Up on the mountains of Lunaobao, in Zhangbei County of North China’s Hebei Province, abutting the Inner Mongolian plateau, wind turbines are raising their heads for a new power project to produce 100.5 Mw of electricity by next year.
It’s the sixth in the area. Zhangbei is China’s first 1,000 Mw wind power development district, where more than 10 companies are developing or operating wind power farms. China is getting quite serious about this alternative energy form and plans to add 10,000 Mw of it this year alone. So we are going to see more three-bladed turbines, perched atop tubular steel towers reaching 200 ft to 300 ft into the sky, coming up all over the place — on mountain ridges, in the plains, along coasts, and even in the seas.
The world is waking up to wind power. The total installed wind power capacity is already more than 120,000 Mw and at least 1,500 companies worldwide are in this business. The US, with an installed capacity of 20,000 Mw, is way ahead. China, with some 3,000 Gw to tap, has 12,000 Mw already installed. India, with an estimated potential of 45,000 Mw and currently producing some 8,700 Mw, is getting its act together. Wind farms are up and running in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka.
But even as I welcome this growing espousal of wind power, I have a growing worry. It’s premature, but it’s growing nonetheless. With all those towers going up in earnest, would our physical view of nature be the same again? When looking at mountains, would we be looking at mountains, or ridges topped by lanky three-bladed wind towers, arrogant against the sky? Would these be the future crops to grow on our plains and coasts, the new cover for our deserts and forests, new shields around our villages? Looking at oceans, would we be looking at waves, or rows upon rows of tubular towers rising from them?
We know what oil derricks have done to the landscape in some parts of the US. So we’ve got to be careful before it’s too late. Wind power development is fast passing into private hands and when it becomes a business, greed will come into play and things could go out of control. Besides, grid-scale wind farms require large chunks of land — 8 hectares to 12 hectares for every Mw of electricity — and farmers will have all the temptation to sell, and not just their infertile holdings. This could create a new set of problems as we’ve seen in the case of bio-fuels.
Of course, wind farms aren’t as bad as solar ones. An individual wind tower leaves only a small footprint on the ground, about the size of a shed. Theoretically, therefore, the land between and surrounding towers is farmable.
Solar farms are different. The land they use is covered up entirely by hundreds and thousands of evenly placed photovoltaic panels. Nothing can grow under them. And the land requirement isn’t quite as small. A 10 Mw solar photovoltaic facility being built near Chicago will require 39 acres of land to find room for 32,800 solar panels. A $1.3 billion solar facility in China’s Yunnan province, to produce 166 Mw of electricity by next year, is coming up on over 1,000 acres of land.
India has set aside a 35,000 sq km in Thar Desert for solar projects, which is good. But solar projects aren’t desert-specific — sunlight doesn’t fall on deserts alone. Besides, not all countries are blessed with deserts. Some may have other, mainly political, land-use concerns that might prevent a large-scale introduction of solar projects.
There’s also a question of aesthetics. Either in the desert or on the plains, vast, monotonous stretches of solar panels spread out on the landscape don’t look pleasing and are definitely intrusive. Cut into mountain slopes, they look patently ugly. Without proper land-use norms and restrictions, these could become the new deserts in our neighbourhood, and we certainly wouldn’t like that.
So, before we push too hard towards alternative energy as a business proposition and things get out of hand, governments must introduce proper controls and have clearer ideas. Is wind farming a more practical choice? Are grid-scale solar farms better than rooftop solar panels? What’s the best purpose-oriented alternative energy mix? Have we identified the most suitable alternative energy sources? What are our mid- and long-term alternative energy goals? These issues must be clearly thought through. It would be disastrous to leave matters in the hands of investors alone. While we must lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, we don’t want to end up in a situation where alternatives could cause a different kind of harm.
