Recortes de prensa e Internet.

20-03-2000
Comentario sobre Higueruela en la prensa Inglesa

5. Manuskript der Sendung vom 16.3.2000  European Journal
                Edition of 16/03/2000(Item: A shining example: A Spanish village backs progress)
      The agricultural region of La Mancha, south of Madrid. The Spanish writer Cervantes immortalised La Mancha in his epic tale, Don Quixote. The famous windmills that the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance once tilted at are mainly tourist attractions these days. Thanks to Cervantes. But the people of La Mancha are moving with the times. Here in the Province of Albacete, there are hundreds of windmills in their modern guise - wind turbines, a clean method of generating electricity.

           The first wind park had hardly gone into operation before sheep were grazing the land as they  have always done, as if nothing had happened. The shepherd finds that perfectly normal. The animals aren't afraid. he says. Maybe they were on the first day. It was new for them too. The noise doesn't bother them at all, it's more the shadow.
               Apart from the flickering shadow, which confuses the sheep, the young man sees nothing  negative in the innovation.
                It doesn't harm anyone. It doesn't pollute the air either. It's natural, ecological energy. All in all, he thinks it's a good thing. Construction work will continue in Albacete province until the year 2005. The world's largest  wind energy association will be based here, with an output of over 800 megawatts. Total costs: the equivalent of 600 million dollars.
                Four wind parks are already in operation, under the collective name of Higueruela. Higuerela is the name of the village downwind of the rotors. The wind parks have brought quite a bit of money into the community. The farmers must have made a good profit on the sale of the otherwise worthless strips of land where the wind turbines now stand. Other villagers have also profited. How much has been made by whom, and who has emerged empty-handed --speculations like these are a constant topic of conversation.
                Farmer one "It brought a lot of work into the village. For the baker, the butcher. It brought in  a lot of money, too. Workers have to eat. It was certainly worth it for the village."
                Farmer two
                 "They spent a lot of money here. Whoever made some in the process, is sitting
                     pretty. The mayor's office made millions."
                What good has it done the village, one man asks. Apart from the mayor nobody has benefited, says another. And what has happened to all the money, they wonder.
                Do they get electricity from the windpark?
                No, none at all, they say. The electricity is fed into the public grid. In five years' time wind energy is expected to meet
the needs of all 365,000 inhabitants and the industry of Albacete province. Then, at the latest, the inhabitants of Higueruela will obtain all their energy from the wind turbines.
                Nobody in the village really minds the wind parks. They've altered the look of the countryside, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone. If anything, it's the noise of the rotors.
                It depends which way the wind is blowing, she says. Some nights it's very noisy.
                Does it bother her a lot?
               Yes, she admits.
                Her neighbour thinks wind energy is better for the village in spite of the noise. A nuclear power station would definitely be worse, she says.
                And so a largely unknown village in La Mancha is at the forefront of developments in  renewable energies. The mills of the past that Cervantes once described have outlived their purpose. Occasionally, though, they still serve as a backdrop for spectacles put on for visitors.
                Don Quixote the knight tilted against the vanes of the windmills, thinking that they were the arms of hostile monsters. Nobody in Higueruela would ever think of doin