France, Alternative Libertaire AL #244 - Industrial Wind: The wind is money (fr, pt)

[machine translation]

Under the pretext of development of renewable energy, wind turbines grow and multiply. But 
the benefits are rather financial and ecological. ---- Capitalism, again, is very hard to 
recover and divert all that could help transform society. The wind could be a solution to 
climate change and a tool for individual autonomy and territories, with little wind and 
cooperative individual or communal farms of reasonable size. All this coupled with other 
sources of renewable energy, especially in a significant reduction in energy consumption. 
But capitalism has decided otherwise, and turned it into a huge industry sector 
representing a wealth of additional benefits for large groups of energy. So much for 
ecology. ---- The most striking example of this logic in France is the proposed 
construction of three offshore wind farms off the coast of Normandy. These parks, 125 wind 
turbines each, will be the work of a consortium of Areva, GDF-Suez and Vinci, names that 
are chilling. And permits were granted without any any knowledge about the environmental 
and social impact of parks of this size, offshore wind is not in its infancy. Not to 
mention that France has no expertise in the matter: no driver park, little training in 
this area, no pool training hard for the maintenance of these machines as there are in 
Germany. But no matter, our beautiful multinationals take care of everything!

As a matter of

I must say that the wind is big (otherwise, these multinationals do not appear be 
interested!)... With the support of the state. In fact, EDF is forced to buy the "green" 
electricity at a higher than market price, to encourage the development of this sector. 
This grant is paid by all taxpayers, via the contribution to public service electricity 
(CSPE), which is increasing and is already more than a hundred euros per year on 
electricity bills.

But wind power is big business as landowners: in different places, you can rent his land 
for the installation of a wind between 5 000 and 10 000 euros per year. If you have a 
large plot of land on which you install 10 wind turbines, you'll win more than EUR 100,000 
per year. Paid by the taxpayer, since everyone uses electricity. This also gives rise to 
numerous lawsuits for conflict of interest, since many elected rural councils allow wind 
turbines on their communes, which are then installed, coincidentally, their land and their 
related thousands of euros! But it can also lead to land speculation, with property 
developers who bought land for rent to electricity producers. At the same time, residents 
of the parks suffer the decline in value of their property, between 20 and 30% on average, 
because who would buy a giant 150-meter steel hums continuously face? Not to mention the 
evidence of corruption, reluctant to install a park under the table lamp offer beautiful 
are "compensation".

And the environment in all this?

But apart from generating money that benefits those already in the industrial wind he 
generates only progress for the environment? As the studies produced emanate only 
industrial sector, it is still difficult to get a clear idea. However, more and more 
critics are heard. On the one hand, wind turbines now reaching excessive heights, they 
extremely heavy and deep foundations need 800 tons of steel and concrete, some of which 
remain in the soil after dismantling. On the other hand, every industrial wind contains 
more than 600 kilograms of rare earth metals from whose production is more than 90% in 
China. The AFP has published its 2011 survey The Ravages of rare earth in China showing 
the dramatic impact of production processes that are particularly explode the number of 
cancers among workers and residents of farms. Finally, a study of the Spanish 
Ornithological Society estimates that 6-18000000 birds, and more bats die every year 
because of the 18,000 wind turbines installed in Spain. This leaves the field open for 
insect proliferation, and could affect the final agricultural production. Energy, a common 
good Above all, it is the use of wind power as a solution to climate change which is 
increasingly challenged. Because wind is intermittent (depending on wind conditions), the 
compensation is done by energy production is easy to modulate: thermal coal or gas power 
plants. In the current logic high energy and huge consumption power grids, wind power is 
thus necessarily accompanied by CO2 emissions.

France, which now has about 5,000 wind turbines, thus saw the flowering of collective 
industrial wind against this pest, trying to prevent the planned installation of 
additional equipment 15,000 in the coming years. These struggles often denigrated for 
Nimby (Not in my backyard "not in my backyard") and make the play of the nuclear industry, 
however, raise the question of industrialization and privatization of renewable energy, 
all with respect sectors: solar, biomass, biogas, etc. This logic must be broken, so that 
the energy becomes a common good whose production and distribution will be managed 
collectively within ecological limits of the planet.

Jocelyn (AL Gard)