fact have to brace for hurricane winds, with a post on X saying that the weather was more likely to be a typical autumnal day of cold air and blustery showers.
“Don’t worry folks, there isn’t a hurricane on the way today for Scotland, and Edinburgh isn’t going to see wind gusts of an impossible magnitude of 17246mph!,” BBC Scotland Weather said on X. “There is a major error in the data being ingested into the app.”
A banner announcement on the app said: “We’re experiencing issues with our forecast data. We’re working to resolve it.” BBC Weather noted some temperatures were also displaying wrongly and apologized.
The malfunction prompted some social media users to recall the moment in 1987 when Britain’s then leading weather presenter, Michael Fish, reassured viewers that reports of a brewing hurricane were not accurate, just hours before hurricane-force winds hit the country.


TikTok is designed to be addictive to kids and causes them harm, US states’ lawsuits say

Updated 09 October 2024
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TikTok is designed to be addictive to kids and causes them harm, US states’ lawsuits say

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, saying that the popular short-form video app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health.
The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including New York, California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts.
At the heart of each lawsuit is the TikTok algorithm, which powers what users see on the platform by populating the app’s main “For You” feed with content tailored to people’s interests. The lawsuits note TikTok design features that they say addict children to the platform, such as the ability to scroll endlessly through content, push notifications that come with built-in “buzzes” and face filters that create unattainable appearances for users.
“They’ve chosen profit over the health and safety, well-being and future of our children,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference in San Francisco. “And that is not something we can accept. So we’ve sued.”
The latest lawsuits come nearly a year after dozens of states sued Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc. in state and federal courts for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing addictive features that keep kids hooked on their platforms.
Keeping people on the platform is “how they generate massive ad revenue,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in an interview. “But unfortunately, that’s also how they generate adverse mental health impacts on the users.”
The legal challenges, which also include Google’s YouTube, are part of a growing reckoning against social media companies and their effects on young people’s lives. In some cases, the challenges have been coordinated in a way that resembles how states previously organized against the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries.
TikTok, though, is facing an even bigger obstacle, as its very existence in the US is in question. Under a federal law that took effect earlier this year, TikTok could be banned from the US by mid-January if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the platform by then. Both TikTok and ByteDance are challenging the law at an appeals court in Washington. A panel of three judges heard oral arguments in the case last month and are expected to issue a ruling, which could be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
In its filings Tuesday, the District of Columbia called the algorithm “dopamine-inducing,” and said it was created to be intentionally addictive so the company could trap many young users into excessive use and keep them on its app for hours on end. TikTok does this despite knowing that these behaviors will lead to profound psychological and physiological harms, such as anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and other long-lasting problems, the district said.
TikTok is disappointed that the lawsuits were filed after the company had been working with the attorneys general for two years on addressing to the issues, a spokesman said.
“We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading,” the TikTok spokesman. Alex Haurek, said. “We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
The social media company does not allow children under 13 to sign up for its main service and restricts some content for everyone under 18. But Washington and several other states said in their filings that children can easily bypass those restrictions, allowing them to access the service adults use despite the company’s claims that its platform is safe for children.
The District of Columbia alleges TikTok is operating as an “unlicensed virtual economy” by allowing people to purchase TikTok Coins – a virtual currency within the platform – and send “Gifts” to streamers on TikTok LIVE who can cash it out for real money. TikTok takes a 50 percent commission on these financial transactions but hasn’t registered as a money transmitter with the US Treasury Department or authorities in the district, according to the complaint.
Officials say teens are frequently exploited for sexually explicit content through TikTok’s LIVE streaming feature, which has allowed the app to operate essentially as a “virtual strip club” without any age restrictions. They say the cut the company gets from the financial transactions allows it to profit from exploitation.
The 14 attorneys general say the goal of their lawsuits is to stop TikTok from using these features, impose financial penalties for their alleged illegal practices and collect damages for users that have been harmed.
The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the US and many other parts of the world. Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the US report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
High school students who frequently use social media more commonly have persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, according to a new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted last year in which about 20,000 teenagers participated.
Also on Tuesday, 22 other states including Alabama, Colorado, Florida and Michigan filed an amicus brief urging a Tennessee court to force TikTok to produce documents related to a multistate investigation that those attorney general offices say TikTok is withholding or destroying.
When TikTok failed to produce the requested information last year, 46 states including Minnesota filed an amicus brief in support of Tennessee. The amicus brief they filed Tuesday supports Tennessee’s continued efforts to compel TikTok’s compliance.
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued TikTok, alleging the company was sharing and selling minors’ personal information in violation of a new state law that prohibits these practices. TikTok, which disputes the allegations, is also fighting against a similar data-oriented federal lawsuit filed in August by the Department of Justice.
Several Republican-led states, including Nebraska, Kansas, New Hampshire, Kansas, Iowa and Arkansas, also previously sued the company, some unsuccessfully, over allegations it is harming children’s mental health, exposing them to “inappropriate” content or allowing young people to be sexually exploited on its platform.


Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI

Updated 08 October 2024
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Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI

  • The pair will receive their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm

STOCKHOLM: American John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for pioneering work in the development of artificial intelligence.
The pair were honored “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the jury said.
“This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning,” the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Hopfield, 91, a professor at Princeton University, was spotlighted for having created “an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data.”
The jury said Hinton, a 76-year-old professor at the University of Toronto, “invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.”
“I’m flabbergasted... I had no idea that could happen,” Hinton told reporters via a phone interview as the winners of the award were announced in Stockholm.
The pair will receive their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to France’s Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian Ferenc Krausz and Franco-Swede Anne L’Huillier for research using ultra quick light flashes that enable the study of electrons inside atoms and molecules.
The Nobel season continues this week with the announcement of the winner, or winners, of the chemistry prize on Wednesday — followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday.
The Economics Prize winds things up on Monday, October 14.
Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes honor those who have, in the words of prize creator and scientist Alfred Nobel, “conferred the greatest benefit on humankind.”


Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

Updated 08 October 2024
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Netflix series explores women’s dreams in the body-slamming world of Japanese pro wrestling

  • The Netflix series tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with an abusive father

TOKYO: “The Queen of Villains” is a typical coming-of-age tale about a young woman’s road to empowerment and self-discovery — except it all takes place in the body-slamming, arm-twisting world of Japanese professional wrestling.
The Netflix series, which began airing last month, tells the story of Dump Matsumoto, a real-life wrestling legend from the 1980s who grew up poor with a father who was often absent or abusive.
Matsumoto grew up angry, she said, and went on to create in her wrestling persona a ferocious, almost camp villain character, known in the sport as a “heel,” complete with outlandish Kabuki-like facial makeup, chains, sticks and a grotesque scowl. She loomed large as a symbol of fearless and defiant womanhood.
“I gave it my all to be evil,” Matsumoto said.
A hefty woman with a friendly smile, Matsumoto makes a point even now to adamantly deny that she was ever a nice person or acknowledge that many people in Japan, especially women, love her.
“I still beat people up in matches. I stuck forks in them and made them bleed,” she said, adding, “All the people who pretend to be good are the truly evil ones.”
“The Queen of Villains” follows the friendship between Matsumoto and Chigusa Nagayo of the popular wrestling tag team known as the Crush Gals. Nagayo served as an adviser, trainer and choreographer for the series’ dramatized wrestling scenes.
Japanese professional wrestling fans still talk about the matches between Matsumoto and the Crush Gals, including the ones they fought in the US
The actresses in the series spent two years training for their roles. They gained weight and muscle, and learned techniques like the “giant swing,” in which a wrestler grabs her opponent’s legs and moves in a dizzying circle, or the “flying knee kick,” which involves a jump and kick to the body while airborne.
The trick in professional wrestling is to execute the punches and body slams convincingly but in a controlled way to avoid serious injuries. A wrestler also must know how to fall properly.
One key fight scene took a month to film as the actors went over each move, again and again.
“Dump played a role to be hated by the entire nation,” said Yuriyan Retriever, a professional comedian who stars as Matsumoto in the series.
“Previously, there was a limit, maybe even unintentionally, beyond which I couldn’t go. But when I played Dump, all those emotions had to come out and be expressed,” she said.
She felt like she was no longer playing a role, she said, but that she had become Dump Matsumoto.
“It’s frightening to be hated, and I don’t think anyone wants to be hated,” Retriever said.
“When I finished a cut, I was crying. And my body was shaking. I can’t express it in words, but I understood all the pressures Dump must have felt.”
The series not only presents a women-beating-the-odds story against a backdrop of sexism and abusive management but it also captures the postwar period of the Showa-era in a way that feels authentic. The scenes used thousands of extras, many of them serious wrestling fans.
Some viewers say the real-life wrestling was more intense than the dramatized version in the new series.
Rionne McAvoy, an Australian filmmaker who as a professional wrestler was hit with a stick by Matsumoto, said: “The actors often fail to capture the intensity, grit and charisma required for these roles.”
But for most viewers, it’s real enough and heartbreaking.
“This is an eternal but emotional story portraying ordinary girls who passionately pursued a dream, found friendship and also themselves,” director Kazuya Shiraishi said.
“It gave me a chance to reflect on my own 15-year filmmaking career, what I truly want to be, what kind of films I want to make. I just wanted to tell their story, which is also everyone’s story.”


Police chase koala through Sydney train station

Updated 08 October 2024
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Police chase koala through Sydney train station

SYDNEY: A wayward koala led police on a low-speed, early morning chase through a Sydney train station, video released on Tuesday showed, surprising commuters in the city.
Video provided by Transport for New South Wales showed the koala ambling through Casula station on Friday, around 34 km (21 miles) south-west of the city’s central business district.
The video showed the koala checking out an elevator before opting to descend a stairway.
Trains in the area were ordered to slow as the koala — a normally reclusive species and one of Australia’s best-loved animals — came dangerously close to the platform edge.
The marsupial eventually hopped the station fence after police officers were dispatched to chase it away from the tracks.
“All passengers, great and small, are reminded to stay behind the yellow line,” Transport for New South Wales said in a statement.
Koala are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the state.