P[10]The Metabolic Sublime

An extensive and optimistic presentation of the current ecological transition project from an institutional point of view where it is deconstructed as a political project working at multiple scales, as a multi-sectoral industrial project and as a socio-cultural project. The interviewee also presents the current blockages to this process as well as strategies necessary for its advancement.

A thermodynamic review of the characteristics and potentialities of fossil and renewable energies; as well as a critical view of how the latter are being implemented in the territory with particular focus on the massive electrification project based on megaprojects and high voltage interconnections.

An introduction to the concept of ‘exergy’ as a tool to measure the material capacities of the planet and a non-exhaustive presentation of the critical raw material peaks for the current energy transition project. A recognition of the impossibility of total circularity due to the thermodynamic principles of entropy and dispersion. As well as a call to change our relationship with waste and to the creation of new economic indexes that go beyond growth as a paradigm.

A critical vision of the anthropocene as a concept and a presentation of some alternative constructs such as the capitalocene, the plantationocene and in particular the ‘wasteocene’, not so much as the ‘age of waste’ but as the series of socioecological relations that through the extraction and separation of ‘the other’ allow to define which objects, territories and people are disposable. A call for the generation of alternative narratives that make these wasted people and places visible.

The presentation of a parallelism between contemporary energy production practices, rural-urban relations and global north-south power relations to help us make the leap from the visualization of existing territorial conflicts in our own territory to global conflicts beyond our borders. A perspective on how bioregional design can help balance these conflicts by combining the design of countryside and city and their energy, agricultural and waste systems.

A walk through the quantified material ‘consumption footprint’ of national agrilogistical systems during the 20th and 21st centuries, including and focusing also on the elements externalized to other territories. A review of the material balance or rather lack of material balance “input” – “output” of traditionally exploited territories.

A deconstruction of the history of ecological design and the paradoxes in the field of sustainability. Followed by a critique of both, the idea of closure and closed systems as design tools for physical and information spaces on the one hand, and the idea of extreme interconnectivity as a chimera that hides the inability to establish explicit connections on the other.

This interview presents an environmental conception of global computing technologies that puts specific focus on the types of sensitive mechanisms and how the interactions between humans and sensing infrastructures during and after their useful life can create new conceptions of participatory citizenship.

The Escombreras terminal of the Port of Cartagena is the gateway for 14% of the LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) entering Spain, which has 35% of the European storage capacity and the largest network of regasification plants on the continent, a symbol of the fossil paradigm that is trying to reinvent itself as a sustainable milestone with the construction of the largest hydrogen electrolysis plant on the Iberic peninsula. According to Repsol, the promoting partner of the initiative, the plant will reach 552 MW of installed capacity to produce renewable hydrogen in 2025 and 1.9 GW in 2030. This capacity represents almost 50% of the Spanish government’s commitment.

La Mula Solar Power Plant is a photovoltaic mega-project of 493.74 MW of peak power that covers 1,000 ha belonging to the municipality of Mula in Murcia (Spain). It was built by Cobra (ACS Group) and inaugurated in July 2019. At its opening, it was the largest photovoltaic power plant in Europe, surpassing the Cestas Solar Park in France. Today, in March 2023, it is still the second biggest photovoltaic plant in Europe, after the Nuñez de Balboa plant in Badajoz, with a peak power of 500MW.

60% of the vegetables consumed in Europe are grown in 35,000 hectares of solar greenhouses located in Almeria and the coast of Granada. With a yearly production of 4.5 million tons of fruit, El Mar de Plastico is arguably the most recognisable agrilogistic hub within the Iberic Peninsula.