If all the projects are successful, Sardinia will be swamped by over 4,500 wind turbines , both on land and at sea. This doesn't even include the photovoltaic projects, which will compromise one hundred thousand hectares of agricultural land.
Currently, with so-called accelerated procedures, the state can approve projects and push them onto the regional and local authorities without going through the bureaucratic hassle that usually goes through a project with far less impact than a 300-meter-tall turbine. And this is where a line of reasoning that committees and activists across the island have been pushing for years comes into play: why should Sardinia become Italy's power strip, sacrificing its historic and natural enclaves? In exchange for what, then?
It should be noted: for now, there isn't a single turbine off the coast of Sardinia. And on land, all that's being done is revamping it. The problem will be when, with the revision of the Fratin Decree, the definitive rules for relocating the blades are established, provided that, in the meantime, a constitutional law has not been passed on the island to prevent an assault that currently appears unimpeded. But the reality is different: if all the procedures were to proceed, the island would be surrounded—give or take—by 800 wind turbines, some more than three hundred meters high, off its picture-perfect beaches. In Gallura alone, 250 would appear. Considering the 2,500 new onshore blades envisaged by the projects, plus the 1,200 already there, the forecast would be several thousand: at best, approximately 4,500 onshore and offshore turbines. A frightening number.
Meanwhile, the interregional protests by mayors against energy speculation are spreading . From Friuli to Sicily, via Sardinia, 273 mayors have joined the fight against the wind turbine and solar panel industry.
"Because self-production, which we all agree on, is one thing," is the shared thought, the collective drive to fight. "It's another thing entirely to grab national subsidies in the name of environmental protection, when in practice the exact opposite happens: it's the ecosystem itself that suffers the greatest devastation ."
The full articles by Lorenzo Piras and Alessandra Carta, with additional features and insights, are available on L'Unione Sarda at newsstands and on the app.
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