Criticism of the current expansion of renewable energies referred to by film director Rodrigo Sorogoyen

When collecting the best director award at the 2023 Goya gala, Rodrigo Sorogoyen told us clearly: "Wind power, yes, but not like that."

In

the filmmaker approaches the reality of the massive implementation of wind farms as a very violent Western

because what some call an "economic miracle" actually represents a brutal

to the renewable energy sector.

The current uncontrolled development of wind farms and also photovoltaic plants is a mere speculative instrument, since these facilities are bought and sold at increasingly higher prices, with thousands of developments in some autonomous communities and nothing in others, as well as by municipalities, with a total lack of transparency in contracts, in environmental impacts and endemic large-scale corruption.

The current controversy over the acceleration of the deployment of renewable energies in Spain tries to divert attention from what is essential, which one expert quite rightly calls "the triumph of speculative renewables".

A recent court ruling evidences this.

The Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura forced Iberdrola to return to its owner, Santos Lázaro Arias, 72, the 500 hectares of agricultural land occupied by one of the largest photovoltaic plants in Europe, in the municipality of Usagre (Badajoz), which would mean dismantling 1.4 million solar panels that cost 300 million euros.

The prosecutor's office also requested 12 years of disqualification for the crime of prevarication for the former mayor who processed the expropriations.

More information

Read an article with the opposite position: "The energy transition cannot be done only with photovoltaics on rooftops or on urban land", by Pedro Fresco

We see that justice acts, but the law of the strongest continues to reign because there is an unequal struggle between small landowners, small municipalities and large investors, without any public participation in something as serious as transforming large amounts of land into industrial land for the next 30 years. of irrigated agricultural land or with centuries-old olive trees, or with citrus groves or productive or forest vines, even wooded or of high ecological value with endemic species.

Invent another battle: accelerationism against retardism

Since no one scientifically serious contradicts the absolute need for an energy transition towards renewables, the issue of accelerating the energy transition is currently being used to hijack the debate and make the fairest and most democratic models of development invisible.

Calling them retardists, anti-renewables paid for by the oil companies, anti-scientists and a long list of disqualifications, they try to continue with this speculative model and, ultimately, everything speeds up so that nothing changes.

The publication in the press last December of a manifesto in Catalonia, multiple forums and interventions on Twitter, carefully manufactured videos, and countless public interventions, tense the debate to the maximum, defame and delegitimize those who do not even share the interests of the big companies. companies that lead the sector, nor applaud the main protagonists of the

speculative

The recent forum published by the former director of the Ecological Transition of the Valencian community and current energy adviser to Yolanda Díaz, Pedro Fresco, goes in the direction of a polarization that participates in a marketing before which we voluntarily take a foreign position.

Instead of entering into a false Manichaean debate, let's run to the essentials.

Solar Roof Deniers

Decades ago, several governments of countries with latitudes similar to ours began extensive installation programs for solar roofs.

Countries like Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy or States like California, where their inhabitants see how part of their mortgages are paid by the sun, began to install hundreds of thousands of solar roofs.

In China, the current acceleration of renewables is building a veritable “rooftop solar empire”.

Meanwhile, in Spain, the deniers of this technology continue to exist to this day, dissuading subsidies with complicated procedures, unfair energy balances or impossible permits to authorize energy communities.

Regional managers and even the central administration continue without promoting or helping photovoltaics on roofs.

For example,

In 2022, Spain finally made the leap, 2.5 gigawatts (GW) installed in one year, a power similar to two nuclear power plants.

Why wasn't it done before?

Why doesn't it continue to promote itself to the maximum, giving aid and solving the very obstacles that the administration puts up?

The advantage of solar roofs is that it can be consumed where it is produced, there are no losses, it creates employment and, in addition, citizens benefit directly.

In addition, the massive installation of solar panels on roofs is also an opportunity to reduce energy poverty and favor the energy rehabilitation of buildings, and generates thousands of jobs in SMEs, while reducing energy consumption.

Let us now take advantage of the land called anthropized, or already degraded.

In Spain there are hundreds of thousands of hectares with little environmental value where it is possible to install photovoltaics with low (not null) environmental impact, from mining areas, landfills, dumps, already consolidated greenhouses, areas around linear infrastructures such as motorways, dual carriageways, railways, etc. train.

Why is it allowed to put fruit trees or vineyards on agricultural land or even on pasture areas and areas of high environmental value, having economically viable alternatives on degraded land?

When acceleration means environmental and democratic regression

Going too fast with the excuse of the war in Ukraine or any other reason and doing things wrong, with serious environmental impacts.

Or producing serious social conflicts does not accelerate the energy transition but slows it down.

By judicializing it, it makes it more unfair —again with winners and losers both at the level of autonomous communities, municipalities, territories or countries— and paralyzes it.

After all, behind this battle of figures and maps, there is above all a political and economic conflict for a model of global society.

Who should benefit from the energy transition?

The Rule of Law and the citizenry, or macro-companies and international investment funds?

The Council of Europe has just approved a regulation to speed up the processing of some renewable energy projects at the cost of reducing the guarantees that they will not produce an environmental impact as they are considered to be of superior public interest, despite a scientific manifesto that asked that it be rejected. signed by 477 researchers from all over Europe.

The Government of Spain, almost simultaneously, approved a royal decree that allows renewable energy projects (except those located in Red Natura 2000, protected natural areas, and in the marine environment) not to have to go through the evaluation procedure of environmental impact and through a process of information and public participation.

The main Spanish environmental organizations have published a common position,

to clearly oppose this environmental and democratic regression.

Environmental groups, technicians and citizen platforms agree that these regulatory changes can be counterproductive, and precisely cause renewable implementation to slow down or "delay" because many projects will end up in court.

Renewable planning and citizen participation

These regulatory changes are especially worrying considering that, according to scientific evidence, the environmental impact procedure of renewable projects is failing.

A good example of the flaw in regulatory procedures is a recent study on the deployment of solar plants in the southeast of Spain.

In this work, it is shown that this deployment is carried out at the expense of areas of important environmental value, and that photovoltaic energy as it is currently being implemented cannot be considered a sustainable economic activity.

More information

Ecologists and technicians warn of a wave of complaints for exempting renewable energy projects from environmental evaluation

The IPCC has already clearly indicated that the only way to avoid climate collapse is to abandon the economic system based on perpetual growth, and that if we do not achieve the perception that a large majority of us 'benefit' from this transition, there will be no possible solution.

For this reason, the current

of speculative renewables and also the sterile media debates of accelerationism prevent us from framing this energy transition in a broader scenario of large-scale, fair and democratic degrowth, which is already underway in Europe.

The decarbonization strategy that the French government has just proposed, the so-called

, sets the goal of a 40% reduction in energy consumption.

A courageous and realistic approach, a massive and rapid degrowth democratic planning, up to the challenges of the immediate future.

We have not yet seen similar proposals in Spain, although we need them just as much or more.

Neither we nor anyone who questions the dogma of the acceleration of renewables in its current form proposes paralysis: we propose common sense, to pay attention to the best scientific knowledge available, and to go much faster to build the energy transition, conserving ecosystems and reducing large-scale energy consumption and inequalities.

Accelerate renewable energy like this, yes.

Fernando Prieto

is a researcher at the Sustainability Observatory.

Agnes Delage Amat

is Professor of Social Sciences at Aix Marseille University (France). 

Luis Bolonio

is a technician in biodiversity conservation and development cooperation and spokesperson for the Energy and Territory Alliance. 

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