The gash in the ground is megalithic. Deep like a lunar black hole, hit by bulldozers on the slopes of Marganai, the great mountain that stands out imposingly on the Cixerri plain, once a land of mines and plowed fields. The road is the one that connects the Cagliari-Iglesias route with the San Giovanni caves, considered since the dawn of time the largest geological "gut" in Europe. The crossroads is between Domusnovas and the German bomb factory, between sheep tracks bordered by a copious hydrographic network and expanses of flourishing pastures. When you arrive on site the watercourse is in flood, interrupted as best as possible by rudimentary stones positioned in the middle of the ford for the crossing of heavy vehicles destined for the large concrete pour.
“Armed” flying saucer
The excavation is gigantic, inside they have already placed a "flying saucer" of iron "rods", intertwined to support a 66-storey "steel skyscraper", 200 meters high, complete with rotating blades to be stuck with impunity into that unique and enchanted proscenium. They call it "renewable energy", in reality if you look at it with the numbers of the reinforced concrete injected into that lunar-looking foundation you realize that the deal is all about incentives and environmental devastation.
Surround yourself
When the "giraffes" for the casting of that mountain of 1,350 cubic meters of concrete arrive on site you have the perception of being at "war". Fifteen vehicles, including concrete mixers and special vehicles, simultaneously surround the area, as if they were to irreversibly rape it. It is a war against time: on the one hand the expiring regional authorizations, on the other the unprecedented violence that is being consumed on that landscape heritage destined to crash on the altar of money, the one that is ground with both hands even with the wind of 'Iglesiente.
Drone truth
The project is one of many, but this is the first to be inflicted on the Marganai front, the only assault that did not have time to go unnoticed in the bloodiest phases of its construction. It is those images taken by the drone that make clear what happens in the land of Sardinia with every shovel that sticks between headlands and exclusive landscapes. Frames that speak for themselves, capable of impressing the disaster like no words could describe. One of the many attacks on the island carried out in the silence of the offices of the "apparently" autonomous Region of Sardinia, with the transparency website of the Department of the Environment designed to make everything obscure and inaccessible. The proposing company comes directly from the Piedmont slopes of the Alps, as if there were no wind there. The name is printed in large letters on each cover of the new assault: "Esna srl", operational headquarters in Ceva, 5,834 inhabitants, province of Cuneo, fiscal headquarters in Casale Monferrato, in the province of Alessandria. They had to build seven wind turbines. The initial project is dated October 7, 2013, eleven years ago. Then, in the time frame, everything and more happened. The first regional authorization dates back to 2016, a 23.1 megawatt wind farm. For five years the gentlemen of "Esna" disappear, they reappear on 6 August 2021 with a request to modify the project: the supplier of wind turbines for Marganai, Vestas, has changed power scale. No more "small" blades, but only gigantic ones: we go from 3.3 megawatts to 6 megawatts each. The central pylon becomes 119 meters and the diameter of the rotor 162 meters. Every megawatt of those “windblower” machines is a slot machine. And the Piedmontese know it well. On September 6, 2021, the Sardinian Region, increasingly oblivious to the impact of those skyscrapers on the Marganai skyline , excluded new environmental impact assessments and renewed the authorization with the change of wind turbines. On 27 June 2022, however, as if it were a joke, the "Vestas " will further increase the power of the shovels. Imagine if the "children" of the Savoys missed the opportunity to "spend" on state incentives. The request to the Region, in this case too, it is a velvet field: green light for even more powerful blades, 6.8 megawatts. The works, however, have not yet begun. The alms have to be negotiated with the municipalities of Domusnovas and Musei. They call them compensations, in reality they are "salamelecchi" which are also difficult to describe.
Gold pipes
In exchange for that forever disfigured landscape, Musei, for example, had obtained a commitment to planting a 21-hectare olive grove. It's a shame that in the meantime the municipal administration has done it on its own. The renegotiation of compensation between the lords of the wind and the Municipality is the stuff of the Court of Auditors. Esna, in fact, declares itself willing to "give away", in place of the olive grove, a section of "agricultural aqueduct" for a total cost of 226 thousand euros.
Designers from Dubai
It's a shame, however, that the metric calculation was drawn up assuming Arabian Nights planners and pipeline "plotters" who wouldn't cost that much even in Dubai. A few examples will suffice: for those "four PVC pipes" with a diameter of 9 centimeters and a length of 1,700 metres, they plan to spend a total of 226 thousand euros, of which 45 thousand euros for design and works management, 35 thousand euros for safety during the design and execution, 10 thousand euros for "pipe tracing", 15 thousand euros for shacks and signage, 20 thousand euros for the preparation of the areas, 65 thousand euros for excavations and backfills, 16 thousand euros for pipes, 10 thousand euros for testing , 10 thousand euros of final drawings of the "masterpiece" of the tubes.
Alms & millions
Among the details we read: the Municipality writes that "the pipeline will be laid on municipal roads". In the metric calculation, however, to "trace" those 1,700 meters of pipes to be "laid" in a ditch they demand six euros per meter, almost as much as one meter of that pipe costs. Last note, those three wind "skyscrapers" will earn the Piedmontese two million and 800 thousand euros per year, to be multiplied by at least 20 years, or 56 million euros. To the Sardinians the PVC pipes, passed off as if they were gold, to the lords of the wind, however, millions galore.