Eventually the armored cabinets of the Ministry of the former Ecological Transition have spilled the beans. Five hundred and forty (540) project files, a mountain of paper to build a forest of wind. All at the gates of the Athens of Sardinia, the Nuoro of Grazia Deledda, praised in novels for landscapes, furious winds and wild forests. You don't even have time to come across the hairpin bends to access the crossroads of Prato Sardo that the proscenium is already the chosen one, the entrance door to the capital of Barbagia.
Assault confirmed
The Spanish assault is confirmed. From the anticipation of the Sardinian Union of 30 September to the official filing of the project, not even two months have passed, so much was needed to officially start the fastest of the procedures for the approval of the Single Provision on Environmental matters envisaged by the Pniec - Pnrr. Object of the project, definitive, needless to say: «Construction of the Intermontes wind farm in the territory of the Municipality of Nuoro». The new, yet another, assault on the peaks of the Nuorese area took place last November 22 when the ministry triggered the operation for opinions, those expected from the administrations concerned.
8 km of shovels
A front of 8 kilometers of gigantic wind turbines to be arranged in a crown on a plateau of granite smoothed by the wind that stands out against the horizon, close to the artisan and commercial area of Prato Sardo. Thirteen blades, each 180 meters high, like sixty-story steel skyscrapers, perched up to 800 meters above sea level, ending up grating the sky at almost a thousand meters in height. From “Sa 'e Balia”, on the Nuoro-Benetutti provincial road, up to “Janna 'e sa Chida” and along the “municipal” road of “Intramontes” the first harsh attack on the landscape at the entrance to the Gennargentu unfolds. A chosen point that has no chance of being mitigated. A punch in the face from the Redentore dell'Ortobene, a clear wave towards the Corrasi di Oliena, an intrepid ambush at the environmental and archaeological assets marked by punctual maps that indicate their coordinates and access points. Nothing to do, what for the landscape maps is a heritage of inestimable value for the Spanish EDP Renewables is degradation and insignificant value, both economic and environmental. The Intermontes project has a single connotation: to make money, and a lot, with the Sardinian wind and, above all, with the million-dollar incentives that Italy dispenses with full hands in favor of lobbies and wind business. The Spanish project in our hands is the most daring there can be on the business-wind side with statements that, if they weren't imprinted in official documents, could easily belong to a fairy tale. To mark the reason that prompted EDP Renewables, the fourth group in the world in the field of wind energy, based in Madrid, to land in the Nuoro area, there is a string of reasons, declined like a mantra in all the project papers. The basic philosophy is spelled out clearly: you have a poor and degraded area, we'll take care of making it rich and "appetizing". The formula aimed at convincing the Sardinians and Nuorese is that of cheap hucksters. The arguments are as imaginative as they are surreal. Starting from the first reason adopted to slap those 13 skyscrapers on the Nuoro front to produce 78 potential megawatts of electricity.
Imaginative conveniences
The sequence of "conveniences" that the Sardinians would have, enunciated without shame, are such as to make a bald person stand on end. They range from the queue of tourists who arrived in Nuoro to admire the Spanish wind turbines to the hiring of as many as 7 employees for thirty years. Of course, the recruitment accounts also end up with "well" four waiters needed to deal, for two years, with the catering service for workers and technicians involved in the construction of the wind farm.
Wind tourism
In the report accompanying the project there is even a chapter with the transcendental title: 'Effects on tourism and recreational activities'. The content is summed up in a few effective sentences: «Another employment possibility for the area in which the wind farm is built is represented by the tourist-cultural aspect induced by the presence of the park. In fact, plants that use renewable sources constitute a real tourist attraction as they provide a "live" demonstration of the exploitation of clean energy. Ultimately, the inclusion of wind farms within tourist-cultural itineraries helps to liven up the local economy». Finally the Spanish surveys in the field: for them that territory "is sparsely bushed with rocky outcrops and rare forest matrices". In the Iberian account also «the pastures are sparsely wooded». Luckily, it was they who plotted the future on the slopes of Gennargentu: 110 million euros for wind turbines and electric cables. The Spanish future in the land of Barbagia is already a promise: you Sardinians put in the landscape and the wind, we Spaniards take the money and government incentives. Muchas gracias, Cerdeña.
