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Nabarralde | Nabarra Papers
Environmental
group takes carnage of
wind turbines case to EU
Beñat
Isturitz and Mila Parot Zubimendi.
One of the
most highly touted forms of renewable power is wind-generated
energy. Like solar power, it is inexhaustible (so long as the
wind blows), does not pollute much, and is free. However, real-world
observations of wind power stations in action continue to add
to the weight of evidence against wind as a viable energy. Perhaps
the most troubling aspect of wind power from an environmental
perspective is its devastating effect on bird populations, particularly
birds of prey. Gurelur (our land, in the Basque language) is
the first environmental activist group in the Basque territories
to take a stand against the carnage of wind turbines.
Brushing
aside criticism from Gurelur, the Environment Department of
the government of Nabarra has refused to publicly release the
report on a study it commissioned in 2000 on the avian mortality
of birds, including birds from protected species, linked to
wind turbines in Nabarra.
Last month Gurelur announced that is now in possession of a
copy of the unreleased government report authored by an independent
biologist. It is estimated
that 7,255 birds a year are killed at 11 of the 22 wind turbine
sites in Nabarra. The study was conducted between March 2000
and March 2001 at 11 of the 22 wind power stations in Aibar
(1), Izko (1), Alaiz (2), Guerinda (4), Leiza-Beruete (1), El
Perdon (1) and Salajones (1) with a total of 400 turbines.
The
Environment Department is hiding that the wind power stations
are Nabarra's killing fields for birds from protected species,
according to Gurelur. A Gurelur press release of August 2002
contends, "The hiding of deaths of protected species by the
Environment authorities, and their failure to comply with current
legislation, is punished by the laws on the environment and
the Spanish Penal Code. Gurelur estimates that more than 8,000
birds a year are killed at the 22 wind power stations in action
throughout Nabarra.
The
report of the 2000 study also makes recommendations to reduce
avian mortality which Gurelur said the government has ignored.
Among the recommendations is more research on avian use of space,
the relocation of wind power stations to areas far from designated
habitat and breeding sites, a free-zone for migrating birds,
and the elimination or relocation of "problematic" wind turbines.
Government officials
are keeping the lid on the report despite repeated requests
from Gurelur, which has made a formal complaint to the European
Union, the Ombudsman of Nabarra and a court in Irunea (Pamplone)
against the Environment Department. Gurelur said members of
the scientific community and environmental groups in Europe
have shown concern about the study findings and more copies
of the government secret report have been requested.
The failure
to reveal the report suggests that the Environment Department
doesn't really care about the environment and that business
interests are so powerful as to be irresistible to the government,
which prefers to industrialize our last wild places to reduce
emissions while our consumption of energy grows.
Given that wind
turbine blades weigh up to 1.5 tonnes and their tips are traveling
at 180 mph, It would be not surprising if turbine blades are
killing birds in large numbers. There are a number of potential
hazards for birds including habitat loss and degradation, indirect
disturbance from noise and mortality due to collision with turbines,
as well as the effect on nocturnal patterns or movement and
danger to birds during periods of poor visibility and severe
weather.
But fearful
of taking the politically difficult decisions on energy, our
governments are hiding behind a green window-dressing, and this
is what the encouragement of wind "parks" in the Basque territories
has been since 1994. The development of wind power that has
taken place with the support of the government of residual Nabarra
since 1994 is misguided, ineffective and neither environmentally
nor socially benign. This situation is very much the same in
Araba, Bizkaia and
Gipuzkoa where wind development threatens the wildlife and
landscape of Elgea, Ordunte, Badaia, Oiz and Mandoegi.
The reason for
the growing unpopularity of wind power in the Basque territories
and elsewhere in Europe is that the big names in wind energy
development (e.g. Spanish Basque multinationals like Gamesa
and Iberdrola...) have tricked
their way into unspoiled countryside in "green" disguise. But
these are not "green" companies, and their other activities
often add to atmospheric pollution larger amounts of noxious
gases than their wind "parks" save. The people of residual Nabarra
and of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa (aka "Basque country", "Euskadi")
felt dupe into envisioning fairy tale wind "parks" in the countryside.
The reality, however, has been an abrupt awakening. Wind power
stations are NOT parks. They are an industrial site of vast
proportions and a turbine is a huge and noisy machines - 300
feet high or even more. Wind power stations are treated within
the planning process in the same way as motorways, industrial
buildings, railways and pig farms.
Wind power
stations are a recent phenomenon that it is hard to be certain
of their long-term ecological impact. The hole excavated for
a turbine's foundation has a volume equivalent to a 25m swimming
bath. The extracted material has to be put somewhere else. The
hole is filled with sand, aggregate and cement which has to
come from somewhere else and has to be transported by heavy
lorries. Several miles of service roads and cable trenches need
to be constructed at a large wind "park" site. If the site is
at any distance from the grid, there will be pylons and overhead
transmission lines to form the necessary connection. Wind enthusiasts
admit that they need huge quantities of concrete for foundations
and roads and claim that many jobs are created or safe-guarded
thereby. Yet the concrete industry is the biggest man-made source
of CO2 on the planet - about 7% of the world's total. Wind turbines
produce significant amounts of CO2 - they merely do it in advance.
If the emissions created during manufacture and erection are
averaged over the units of electricity generated during the
lifetime of a turbine, the CO2 cost is 50g per unit (Algemeen
Dagblad-Netherlands, 2.8.2000). What was once inaccessible upland
becomes accessible for more intensive agriculture. Applications
for further development can use the argument that the landscape
is already degraded by wind turbines.
If wind "parks"
threaten to destroy jobs in the tourist industry, they create
few if any compensating jobs elsewhere. A typical wind "park"
would employ a single maintenance operative. The largest wind
"park" in Europe has three full-time employees. It is true that
turbines used in the wind power stations in the Basque territories
were manufactured at Gamesa's plants in Nabarra, and in Aragon
and Galizia outside the Basque territories. But the simple truth
is that if the subsidies going into renewables were diverted
to energy conservation, thousands of jobs would be created at
a stroke, and far more emissions would be saved.
We cannot reduce
emissions while our consumption of energy grows. Electricity
generation is only one source of greehouse gas emissions. Traffic
growth on the roads and in the air are the fastest growing sources
of such emissions. How many families run two or three cars?
How many of us fly to distant destinations on cut-price air
tickets? How many of us drive a car to places where public transportantion
is available? It is shocking how much of our energy use is wasted,
how little attention our governments give to conserving energy
and how growth in consumption is tacitly encouraged. Consumption
in the Basque territories rises continually. To TVs, refrigerators,
cookers and washing machines we have added computers, video
players, mobile telephones which need recharging, fax machines,
answering machines and a range of power tools for house and
garden and more and more. Often these goods are duplicated.
How many households have more than one TV, more than one computer,
more than one mobile phone?
It is true that
wind energy has a role and that the countryside has always changed
and will always change but the environmental and social cost
of the development of commercial wind energy is quite out of
proportion to any benefit in the form of reduced emissions.
The industrialisation of our least developed landscapes, irreversible
ecological damage, loss of amenity and the social division of
communities is too high a price for an insignificant and unreliable
contribution to our energy supply and a small and uncertain
saving of pollution.
Wind power can
be a very useful method of generation for households, farms,
estates and small communities sited away from the grid. Turbines
may be acceptable where they are not in conflict with the scale
and character of the local environment but they must not blight
the lives of those living nearby with noise and flicker or endanger
residents or visitors; they must not create economic disadvantage
through reduced property values or damage the tourist industry
or the local economy; and they must not divide communities.
It is perfectly
possible to reconcile a sustainable approach to energy generation
and consumption while conserving our wilderness and the rural
landscape in general - indeed that it is the right of the people
of Nabarra to enjoy both clean and safe energy generation and
an un-degraded countryside.
September 2002
Related
documents:
Gurelur's press release (Nature2000)
Gurelur
denuncia la grave mortandad de aves en las centrales eolicas
(Navalur)
Gurelur's
Migration Center at Orreaga (Roncesvaux/Roncesvalles)
Conclusions
of the first conference in Defence of the Landscape against
the construction of wind power sites.
Experiencia
empresarial de fabricacion de turbinas y autogeneradores
(Gamesa)
Avian
mortality at wind-power plants in Nabarra (ehj-Nabarra)
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