Clean Energy Cafés with science communicators
Be part of the Clean Energy Cafés, a unique initiative of the POWER Project bringing people together in Romania, Malta, and Spain to explore the future of clean energy. These engaging sessions are designed to make clean energy accessible to everyone while tackling the myths and disinformation surrounding it. Connect with experts, share ideas, and learn how we can build a more sustainable and informed future together.
Join us and make a difference—your voice matters!
Conversations that matter
Clean Energy Cafés are dynamic, interactive online events held in Romania, Malta, and Spain, where science communicators, experts, and the public come together virtually to discuss clean energy and combat disinformation.
These cafés are designed to make complex scientific concepts accessible and engaging, fostering open dialogue in an online environment to clarify doubts, debunk myths, and raise awareness about clean energy solutions. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of clean energy while enhancing their media literacy and resilience against disinformation.
Each café features 15 experienced science communicators (3-5 per country), ensuring diverse perspectives and enriching discussions. By connecting participants from different regions through a digital platform, we aim to inspire action and build a more informed, sustainable future.
CEC1 - Bucarest (Romania)
Date: March 2026
Online meeting
Organized by: MVNIA
CEC2 - Malta
Date: March 2026
Online meeting
Organized by: Universiy of Malta
CEC3 - Madrid (Spain)
Date: 04 March 2026
Campus de Fuenlabrada (Spain)
Organized by: Universiy Rey Juan Carlos
Debunking Clean Energy Disinformation: Message Repository
The Clean Energy Cafés with Science Communicators brought together leading experts in science journalism and communication from Romania, Malta and Spain to address the most common disinformation narratives about renewable energy.
Below you will find the repository of fact-based messages they developed to help citizens, educators and media professionals counter false claims and promote accurate information about clean energy.
| The false claim / disinformation | Affected technology | Disinformation category | Fact-based response | Link to scientific evidence | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renewables caused the April 2025 blackout | All renewables | Driver 4 — Technical unreliability | The Red Eléctrica (Spanish TSO) report explained that there was a voltage-surge cascade and that generation with voltage control was needed. It was not the fault of the renewables. | Laura Chaparro (citing the Red Eléctrica report), POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Living near nuclear power plants increases cancer rates (drawing on the study published in Nature Communications) | Nuclear energy | Driver 3 — Health risks | The study had significant limitations: it did not specify the types of cancer; radiation-related cancers are linked to specific parts of the body; the data showed more cancer in people over 65, whereas radiation usually affects younger people more; and the change in incidence with distance from the plant was not considered. It is a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship. | Amy Berrington de González, epidemiologist (cited by Laura Chaparro), POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Electric cars catch fire or explode | Electric vehicles; Batteries | Driver 3 — Health / safety risks | The Newtral analysis with Science Feedback identified that this narrative spread mainly through Telegram channels based on conspiracy thinking, alongside hoaxes such as “fake bans on single-occupant vehicles” or “viral images of roadside chargers causing traffic jams.” | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| There is no charging infrastructure: if I go on a trip I will get stranded | Electric vehicles | Driver 4 — Technical unreliability | In Spain there are more than 42,000 public-access charging points for electric vehicles, many of them fast-charging, allowing a meaningful recharge in 15 to 20 minutes. | Miguel Rodrigo (IDAE), POWER Café 2 — Spain | EN |
| Ads for the government solar-panel programme | Solar energy | Driver 7 — Greenwashing / Associated fraud | Maldita has published alerts: there are social-media ads about the “government programme” to install solar panels that in fact seek to obtain personal data fraudulently. | Laura Chaparro (citing Maldita), POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Natural gas is green / clean energy | Natural gas | Driver 7 — Greenwashing | Natural gas is a fossil fuel and contributes to the greenhouse effect. This is an incontestable fact, regardless of how European regulation categorises it. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Renewables only work because nuclear is backing them up | All renewables; Nuclear energy | Driver 4 — Technical unreliability | El Hierro and other low-demand islands show that a 100% renewable model is viable. The real debate concerns back-up and grid control in large, high-demand systems; it is not an invalidation of renewables. | Laura Chaparro, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Everything is eco / green / clean (label trivialisation) | Energy transition (general) | Driver 7 — Greenwashing | When everything is eco, nothing is eco. The way out is regulation, as happened with the “bio” label in food products: with greater or lesser success, in some terrains it is the only thing that saves us. | Laura Chaparro and Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Agenda 2030 is a green dictatorship imposed by global elites | Energy transition (general) | Driver 5 — Conspiracy / Global elites | Expose who really holds power: “it is 4 or 5 mega-rich people whose vassal you are becoming.” To the “rebellious” youth who think themselves critical, we must say: “they are fooling you”; those who claim to give them tools to rebel are the real powerful ones. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Green energy impoverishes us / we must give up progress (antimodernism) | Energy transition (general) | Driver 6 — Antimodernism / Eco-traditionalism | Make tangible benefits visible: compare images of clean skies with polluted ones in the same city, just as one compares the lungs of a smoker and a non-smoker. Appeal to everyday impacts (allergies, asthma) more frequent in the younger generation. | Laura Chaparro, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| We cannot go so fast with renewables (delayism) | All renewables | Driver 4 + Driver 8 — Delayism | This is an old delayist technique, one of the most recurrent in climate information, intensified after the blackout. Properly framed, the debate is not about renewables but about the support, distribution and control infrastructure of the grid. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| What about China? Until China cuts emissions, we will not either | Energy transition (general) | Driver 8 — Geopolitical distraction / Fatalism | It involves false assumptions (“we are not going to cut our growth while another country keeps the production”) and does not distinguish between emitting and polluting countries. In industrialised countries these may go hand in hand, but they are not the same. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| If a renewable does not perfectly replace a fossil one, then nothing (paralysing perfectionism) | All renewables | Driver 6 — Antimodernism | The very idea of substitution is perverse: we have spent 100 years building a fossil-based system that generated auxiliary and logistical industries. It is not about substituting one thing for another, but about changing the model, with deep reconversions and a just transition. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Renewables destroy the countryside / replace olive groves with panels (ecocide) | Solar energy | Driver 1 — Deliberate environmental destruction | Viral claims may not be true, but there is a legitimate underlying debate: centralised PV (large solar plants) versus distributed PV (rooftop self-consumption). That debate should indeed be opened, accepting the costs of grid adaptation. | Mario Viciosa, POWER Café 1 — Spain | EN |
| Renewables are imposed without consulting the territory | Solar energy; Wind energy | Driver 1 — Environmental destruction / Procedural justice | Belinchón grew from 315 to almost 500 inhabitants in 5 years following the PV installation. The key was dialogue between residents, town council and project developer; the developer must feel “like one more resident,” since they will be in the municipality for 30 years. | Jesús López, Mayor of Belinchón, POWER Café 2 — Spain | EN |
| The transition is a top-down political imposition | Energy transition (general) | Driver 5 — Conspiracy / Elites / Imposition | The “how” of the transition must be debated collectively. It is not the same for large corporations to drive it as for collective, community actors rooted in the territory. If it is pushed “from above,” it will not bring the population along. | Alberto Garzón, POWER Café 2 — Spain | EN |
| Energy is ideology: left vs. right | Energy transition (general) | Driver 5 — Conspiracy / Polarisation | In Spain, “if you defend renewables you are left-wing and if you defend nuclear you are right-wing. It is a fallacy and an absurd reductionism.” Energy must be taken out of political debate and voice given to scientists and engineers, not pundits. | Ignacio Mártil, POWER Café 2 — Spain | EN |
| Renewables destroy biodiversity | All renewables | Driver 2 — Negative impact on wildlife | Renewables yes, but not like this. The Spanish scientific community published in Science that deployment must not come at the expense of biodiversity —the third axis of the planetary crisis. It is a legitimate debate that requires dialogue with conservation organisations, not an argument to halt the transition. | Sandra Sutherland and Asunción Ruiz (SEO/BirdLife), POWER Café 2 — Spain | EN |
National Reports
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