South Korean Islanders Ask ‘Who Owns the Wind?’

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Jeju island in South Korea is said to have three things in abundance: wind, women, and rocks. But neither the rocks nor even the women are creating as much stir these days as the wind.

The goal of Jeju is 500 MW of wind power by 2020. That would cover 20% of the island’s energy needs. And that’s not including the island’s existing solar energy. However, the rapid growth of the wind energy industry has some people asking “who owns the wind?”

As in other regions where wind farms are springing up around the globe, some locals on Jeju island find themselves divided into supporters and opponents of wind farm development.

Before visiting Jeju’s two existing 10 MW and 15 MW wind farms, I spoke with Kim Dong-joo, an activist at the center of the wind energy conflict, in his office at the Korea Federation for Environmental Movement of Jeju.

“It’s a really good thing to spread renewable energy. Jeju island has a very strong wind to use for power generation, so many companies have made plans to invest to make a wind farm to earn money,” says Mr. Kim. “But,” he says, “these companies have only one goal; that is to earn money. So they do not think of anything like citizen participation and democratic decision-making. They did not think of anything, just earning money. So I think the cause of this social conflict is that the companies don’t think about the people involved on Jeju.

“[Following conflict with the anti-wind group] the leader of the group is in prison,” says Mr. Kim. “So how does a renewable energy company do that? Renewable is very different from fossil fuels and nuclear, but in the process of construction these things happen, and I think these are not very good things. Development has economic roots, but the side-effect of development is environmental degredation and social inequality so we can find side effects of “developmentalism” in Jeju wind construction, similar to other power plant construction.”

Who opposes wind farms on Jeju?

Anti-wind groups have several grounds for complaint. The problem is that Jeju’s geography is divided into small land parcels that many people use as farms. On Jeju, when a wind company buys a small plot of land to build on, they apparently are not required to gain consent from the people who own the surrounding properties. As a result, many land owners feel the impact of the windfarm, but receive no compensation. Impacts claimed by locals include:

• The noise of the wind hitting the blades of the turbine. When we talk of wind turbine noise, we mean a soft but repetative noise as the blades sweep through the air. The sound is generally to quiet to carry more than a few hundred meters, but in some cases it is not impossible to hear it up to 1 km away.
• Turbines pose some danger to local birds.
• Windfarms create shadows that fall on nearby crops.
• Jeju, which is a volcanic island, has the unique predicament that digging foundations for wind turbines may cause damage to the island’s lava tubes, which are both a source of local pride and touristic income.

Of course, wind also provides benefits. For instance, wind turbines could reduce the number of fossil fuel energy towers that dot Jeju and the Korean penninsula. Also, since Jeju benefits from existing investment in solar and wind energy, the local government is working out a plan to make a renewable energy a point of tourism on the island, which could bring an additional source of revenue to islanders.

Who owns the wind?

Mr. Kim has an answer, but it’s not a pill that the energy companies will easily swallow: if energy companies are going to use local wind resources, they should be willing to pay local residents a cut of the profits.

“Who owns wind?” asks Mr. Kim. “I think that the wind on Jeju island is owned by Jeju’s people. The wind impacts the people. Wind is very close to the people both in history and culture. The dialect here is very short and strong because of the wind. [So it is clear that the wind has deeply impacted the local people.] Also, when people make houses here they think only of the wind because they need protection from such a strong wind [and because the houses need to be made sturdy enough to withstand strong storms].”

As he speaks, Mr. Kim leafs through photos of wind-swept trees and houses that have been build low to the ground to avoid the wind.

“The image of wind in Jeju island is not good; it’s very negative, but wind companies think of wind as very positive, so there’s a kind of historical and cultural inequality between the wind companies and the local population.”

Although it is unlikely to hold immediate appeal for energy companies, the idea of sharing benefits of wind energy with local people may not be such a bad one. One energy company, for instance, has reached an agreement in Canada to build a large wind farm that will bring economic benefits to local First Nations people. This is not a direct payout from the company’s profits, but it shares Mr. Kim’s philosophy that locals should be economically rewarded for their wind resources.

Perhaps at the crux of resistance to wind farms is a sense that the locals are being left out of the decision-making process and unrewarded for their resources. If so, what happens here on Jeju island may be a lesson for the rest of us.

Read More about Wind Power

• Wind Energy Opposition: It’s Greek to Me…
• Bringing Wind Power Down To Earth
• World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Back on Track
• Experts Say China’s Wind Energy Could Grow 1667% by 2020

Photo credit: (top image) Black Wayne via Flickr, (above map) Wikipedia Commons.