Due to its geographical location and weather conditions, Spain could be an energy power and border on energy sovereignty. But it is still a long way from that milestone. For example, despite having almost twice as many hours of sunshine per year as Germany, today the Germanic country produces more than three times as much photovoltaic energy as Spain.
One of the legacies of the governments of José María Aznar, which neither Presidents Zapatero and Rajoy corrected, was to weave a network of infrastructures completely disconnected from social and economic needs. Spain became a country full of airports without planes, it built hundreds of kilometers of high-speed tracks along which almost empty trains circulated, stopping at ghost stations, and it financed radial highways on which no cars passed and which have been rescued with everyone's taxes. It was a great business for the big construction companies, but a real ruin for society as a whole.
While all this was happening, real priorities were neglected, such as investment in the increasingly degraded commuter networks or policies for energy transformation were relegated. We saw the most resounding example with the so-called sun tax, approved by the government of Mariano Rajoy in 2015, which taxed self-consumption of solar energy. Although this nonsense was endorsed by a Supreme Court ruling, after the motion of censure that brought Pedro Sánchez to Moncloa, that rule was repealed. But the damage was already done. The large electric companies had managed to mark the government's agenda and delayed the path that renewable energies have to take by a decade. Again, some win and we all lose.
The increasingly explicit evidence of climate change and the effects of the war declared by Russia in Ukraine have accelerated awareness of the importance of energy sovereignty so as not to depend on the consequences of geopolitics, today for gas and oil. Russia's oil tanker, which makes half of Europe tremble, and tomorrow for Algeria's gas, which will make the other half tremble. And, always, the oil of the Middle East, which keeps the whole world pending.
It is true that in recent years progress has been made at a faster rate, but today, more than half of the energy produced in Spain is still from non-renewable sources: it stands out that 20% is nuclear energy and another 20% is produced from natural gas, while only 10% is solar energy production and 24% is wind. Something is not going well when, having sun and wind like nobody else, we continue to depend on gas and oil imports and we continue to maintain very expensive nuclear power plants. At the top of the table we find countries like Norway, where 94% of the energy it produces is from renewable sources; Austria and Denmark, which reach 70%, or Sweden and Portugal, which are around 60%.
When we look at the data for Catalonia, the score is a fail without nuances. A lost decade, without leadership in the implementation of a strategy in favor of the promotion of renewable energies, has led to a paralysis of projects that explain the poor figures in this field. In 2021, 80% of the energy produced in Catalonia was from non-renewable sources, and it stands out that 57% was of nuclear origin. Only 17.5% of the kilowatts produced were green energy, with a tiny 1.5% of solar origin.
One of the first plans presented by the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, after taking office a year and a half ago, plans to reach the figure of 50% of renewable energy consumption in 2030 and completely eliminate the consumption of fossil fuels. and nuclear on the horizon of the year 2050. It is a very difficult goal, but it cannot be waived. For this reason, in addition to a greater collective awareness of the need to complete the energy transformation and the urgent simplification of procedures and regulations, it is essential that there be determination and leadership from governments and also from city councils.
Although the energy monopolies do not like it, having sun and having wind, that we still depend on gas, oil and nuclear is the world turned upside down. We are in discount time to reverse the numbers, but to improve our world we have the sun on our faces and the wind in our favor.
