They didn't waste a second. Farsighted as few. The war in Ukraine had just broken out. On the night of the 23rd, around the dawn of the 24th, it was 3.30 in the morning, Vladimir Putin unleashed hell in Ukraine. With perfect timing, on the very day of the start of hostilities, in the praetorian register of the Port Authority, that of Cagliari, there were no less than three gigantic projects for the wind invasion of the Gulf of Angels. A real full blown assault, as if someone had suggested times and methods. A real blitz, carried out in total silence, both by state bodies and by the proponents themselves. An operation studied at the table that had to remain hidden, with the aim of making the time for any opposition or appeal run. The only communication in the praetorian register of the Capitaneria, placed in a bulletin board of an old bowling club, in a cold and ancient corridor where not a single soul passes by. Ditto for the website of the same ministerial arm, frequented more by harassed shellfish and sea urchin fishermen than by aspiring wind magnates.
Like four umbrellas
Yet, as if it were a simple authorization for four beach umbrellas on the shoreline, the Captaincy has carried out the ministerial orders: immediately trigger the procedures for the wind invasion projects of the Gulf of Cagliari. Woe to make a concise and cryptic press release to announce that in the "very popular" corridor of the State, ministerial-style announcements for the American and Veneto-Swiss wind farms had been stuck on a bulletin board with four old boat magnets. Clear objective: to occupy the stretch of water from Giorgino to Nora, a stone's throw from the archaeological site, to the sound of gigantic wind turbines. Operation that should have remained secret, if it had not ended up at the center of an investigation by the Sardinian Union. The goal, probably, was to keep everything in the strictest state reserve, favored by the warmongering evolution of the Russian-Ukrainian hostilities. With the immense mass distraction, before Covid and then the war, the Ministry of Infrastructure gave precise instructions to the Port Authorities: the requests for maritime state-owned concessions for the construction and operation of offshore wind farms were immediately published. Publication, coincidentally, took place on the same day as the declaration of war, on the same day as the approval of the government decree to declassify offshore wind farms to a sort of water game to be developed, not even to say, on the coasts of the island of Sardinia and on the exact same day in which the rise in the price of gas was started. A combination of factors that not even the most daring and acrobatic interpreter of the crystal ball would have been able to predict. Instead, on the Sardinian coasts, along the Sant'Efisio route, everything is possible. The three gigantic projects are kept in the State, Environment, Maritime Police, Maritime and Coastal Defense offices. If you are daring to find out, the Harbor Master's Office provides the means to view them: Piazza Deffenu, in front of Molo Ichnusa, from Monday to Friday, from 09.00 to 12.00, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 15.00 to 16.30. It happens, however, coincidentally, that if you arrive punctually on Tuesday afternoon, they'll tell you that the office is closed, unavailable to view the papers of the lords of the wind. A publication of public documents closer to a state secret than to an administrative procedure was not enough. To make everything even more silent, if you try to access those files in the only hour and a half indicated in the official communication, they will tell you to come back.
From New York to St. Moritz
Certainly for the lords of the wind, the war broke out already on Christmas Eve. For them, however, it was a false start, given that at that time there was still no rule that allowed them to pass the environmental impact assessment procedures, to be clear, those based in the Ministry of the Environment, in the Environmental Impact Assessment Commission. The Sardinian commissioner decree did not exist, just as it did not exist, conceived as old and up to now aborted in nothing, and, above all, the one concerning the deregulation of offshore wind added as icing on the "Bill decree" had not yet been launched. Evidently, however, in a hurry to put their hats on the Gulf of Angels, two companies, one, Falck Rewables, ended up in the American hands of JP Morgan in less than two months and another, based in Venice but head and money in Switzerland, they saw well to show up in Piazza Deffenu at a distance of ten days from each other. The lords of Repower Renewable Spa, the legal and administrative headquarters in the lagoon of the Doges, in the only city in the world built on water, Venice, with the leader dislocated, climb the three entrance steps of the sentry box of the Port Authority first. , in Poschiavo, a Swiss town of 3,516 inhabitants in the Canton of Grisons, a stone's throw from St. Moritz. They have a stamp dated December 13, 2021 in the entry protocol. However, they forgot to attach something, who knows what, and returned last February 4. The project they dare to deposit does not include wind turbines on the St. Moritz Alps, much less on the San Marco lagoon. The sights are on the water mirror of the Golfo degli Angeli. They don't exactly ask for a handkerchief. The request is substantiated. The number of square meters is impossible to read: 89 million and 469 thousand square meters of Sardinian sea where to set up their gigantic floating wind farm. A sort of military occupation for an area of 9,000 (nine thousand) football fields in the middle of the sea to position 33 wind turbines with heights ranging from 200 to 300 meters in height. The announcement of the Harbor Master's Office is as disturbing as it is cryptic: "Noting that the request, delegated by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, has been subjected to a preliminary examination in order to ensure the compatibility of the plant with the safety of maritime navigation and with other maritime activities ”. A juridical formula that does not exist, invented ad hoc, to say and not to say, but to let it be understood that that "preliminary screening" would have been passed. They don't say it explicitly, but they make it clear.
Signatures & managers
An assessment for which no one personally, neither at the Harbor Master's Office nor in other ministerial offices, seems to assume the responsibility of signing it. To affirm that this tide of wind turbines, added to the other projects will be 126, placed in the middle of the Gulf, will not be a problem for navigation, means to openly challenge common sense and a sense of responsibility. It will be interesting to understand who will have had the audacity to sign this "preliminary examination" in order to compare it with the absolute denial expressed for the same project ten years ago by the same Capitaneria of Cagliari. On that occasion, the Minister of Infrastructure and the Sea, then Altero Matteoli, was the first to announce the rejection, who declared that the security screening made it impossible to proceed on that mess in the middle of the Gulf of Angels. Now, however, the operational arm of Rome on the Ichnusa pier, announces that the Swiss gentlemen of the San Marco lagoon are asking to occupy the Golfo degli Angeli for thirty years "for a maritime state-owned concession for the construction and operation of a wind farm floating off-shore in the territorial sea area in front of the southern coast of Sardinia ". Also for them the chosen area is the one in front of the Sant'Efisio route with electricity connection in the Saras di Sarroch area. The second assault, even more substantial than the first, is the one unveiled in recent weeks by the investigation of the Sardinian Union. Presenting it on Christmas Eve, it was December 23, is Falck Renawables, then Italian, transformed in two months into none other than an American headed by the very powerful investment bank JP Morgan. For them ten days later than the Swiss, but with a project almost three times the one conceived on the snows of St. Moritz. Presenting it is a company with the unlikely name Nora Ventu srl, registered office in Milan, but with the license plate and the money in the States. Also for them something in the presentation is not good, but in the race to put the flag on the Gulf of Cagliari they make up for 7 days compared to the initial ten of delay. However, they always remain second considering that the additions were received on 7 February last. In this case, the cravings for grandeur touch the half-century of occupation: the duration of the concession requested, in fact, is 40 years, just the time for those shovels in the middle of the sea to turn into rust and debris.
Dense blades
And here is the first element of great difference between the Swiss and the Americans. The former ask to occupy 89 million square meters, the latter ask, adding the two projects headed by JP Morgan, "just" 4 million and a hundred thousand. Something is wrong and this already should have induced the Ministry and the Harbor Office itself to take more mild advice before starting a procedure without at least unitary admissibility parameters. Last note: even for the Americans, despite a denser arrangement of blades provided for in the stretch of water that involves the Gulf from Nora to Capo Carbonara, in the territory of Villasimius, it is declared between the lines that the project has been subjected to "preliminary screening" with regard to compatibility with the safety of maritime navigation and with other maritime activities.
Ultimatum
The announcement on the bulletin board also indicates a deadline of 30 days for "the observations / objections deemed appropriate to protect their possible rights". If someone else, it is written in the "secret" announcement, wants to place some other shovel in the maritime district, he can request it by next March 26th. The Capitaneria concludes with a peremptory ultimatum: "Once the established term has elapsed, no complaint will be accepted and further preliminary tasks will be carried out aimed at issuing the maritime state property concession". The Gulf of Angels is officially at the mercy of the lords of the wind. Americans, Swiss and so on have the blades ready to be placed on the route of Sant'Efisio. For now, the Saint is watching, waiting for others to defend the Sardinian sea.