WIND POWERED EMPLOYMENT

It is perhaps appropriate that given the title of this blog I dwell from time to time on the subject of wind power. Last week I broke you the story of the wind generator in Lincolnshire that had mysteriously had one of its rotors broken off – was it by a UFO? This week my subject is more serious.

In these times of economic crisis it appears that renewable energy might not only save the planet but also give a much needed boost to the employment market.

The Asociación de Promotores y Productores de Energías Renovables en Andalucía (Aprean) believes that in the next five years some 105,000 jobs could be created in Andalucía over and above the 25,000 that already exist.

This prediction is the result of a study carried out by Aprena and presented last week. The regional government’s delegate in Málaga province, María Gámez, stated that the findings offered data and not just hope of how these numbers could be achieved largely through the wind power sector. Indeed 68 per cent of those jobs would come from wind generation plants planned for Málaga, Cádiz and Almería provinces.

Gámez pointed out that Andalucía was an ideal base for this developing industry largely because of its geographic characteristics and well as its ability to carry out the required investigation and development. All the companies in this sector are under 10 years of age and the average age of the employees is between 30 and 40 years. Also around 82 per cent of the work placings in the renewable energy industry are secure with no danger of lay offs or redundancies in the next 25 years.

For his part the president of Aprean, Mariano Barroso, stated that the energy policy in Spain was beginning to bear fruit thanks to the planning that has been put in place in recent years. He also indicated that the energy sector “is the most hardened” as in the past five years it has not required any type of institutional help – it is “self financing”.

Barroso said the objective was to develop other types of renewable energy such as sun or heat generated alongside wind power. He added that what was currently missing from the mix was the political will to speed through the required bureaucratic procedures to establish the wind parks or other renewable energy sites. However that is a contentious issue as on the Costa de la Luz and wider La Janda various communities are opposing plans for these wind parks.

Currently the renewable energy sector produces between 1,900 and 2,100 megawatts of power. That is an increase of 40 per cent on 2007, 130 per cent more than in 2006 and the objective for 2010 is 3,500 megawatts. With the added promise of large scale employment in these troubled times support for this clean energy industry could receive a timely boost.

IS THE ANSWER BLOWING IN THE WIND?

As the debate over Esperanto rages below me I am today turning to another hot topic – nuclear power.

Yesterday Greenpeace blocked the entrance to the Garona nuclear power station which is facing closure next year. It has urged the government to shut it down immediately in line with election pledges to phase out nuclear power.

It is a fact that nuclear power is unpopular in Spain and both PSOE and the Partido Popular vowed to build no new plants in the pre-March general election campaign. However to the victorious Socialists fell the prize of deciding whether to extend the working lives of existing plants, which supply about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Now Greenpeace says Spain’s booming renewable energy sector could easily replace the 500 megawatts of power produced by Garona. You may be surprised as I was to learn that Spain is the world’s third-biggest producer of wind power. Indeed wind parks in Spain have the capacity to produce more than twice as much power as nuclear plants, but – and here’s the catch – they actually generate about half as much as the wind does not blow in a constant manner.

I do not have the figures for solar produced power but I know that in San Roque they recently opened the largest generating plant in Andalucía. In addition many communities in the region are now setting up their own solar power facilities. What this region does have in abundance is sun – and on the Costa de la Luz from Tarifa west much wind – but if you head north to Galicia for instance, you might have much wind but sun can be scare.

Nuclear power was already unpopular in Spain and the situation has not been improved by the radioactive leak at the Asco I plant in April. The CSN nuclear watchdog has ruled that the leak was improperly handled and the government has opened sanctions proceedings. There was also a fire at the Vandellos II plant in the summer and this along with other incidents has seen the CSN tell nuclear generators in September that they have to observe tighter safety procedures if their operating permits are to be renewed.

The debate over how our future power should be generated is real both here and in the UK where experts say there could be power cuts within the next five years because of the closure of outdated power stations whilst demand increases. So where do we go from here? Britain intends to follow France by embracing the nuclear option but in Spain the opposite is the case.

Where will our future power come from?

Is the answer blowing in the wind or is wind power just hot air?