멕시코의 풍력발전 요충지에서 일어난 일

 

 

 

 

미국 USA Today에 재미있는 기사가 나와 소개한다.  제목을 그대로 번역하면 '청정 풍력산업이 멕시코 농부에게는 치사한 산업이다'는 자극적인 것이다. 내용을 요약하여 소개한 후 내 의견을 이야기 해 본다.  참고로 밑에 원문도 그대로 옮겼다.

 

멕시코 지도가 아래 있는데 멕시코 남부에 잘룩하게 들어간 곳으로 지도에 Oxaca로 표기된 부근에서는 태평양과 대서양쪽의 멕시코만이 거리가 가깝다. 그 곳에는 일년 내내 대서양과 멕시코만에서 태평양 방향으로 바람이 분다.

 

 

 

 풍력 에너지 업계에서 일년 평균 24km/h의 바람이면 입지조건이 좋은 것인데, 위 지역에서는 일년 평균 30km/h의 바람이 분다고 한다.

 

멕시코 정부도 위 지역을 1990년대부터 풍력발전의 요지로 생각하고 주목해왔다. 특히 전 에너지 장관으로서 멕시코가 언젠가는 원유매장이 바닥날 것에 대비하여야 한다고 주장하였던 펠리페 칼데론이 대통령이 되면서 에너지 분야에 민간투자를 가능하도록 법제도를 변경하였다.

 

그리고 위 지역에서 3년안에 2,500 MW의 전력을 생산하는 목표를 세웠다. 이러한 야심적인 계획은 그 지역에서 갈등을 낳기도 한다. 풍력 발전을 설치하는 과정에서 관개수로가 손상되고 방목토지가 분리면서 먼지로 농작물에 피해가 가기도 하는 것이다.

 

위 지역은 멕시코에서도 가장 가난한 동네중에 하나인데 생산된 전기가 그 지역 가정이 아니라 월마트나 시멘트 공장같은 산업시설로만 간다는 불평도 나오고 있다.

 

지금 이 지역은 스페인, 독일, 프랑스, 미국의 기술자들로 붐비고 있다.

 

그런데 문제는 스페인 회사가 나타나서 농민들에게 방송을 하고 나타나서 농민을 위하는 것처럼 토지사용료 및 일부 이익 분배 등을 내걸어서 토지 사용허가를 받았다.  그 대신 토지에 대한 처분제한 제한 약속을 하는 것이었다. 그러한 과정에서 무식한 농민들에게 그러한 약속이 손해될 것 없는 것처럼 오도를 한 것이다.

 

그러나 공사가 시작되면서 농민들은 공사의 범위가 생각보다 커서 공사를 하는 도로가 토지를 분할시켜서 기존에 기르던 소의 수를 줄여야 하는 등 많은 손해가 생기는 것을 발견하였다.

 

그래서 인권변호사 들이 농민과 스페인 회사와 맺은 계약이 불공평하다고 하여 취소를 하는 소송을 걸게 되었다.  그리고 교회까지도 농민의 편을 들어 스페인 회사의 불공평계약이 과거 스페인인이 멕시코를 침략하여 수탈할 것과도 비유하여 이야기 하였다.

 

이사건은 정치적으로도 비화되었다. 야당은 이러한 풍력사업을 추진하고 있는 여당을 국영석유회사의 민영화 일단계 조치로 이 사건을 취급하여 비난하였다.

 

결국 스페인회사는 여러가지 사회적 압력에 못 이겨 농민들하고 체결한 계약을 취소하고 말았다. 농민들을 대리한 변호사 클라우디아 베라는 이건에 대해 "청정 에너지 회사가 치사한 사업을 하였다'라고 이야기 하였다.

 

그런데 이러한 과정에서 덕을 입은 사람도 있다. 보상금으로 받은 돈으로 버스를 사서 일군을 나르는 운송업을 한 사람도 있고, 자동차 수리상점을 내어 공사현장에 드나드는 트럭의 브레이크 패드와 타이어를 교체하는 사업을 하여 돈을 번 사람도 있었다.

 

여기 관련된 회사는 농민들에게 공평하게 대우를 하려 노력하였다고 주장하고, 관련된 농민이나 옹호하는 사회단체나 변호사들은 농민들이 입는 피해에 비해 보상이 너무 적었다는 상반된 주장을 하는 것이다.

 

여기서 생각해 볼 일이 있다. 위 지역은 멕시코 내에서도 경제적으로도 낙후된 곳으로 풍력발전의 요충지라는 자연적인 조건을 개발자와 땅주인들이 같이 사이 좋게 공유하는 것이 좋을 것이다.

 

개발자와 땅주인과의 계약관계에 멕시코 정부가 일일히 직접간섭하는 것은 바람직하지 아니하지만 경제적 비용과 효과, 그리고 땅주인들이 풍력발전기 설치로 입는 피해를 체계적으로 분석하여 계약 체결조건에 대한 가이드라인을 주었으면 어떠할 가 한다.

 

풍력발전은  한번 설치되면 유지 비용이 상대적으로 적으므로 발전 비용이 비교적 저렴한 각광받는 대체에너지원이다.

 

 반면 연간 평균풍속등 요구조건이 있고 산림지역에서는 자연환경의 훼손과 새의 생태계 파괴 등 자연환경 보존과의 균형문제가 발생한다.  우리나라에서도 일부 풍력발전 설치지역에서 산림파괴에 대한 것이 문제 된 적이 있다. 사람들이 농업이나 축산을 하고 있는 지역에는 위 이야기와 같은 이해 충돌문제가 생긴다.

 

대체에너지 개발의 경제적 사회적인 순기능적인 가치와   부수되는 역효과를 체계적으로 조사 연구하여 사전에 조정할 수 있는 연구가 필요하다는 것을 결론으로 정리한다.

 

Clean-energy windmills a 'dirty business' for farmers in Mexico

 

 

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY

The windmills stand in rows like an army of Goliaths, steel towers taller than the Statue of Liberty and topped with blades as long as a jetliner's wing. The blades whoosh through the humid air, carving energy from a wind that rushes across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec on its journey from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Nearly every day, another tower rises out of the countryside.

The isthmus ? Mexico's narrowest point ? is becoming the Saudi Arabia of alternative energy as U.S. and European companies, emboldened by new technology and high oil prices, rush to stake their claims in one of the world's windiest places. The Mexican government wants the isthmus to produce 2,500 megawatts within three years, a goal that will require thousands of windmills and would catapult Mexico into the top 12 producers of wind energy.

"This is one of the finest wind areas in the world, and they are being very ambitious about developing it," said Martin Pasqualetti, an expert on renewable energy at Arizona State University who has studied the region. "They're trying to do in five years what California took 35 years to do."

But the energy gold rush has also brought discord, as building crews slice through irrigation canals, divide pastures and cover crops with dust. Some farmers complain they were tricked into renting their land for as little as $46 an acre annually.

Opponents of Mexican President Felipe Calder?n fear the generators are the first step toward privatizing Mexico's energy sector. And some residents are angry that the electricity being generated is not going to homes here in Oaxaca, one of the poorest states in Mexico, but to power Walmart stores, Cemex cement plants and a few other industrial customers in Mexico.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: California | Arizona | Mexico | Saudi Arabia | Wal-Mart | Institutional Revolutionary Party | Cemex | Endesa

"It has divided neighbors against each other," said Alejo Giron, a communal farmer in La Venta. "If this place has so much possibility, where are the benefits for us?"

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 130 miles wide and about 330 miles southeast of Mexico City, lies at the bottom of a funnel formed by two mountain ranges. Wind from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico whistles through this pass on its way to the Pacific Ocean.

In the energy business, an average annual wind of 14.9 mph is good, and 16.3 mph is excellent, according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The wind near La Venta averages more than 19 mph, the laboratory found. During the winter, gusts are so strong they can flip tractor-trailer trucks.

The Mexican government began mapping the wind for possible wind farms in the 1990s. The projects have gone into high gear since the inauguration of Calder?n, a former energy minister who has warned that Mexico is running out of oil and needs to modernize fast. He pushed through legal changes last year allowing more private investment in the state-controlled energy sector.

High oil prices, meanwhile, have made wind energy look like an increasingly good investment.

Windmill technology, too, has improved. Lighter materials mean blades can be longer. Generators have gotten more powerful. A single turbine, such as the 2.5-megawatt Liberty, built by Carpinteria, Calif.-based Clipper Windpower, can power 625 to 700 average U.S. homes. Clipper is installing 27 of them in the isthmus.

Calder?n has pledged to have the region producing at least 2,500 megawatts by the time his term ends in 2012. That's enough for as many as 700,000 average U.S. homes.

"With nothing but wind power, without burning a drop of petroleum, we are generating electricity so people can live better, so companies can produce more and generate more jobs, and so that people here can benefit through rent or association with these projects," Calder?n said during a recent visit to the isthmus.

Isthmus towns buzz with boomtown excitement. Engineers from Spain, Germany, France and the United States fill the restaurants at lunchtime. The hotels in the town of Juchit?n are packed. The one-horse town of La Ventosa ? "the windy place," in Spanish ? is the site of a government center charged with developing new generations of wind turbines. All day long, a seemingly endless procession of cement trucks winds through the fields toward the growing forests of steel.

Underpaid?

One day in 2006, a truck with a loudspeaker showed up in the town of Santa Mar?a Xadani.

"It went around saying there was going to be a program to help farmers, and that we should show up the next night for a meeting," said farmer Abel S?nchez.

At the meeting, representatives from Spanish firm Endesa handed out soft drinks and explained that they wanted to rent land for their wind generators, S?nchez said.

It was a complicated deal. The company would pay 1.4% of the profit, plus $300 a year for each tower, with the money divided among the hundreds of landowners, a contract obtained by The Arizona Republic shows. Each landowner would get an additional $4.60 an acre annually, and the company would pay $182 per acre of land damaged during construction. There was a signing bonus of $37.

In exchange, property owners would have to get permission from the energy company before selling their land or striking deals for development.

One good cow can produce $90 of milk a month, so most farmers were unimpressed, S?nchez said. But the company representatives made it sound like a government program, he said, and there seemed to be little to lose. Many small landowners signed up even though they couldn't read.

Meanwhile, construction began on other wind parks. Many landowners were shocked at the disruption. To support the huge generators, crews built gravel roads 50 feet across, hammered in pylons and poured 1,200 tons of concrete for each tower. Pads of gravel 100 feet long and 50 feet wide were dumped onto sorghum fields and grazing land to support the cranes.

Farmer Salvador Ordaz now has two roads cutting through his 16 acres of pasture and says part of the land is unusable because of dust and blocked irrigation lines. He has had to cut his herd to 10 cows from 30. "When you think of windmills, you just think of this one tower," Ordaz said. "But it affects a lot more land than that."

Some companies are paying 50 cents to $1 per square yard annually for damages and have promised to remove much of the gravel once construction is complete. But S?nchez and about 180 other farmers in the towns of Xadani, Union Hildago and Juchit?n decided they wanted none of it. They sued Endesa and two other Spanish companies, Preneal and Union Fenosa, saying the companies had misled poorly educated landowners and tricked them into signing lopsided deals.

Endesa and Union Fenosa did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Preneal declined to comment.

Pasqualetti said the payments are a fraction of the $3,000 to $5,000 that energy companies pay annually to farmers in Iowa. "The evidence would indicate (Mexican landowners) are not getting what they should be getting," he said.

In October, Preneal relented and canceled its contracts with the dissenting landowners. Endesa and Union Fenosa did the same in March.

"It's clean energy but dirty business," said Claudia Vera, a lawyer at the Tepeyac Human Rights Center who helped the landowners with their case.

Opposition has spread to other towns, sometimes opening up old racial and political feuds.

In San Mateo del Mar, populated by Huav? Indians, residents voted to keep out the energy companies, re-igniting territorial disputes with neighboring villages dominated by Zapotec Indians, said local activist Roselia Guti?rrez.

In La Venta, proponents and opponents have broken along political party lines, with Institutional Revolutionary Party members supporting the contracts and the more liberal Democratic Revolutionary Party opposing them. on the national level, the Democratic Revolutionary Party has accused Calder?n of using the wind farms as a test case for privatizing Mexico's oil and electricity sector.

Demonstrations in La Venta have halted construction six times at the Eurus wind farm, owned by Acciona Energy. Graffiti in the town blasts company officials and members of the local ejido, or farm cooperative. "Get out, Wilson!" says one. "La Venta belongs to the ejido members!" says another.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tehuantepec printed fliers depicting the Spanish companies as invading Spanish galleons. "No to the robbery of our territory! No to the wind power projects!" they say. Hundreds of protesters demonstrated when Calder?n came to inaugurate a project in January.

The companies say they've treated landowners fairly, even raising payments as construction nears on new projects.

Acciona, which is installing 167 wind turbines at the Eurus wind farm near La Venta, is paying members of the local farm cooperative about $186 annually per acre for wind use, plus about 80 cents per square yard of "affected land," said cooperative member Jos? Cruz Vel?zquez.

Union Fenosa has promised to share 1% of the profit from its wind park in Juchit?n, split between all of the landowners, with an additional 0.3% going to landowners with towers on their property, a contract shows.

"The truth is, if the people felt that what we're paying wasn't fair, we wouldn't be here," said Eurus project manager Ignacio Querol.

Benefits

Many residents say they've benefited.

Aquileo Jim?nez, 51, has rights to 10 acres of the farm cooperative's land in La Venta. He used his first payment from Acciona to buy an old bus and now has a contract to shuttle workers to the construction sites.

Cruz Vel?zquez, 45, used his payment to open an auto-parts store. He's doing a brisk business selling brake pads and tires to the dump trucks streaming into the Eurus construction site. Across the road, 76-year-old Matias L?pez Ramos directs truck traffic for $26 a day ? good money in Oaxaca.

"It's done good things for us," Cruz Vel?zquez said. "Even people who were in the United States are coming back here to work because of it."

Others wonder how long the good times will last. once construction is finished, Acciona has promised to remove the gravel pads and reduce the access roads from 50 feet wide to 20. The land-damage fees it pays will shrink dramatically then.

"People are not thinking about the long term," Giron said. "Those generators will be making millions of dollars for the company, and they will be limiting what you can do with your land for 30, 40 years. Soon, whatever they're paying won't seem like very much money anymore."