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Windmills
- Kristin Shrader-Frachette classifies energy generation technologies as following either hard or soft paths. (She attributes this distinction to Amory Lovins.) “The hard path is centralized, capital intensive, large scale, complex, and energy intensive.” On the other hand, “the soft path is characterized by decentralization, smaller capital investments, small-scale organizational structures, and less complex, labor-intensive technologies.”
- The windmill project, currently under debate in Puerto Rico, seems to have a foot in each. In its earlier phases, windmill technology walked on the soft path with decentralized ownership, small scale operation, low capital investment, and simple design. But the plan set forth by a private company to build a windmill farm in Puerto Rico has been met with local opposition that seeks to locate it on the hard path.
- The windmills are to be built on a plot of land adjacent to the Dry Forest of Guanica, a fragile nature preserve under the protection of the United Nations and the Puerto Rican government. Some fear that the windmills would kill birds from the many endangered species that have sought refuge in the preserve.
- Others are concerned that the company proposing to build the windmill farm cannot be trusted to remain focused on windmill technology; they fear it will be used as an excuse to industrialize the Guanica/Ensenada areas with harmful environmental and social impacts. Industrialization would disrupt a way of life for residents that dates back to the sugarcane plantations that operated until the early 1970’s.
- The public hearings carried out on the project by the Puerto Rican government were poorly publicized and held in an exclusive resort complex located on the far side of the island, a good day’s drive from the Dry Forest of Guanica. Those already concerned about the environmental impact of the windmill project, now added concerns about their rights of participation and social justice.
- “What,” they ask, “are public officials trying to hide?”
Gas pipelines
- Puerto Rico depends almost entirely on petroleum to fuel the plants that produce the island’s electricity. In 1992, a project developed by the private company, Cogentrix, to produce electricity and sell steam as a byproduct using cheap and widely available coal was defeated by groups in the Mayaguez area concerned by the plant’s environmental impacts. Both the proponents of the plant and the electric authority predicted chronic shortages and black outs by the turn of the century. These predictions have turned out to be true.
- Moreover, the environmental impact of the oil-dependent generating plants combined with the instability of the world oil market has brought the energy crises to Puerto Rico. The EPA has ordered the Puerto Rico energy authority, called the
Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE) , to reduce its dependence on oil for the production of electricity to below 50% by the year 2010.
- To comply, the AEE has turned to natural gas and has begun the construction of a pipeline from the coastal region near Penuelas to electricity plants on the other side of Ponce. The technology surrounding natural gas is sound, safe, and clean. But the location of the pipeline and the environmental and social impact of its construction has caused damage in largely poor communities.
- Residents interviewed state that they were not properly informed that the pipeline would be situated so close to their homes or that the construction would have such a grave impact. They claimed that they were not able to participate in the public hearings held on the pipeline and have been forced to bear an unjust burden of its social and environmental costs.
- Does the use of natural gas delivered to electricity generating plants by means of underground pipelines represent good, sustainable environmental decision-making?
- What should the AEE and the Puerto Rican governmental officials have done differently to anticipate better the social justice concerns of those living near the construction sites of the pipelines?
Source:
OpenStax, Business, government, and society. OpenStax CNX. Mar 04, 2014 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10560/1.6
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