Mexico is living its full Energy Middle Ages. Of course I am not referring to the fact that we are using candles and whale oil, but if this trend continues, little would be missing for that. Not only because we live in an obscurantism in which official data on energy is hidden or buried in formats difficult to access and where new ideas are rejected, or because a system of energy vassalage is being implemented where we are all vassals, peasants or slaves of CFE; but because, in addition —and hand in hand with these two concepts—, we are in an Energy Inquisition orchestrated from the pulpits of public power and the State company.

For months, the federal government, starting with the president and the Secretariat of Energy, even leaders of the governing party, has taken on the task of winning the battle of the narrative that the electric reform initiative presented by the Head of the Executive himself is good for the people. Every day messages are positioned on television, radio, social networks, press conferences and in all possible media in defense of the initiative.

Also, week after week, some CFE official comes out to defend, either in the media or through press releases, the presidential proposal. In many cases showing the lack of technical knowledge of the electric sector, of the operational and financial management of the company or of legal practice itself.

However, the greatest problem is the very personal task that the direction of CFE and its social communication area have imposed on themselves by launching replies to any criticism or opinion published by experts, analysts, journalists or almost any person in any media outlet.

“…poor is the one who dares to question because he will end up in the virtual bonfire of CFE…”

Like the Spanish Inquisition of the Middle Ages, the selective persecution carried out by CFE is brutal. Week after week they attack without solid arguments, without figures, without graphs and in a personal way anyone who dares to publish some critical thought regarding the areas of opportunity and negative aspects of the initiative. Public lynching does not take long, nor does the bonfire from power to burn the reputation of those who do not retract. The end, as I pointed out, is to win the narrative, whatever the cost.

The worst part, with all the machinery of the self-proclaimed most powerful company in Mexico, is that substantial arguments based on official figures or evidence are not presented, but rather disqualification and personal accusations are resorted to. Arguments sustained in ad hominem, ad baculum and ad populum fallacies wholesale.

If someone writes that the solution to solve climate problems, advance in the energy transition and optimize the country’s electric resources is not hydroelectric plants, CFE’s reply does not present data, but limits itself to branding the opinion as unfounded improvisation.

If someone shows them that the prices of electric energy from private plants are lower than those of CFE itself according to the data of the Energy Regulatory Commission itself, CFE limits itself to attacking the person and calling him a “lobbyist for private companies” and “enemy of the state company.”

Or if someone questions the hidden subsidies that CFE points out so much and of which it has not presented any proof based on the government’s official documents or statistics, they limit themselves to presenting some unsupported figure, pointed out again and again while waiting for it to become true, and accuse, without further proof or foundation, of promoting foreign interests.

The three examples are real and are a sample of a systemic phenomenon that occurs within the state electric company. It is, then, an energy inquisition that only seeks to give a reply without contributing to the discussion and debate, only to promote its particular interest and not that of society, so poor is the one who dares to question because he will end up in the virtual bonfire of CFE, since it now seems that the fundamental right to be protected is not free expression, but persecution.

This article was originally published by Energía a Debate.
Date: November 22, 2021
Link: https://energiaadebate.com/inquisicion-energetica/ [Online]

The president of Mexico has pointed out on multiple occasions that one of the pillars of his administration to achieve clean energy goals is the generation of electricity through hydroelectric plants. This plan is so important that on multiple occasions he has pointed out that with investment and repowering of current facilities we can generate the clean energy that the country needs without promoting renewable sources such as solar and wind, because he considers them intermittent.

According to the president and his trusted advisors, solar and wind generation are intermittent because they do not generate electricity when there is no sun and when there is no wind; as if the sunrise, the movement of clouds and air currents were unpredictable and spontaneous and there did not exist prediction algorithms with 90% probability that allow having an important degree of certainty of generation.

There are two reasons why this administration has promoted hydroelectric generation, the first because most hydroelectric plants belong to CFE and that implies that the State company is being strengthened while at the same time barriers to entry are established for private competitors.

To such a degree that one of the fundamental changes in the reform of the Electric Industry Law that is suspended with general effects is that hydroelectric plants will be the first to be dispatched. This favors CFE and displaces private generators, although other private ones benefit: Generadora Fenix.

Generadora Fenix is a consortium formed by a Portuguese company and a company created by a group from the extinct Luz y Fuerza del Centro union, to whom the State transferred ownership of some hydroelectric plants for their operation in the wholesale electricity market. Well, they would be favored.

The other reason that the present administration mentions is that hydroelectric plants have controllable electricity production, all else remaining constant, energy can be generated as a constant flow if there is a constant flow of electricity. But here lies the most important error of the strategy: water, although it is a renewable resource, is finite, exhaustible, and takes time to recover.

Not only that, water has other uses; it does not only serve to generate electricity. As obvious as this may seem, sometimes it seems that the leaders of the national electric company miss it. The water in dams serves so that farm workers can irrigate their lands, so that water systems provide water to our homes, so that companies produce food, clothing and other essential products, and so that ecosystems have the vital liquid.

Water management is an issue that requires long-term projection because unexpected climatological issues can occur, such as droughts; therefore, electricity generation from dams is a byproduct that is optimized considering all the other consumptive and non-consumptive uses of water and considering the projections and risks of adverse climatological events that could reduce the replacement rate of water.

If you only release the water because CFE generation must be favored, we all have a problem and a human right elevated to constitutional rank is affected: the right to water that we Mexicans have as a society. Having said this, the president’s strategy, increasing clean energy generation with hydroelectric plants, is tied from the beginning to the availability of enough water to meet the needs of citizens today and in the future.

Today we are suffering one of the most serious droughts in our country; water must be cared for and its other uses must be considered. As laudable as the task of rescuing CFE may be, this is not the priority. In such a way that this 2021 the entire clean electricity generation plan of the current administration is dead letter thanks to the drought.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: May 11, 2021
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/hidroelectricas-mexico-sequia-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20230324022817/https://businessinsider.mx/hidroelectricas-mexico-sequia-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [Archived]