SaveKythera.com
2010 will probably be the year when
the government and authorities in Athens decide upon whether Kythera will become
a giant industrial wind-power station or not. While the rest of Europe is
discontinuing the subsidisation of electricity generated by wind because of its
unreliability - see The Problems with Wind
Power - the energy
corporations are turning their attention to Greece where the penny still hasn't
dropped and millions in subsidies are on offer. While it would be negligent not
to persue alternatives to the current CO2 producing power plants, it would be
foolhardy to replace one environmental problem with another - more about that
below.
One environmental group on the island is distributing posters and stickers opposing the proposals, others are preparing to mount a legal challenge if the regulatory body gives the go-ahead to the major corporations vying for the millions in subsidies on offer. At the same time a small group of us investigated the possibility of creating an energy company in Greece which would also utilise Kythera's ample wind and sun to produce electricity for Kythera on a scale appropriate to the size of the island - the previously mentioned industrial wind-farms would consist of upwards of two-hundred towers each more than 80 meters high while Kythera's own energy needs require only 5 towers of that size. Unfortunately the regulatory body (RAE) which decides who can put electricity into the grid, only allows the "big players" into the game. Small-scale environmentally sensible (for Kythera) utility companies are blocked out completely. When I left the island in December the RAE hadn't even put Kythera on the list of locations where private homeowners could put the energy from their solar-modules into the grid. Hopefully that will change one day soon but until then we have to remain vigilant that our island isn't turned into one big power-tower-dump.
There are two pdfs to download which can help you become active in opposition, if you are so inclined. The first is a newsletter by the Kythera Action Group led by John Stathatos who plan to commission a study of migratory birds over Kythera, a study which they believe the most effective weapon against the whirling-circus corporations. So far they have raised more than half of the €6,000 (A$10,000, US$8,650) needed to complete the study. Your donation to the fund can make a real difference: only one hundred more donations of $50 will do the trick. Read more about their plans and how to donate in the KAG Newsletter .
The second pdf is one which I have created which maps the 10 sites already under threat of "tower-dumping". It also lists the official RAE submission with a link to the original documents on the RAE website. For all those still in denial about the real threat to the island, those documents unfortunately verify the seriousness of the plans. Check it out here.
We are also putting together a new info-site at SaveKythera.com on which we will gather all the information we have regarding the proposed industrial wind-farms. One of our aims is to analyse the "energy equation" and we need help with that. Experts in other countries have calculated that some wind-farms actually require more energy to construct and maintain than they ever produce in their life-times. For example it takes about 2 years before one wind-generator produces enough energy to cover what it took just to created the pieces in it - that doesn't include the transport, the huge amounts of concrete needed (each ton of concrete creates one ton of CO2!) in the foundation, the construction and materials to create new roads and even a new or modified port which can handle the 30-meter pieces of the wind-towers - imagine them trying to get something that long up the current roads from Diakofti or Pelagia to a mountain-top west of Logothetianika. Add to that the digging, the maintenance, the new cables to the central Peloponnese where the high-voltage electricity has to be delivered to go into the national grid, and, last but not least, the energy needed to clean up the mess when the towers are obsolete mammoth rusty hulks, and the "negative-energy" scenario might just apply to Kythera. Wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake: the island's skyline is desecrated in the name of green energy, and the whole fiasco actually produced more CO2 than it saves? You might wonder why the energy companies would even consider building ecologically inefficient wind-farms in the first place? I can only guess, but the answer might well be that they couldn't care less: they sell the energy produced at an exorbitant price subsided by the Greek tax-payer, and their initial costs are subsidised by the EU. The fat-cats at the top pocket their yearly bonuses (probably determined by how many towers they've managed to have constructed) and are long-gone when it's time to clean up the mess. So if any of you are adept at the calculation of such "equations" and are willing to crunch numbers with me, please let me know. And by the way, if you'd like to, we'd appreciate it if you would sign our SaveKythera Petition.
