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Beyond the Elgea Wind Power Plant

Mila Parot Zubimendi and Bernard Isturitz.

The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 marked a turning point in international environmental politics: the emergence of corporate environmentalism which seeks to merge economic and ecological globalization. Pressured by the environmental movement which may convince governments to force them to make much more far reaching changes, transnationals appropriated the language and images of ecology and sustainability, and neutralized the efforts of popular environmental movements by setting the terms of the debate along lines favorable to them. This maneuver twisted the imperative need to solve the environmental crisis into a justification for maintaining the status quo.

Corporate environmentalism is based on free trade as a key requirement for sustainable development, self-regulation and, at least in theory, changes in technology and managerial practices in order to promote cleaner production and the more efficient use of resources.

In the European Union the dominance of free trade policies and increasing dependence on international trade and investments have strengthened the power of transnationals at the expense of jobs, social infrastructure and the environment.

At the local level, the goal of the corporation is to remove citizens from the realm of political power achieved through their participation in democratic institutions, and override any traditional community decision-making process. The withdrawal of the Elgea wind power plant project from Spain's Basque Eolic Energy Plan testifies to this.

We should keep this in mind as we try to better understand the case of the Elgea wind power plant, which has generated a controversy in the Basque region, and figure out how to solve a local problem while we try to revive public dialogue regarding this international problem.

Energy Firms are Expanding

First off, wind energy is currently the environmentalists' favorite renewable energy resource. Hydropower has lost favor with environmentalists because of the damage it has done to river habitats and fresh-water fish populations. Solar power, at least when relied upon for central-station electricity generation is not environmentally benign on a total fuel cycle basis and is highly uneconomic, land-intensive and thus a fringe electric power source for the foreseeable future. Geothermal has turned out to be "depletable" with limited capacity, falling output and modest new investment. Biomass is also uneconomic and produces air-emissions comparable to and sometimes worse than fossil fuels. Cogeneration is the production of electrical energy and another form of useful energy (such as heat or steam) through the sequential use of energy.

But despite its revered status within the environmental community, wind power poses several major dilemmas. First, wind remains uneconomic despite heavy subsidies over the last decade. Another obstacle is the availability of suitable wind. And from an environmental viewpoint, wind farms are noisy, land-intensive, unsightly and hazardous to birds, including endangered species. While the first three environmental problems could be ignored, the indiscriminated killing of thousands of birds has created controversy and confusion within the environmental community.

The U.S. Energy and Information Administration (EIA) reports(1) oil is projected to remain the world's dominant energy source, and natural gas is projected to be the fastest-growing primary energy source from 1996 to 2020. World coal use is also projected to increase, at an average annual rate of 1.6 percent per year on a short ton basis over the projection period. The prospects for nuclear power to maintain a significant share of worldwide electricity generation are uncertain, despite projected growth of 2.5 percent per year in total electricity demand through 2020. In future years, electricity will continue to be the most rapidly growing form of energy consumption, rising from 12 trillion kilowatthous in 1996 to almost 22 trillion kilowatthours in 2020.

While renewable energy sources are not expected to gain market share, they are expected to retain an eight percent share of world energy use through 2020. According to EIA, in terms of wind development, Denmark, Spain, and the United Kingdom followed Germany and added, respectively, 190 megawatts, 90 megawatts, and 71 megawatts of capacity in 1996. Denmark still hopes to achieve its target of 1,500 megawatts of installed wind capacity by 2005 as set forth in the country's Energy 2000 program. However, the Danish transmission companies Elsam and Elkraft have not been able to meet their commitment to increase wind capacity. Public resistance to planned facilities has made it difficult to install the capacity. As a result, offshore wind plants are now being planned.

Notwithstanding the large energy corporations entering the wind power sector, many of them with less than sparkling environmental records, they are not decreasing their business in nuclear and fossil energy. These corporations are simply doing a paper shuffle to turn your interest in the environment into some extra profit. To them the wind business is a drop in the bucket compared to what they are adding to their sources of nuclear and fossil energy. They are not turning around, they are expanding.

Western nuclear firms are expanding their business thanks to the EU assistance programmes Tacis and Phare. As of 1997, the German nuclear giant Siemens has earned over 3.5 million ECU in the former Soviet bloc under the Tacis programme for Russia. The World Association of Nuclear Operators has been awarded 21 contracts by Tacis and Phare, the programme for central Europe. The UK's AEA Technology had 6 contracts worth at least 3.7 million ECU, and Scottish Nuclear received two contracts. While it is difficult to argue that money should not be spent on making the existing nuclear power stations in the East safe, there is currently a serious case to be made for switching to alternative forms of power.

Large corporations are entering the wind energy sector and alliances have been subsequently formed between electricity generating companies and wind turbine manufacturers. But the big business is not in the windmill sector but in the new `trade and cooperation' agreements with eastern countries which are furthering western transnationals interests and ignoring broader interests of promoting human development and protecting the environment. This bias towards business is maintained through a strategic silence in the European Commission, with the complicity of governments, keeping the European public in the dark.

Elgea Eolic Plant: The Players

In Baskongadak, the Spanish transnational Iberdrola and the regional government each owns half of the Elgea wind power plant currently under construction in the Elgea mountain range, a space declared a Natural Enclave (10/1994) by the government which is now scarring our precious landscape. Moreover, Territorial Planning and Management classifies the Elgea mountain range as Grazing Land thus, a wind power plant in this area is banned.

In order to build the wind power plant, the regional government withdrew the project proposal from the region's Eolic Energy Plan still pending approval, a disturbing evidence of the government's complicity with the Iberdrola company to override the decision-making process as well as the environmental protection policies. This is an easy way for the government to block debate on the environmental impact of a wind power plant in Elgea as well as on the (illegal) construction of the plant.

The Elgea eolic plant is the first wind power plant among 20 planned for the Baskongadak (Basque provinces of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa) in Spain. Baskongadak, with an area of 7261 sq km (2803 sq mi), is one of the fifteen regional autonomies of Spain. A fourth Basque province in Spain, Nabarra (10412 sq km), has its own autonomous statute.

Baskongadak (2150000 inhabitants) consists of a coastal plain and a complexity of mountains and valleys. The mountain ranges of Gorbea, Aitzgorri and Aralar -with mountain tops of 1500 meters- separate the coast from the inland area. Grainfields, garden plots, and orchards are spread across the valleys, and evergreen forests cover the mountains. Many of these valleys are heavily urbanized and industrialized, with our mountains remaining the few spaces where we can still enjoy our natural environment.

Baskongadak is ruled by the "moderate" Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), a Christian Democrat party which governs the area for the last 20 years. Currently, the PNV governs in coalition with another conservative nationalist party, Eusko Alkastasuna (EA). The PNV-EA coalition has the support of the pro-independence Euskal Herritarrok (aka Herri Batasuna).

On the other hand, Iberdrola, a member of ERT(1) is one of Europe's largest providers of energy. It produces nearly 40 percent of Spain's electric power with a combination of hydroelectric, thermal, and nuclear power stations. The company was formed in 1991 from the merger of Spain's two largest private utilities. In 1997 the company provided electricity to more than eight million customers in Spain and, through foreign divisions, to more than four million customers in South America. Iberdrola also offers "services" to and has "projects" in Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ucrania. Through its subsidiaries, Iberdrola offers telecommunications and engineering services and invests in real estate. Iberdrola and the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya S.A. (BBV) are the shareholders of Corporacion IBV, known as "the new conqueror of Latin America."

In the Basque province of Nabarra, Iberdrola and its subsidiaries, especially Gamesa, have joined the wind energy club and allied with the regional government, an equal partner in the destruction of our landscape. Nabarra has 29 wind power plants currently installed and one under construction. Others are being planned.

Just in case you thought Iberdrola lost its taste of nuclear power, here is some information directly from the horse's mouth(2):

Energy Balance (Mill kWh)
	1998	1997	%	% Mainland Spain
Own production	48,740	47,459	2.7	30.7
Hydroelectric	17,903	17,291	3.5	52.7
Thermal - coal	4,050	5,942	-31.9	6.7
Thermal - oil and gas	1.739	1,002	73.6	29.7
Nuclear	25,048	23,224	7.9	42.5
Power used in generation	1,578	1,620	-2.1	25.3
Power used in pumping	943	806	17.1	36.2
Balance of internal interchanges	19,992	16,790	19.1	-
Net market demand	66,211	61,823	7.1	35.3
Losses in transmission and distribution	4,731	4,392	7.7	30.7
Energy sales	61,480	57,431	7.1	35.7

The Elgea Wind Power Plant

The Elgea wind power plant will consist of 40 generators on a 4.l kms of land in the Elgea mountain range, encompassing the municipalities of Barundia and Donemiliaga in the province of Araba; and Oņati, Eskoriatza and Aretxabaleta, in the province of Gipuzkoa. Annual production is estimated at 75 million kWh. All 20 wind energy plants planned for Baskongadak are expected to supply four percent of the electricity consumed in Baskongadak in 1997, a percentage that would be reduced considering the projected growth in energy consumption. Moreover, nuclear, gas, and hydroelectricity will not only continue being sources of energy but additional energy plants are being planned in Muskiz (Petronor's IGCC), Zierbana (Gas), and Zornotza (Transpower) as well as some cogeneration plants.

Although wind energy is thought to generate no pollution, contrary to what the regional government and its transnational partner claim, it has impacts on people, widlife habitat, and land.

Wind turbines use a rotor (blades), a power shaft and a generator to convert the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy. When wind passes over the rotor, it creates aerodynamic lift that causes the rotor to spin. This rotary motion is used to drive the generator and produce electricity. Wind turbines are also equipped with a rotor control to adjust spin rate and stop the motion of the blades. And because wind speed increases with height, wind turbines are mounted on towers 40 m heigh with a concrete base. The infrastructure required for the installation and maintenance of a wind power plant includes the construction of maintenance roads for heavy transportation, underground electrical wiring and a transformer feeder substation. The results are visual impact of the turbines, noise people living near the plant will hear, avian mortality, and land erosion. These industrial installations make way for other future infrastructures in the mountains including astronomical observatories and antennas. "Wind farms" are also use to attract additional tourism to the area.

A large group of local mountaineering associations and grassroots groups are calling for the project to be scrapped. Councillors of the political group Euskal Herritarrok in Araba charge of serious "irregularities" in the construction of the Elgea Eolic Plant. According to these councillors, the project lacks the required license to build a wind power plant in a public place.

Fighting for the Environment and More

Unfortunately, the environmental movement in Europe lacks the financial and organizational means to be properly represented in Brussels. Another crucial problem is their difficulty in accessing high-level decision makers, especially the Commission. The European Parliament is much more accessible, but here industry has also established a stronger presence by offering MEPs jobs, assistants and gifs.

However, turning the tide is possible and it would begin with the rejection of policies that increase the economic dominance of transnationals along with actions by way of strikes, demonstrations and civil desobedience.

Regaining democratic control over finance and capital would be a first step for improving social conditions and job opportunities and regulating corporate investments. There are strategies to be developed for dismantling corporations which have grown too big and have thereby gained unacceptable economic and political power. By reducing political dependence on transnationals, new policies such as the introduction of ecological taxes, would be possible thus efficiently reducing environmental damage.

Local economies need to be rebuilt through the introduction of community reinvestment legislation, and with direct public investment in sustainable agriculture, public transport for local needs, urban renewal, social services, education and health care.

Many local communities in the world did not wait for governments to act and have discovered various ways in which they can recapture lost vitality. They have set up local credit unions and other small scale-saving systems with clear social and environmental objectives, ending dependency upon conventional profit-driven banks. Also, community-supported agriculture enables healthy local food production and can help farmers to escape from the drawbacks of industrial agriculture.

Our power as consumers should also not be underestimated. Boycotts can force companies to listen to the bottom line set down by consumers. In many parts of Europe and the world, shareholder actions and international alliances against specific corporations and their malpractices have effected significant change in corporate behavior.

The struggle to take back our mountains from transnationals, not excluding their local free-market converts, cannot be reduced to polite letters to the same authorities who are selling out our land and resources to the new colonizers of the world. Along with the combined actions proposed above, our politicians ought to be challenged and exposed for their complicity; punished by their voters. It is this kind of struggle which gives hopes for the future.

September 1999

Mila Parot Zubimendi is a law student and free-lance writer. She is currently living in Miarritze. Bernard Isturitz is a free-lance journalist. He lives with his wife and children in Zuberoa.

Notes

1. International Energy Outlook (1999), projections through 2020.
2. Iberdrola's 1998 figures of "the total gross output in the electrical system of the (Iberian) penninsula."
3. The European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) is one of the main political forces on the European scene. The ERT, thanks to its close connections with top European politicians, played a crucial role in pushing for the Internal Market in the 1980s. Later, ERT put the Trans-European Networks (TENs) of transport infrastructure on the political agenda, and it left clear fingerprints on the 1991