Features
Mannar wind farm: Another folly like Sinharaja logging project on the horizon? – II
By Prof. Emeritus Nimal Gunatilleke, University of Peradeniya
(Part one of this article appeared on 01 April 2024)
World Bank Off-shore Wind Power Roadmap for Sri Lanka as a viable alternative?
According to a roadmap developed with the assistance of the World Bank (WB) and International Finance Corporation in 2023, Sri Lanka has good conditions for offshore wind, with most of the more than 50 Gigawatts of potential being held in the western and southern coasts, with a caveat that the roadmap analysis found that not all of this potential will be developed due to practical and cost limitations that are prevailing at present.
According to the World Bank, Sri Lanka’s offshore wind resource far exceeds its energy demand, and its development could help the country’s economic recovery by displacing costly fuel imports. There is an estimated fixed-bottom potential of 22GW and 17GW floating. Most importantly, unlike the on-shore Mannar Wind Farm, this off-shore resource is based in areas without environmental restrictions and exclusion zones. Areas with the highest environmental or social sensitivities have been excluded to avoid unacceptable adverse impacts. Indeed, the World Bank reckons there is huge potential, and it could supply more energy than the country needs – offering an opportunity to produce other fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia.
However, there are numerous challenges to developing this sector, according to the WB Report. To overcome these challenges, the World Bank Group was assisting the government in planning and implementing de-risking measures, including further site investigations, environmental and social scoping, wind resource assessment, legal and regulatory analysis, further stakeholder consultations, and policy support to make this opportunity more attractive to investors and help to reduce costs.
The World Bank Report further says that considering that the short- and medium-term trajectory for offshore wind in Sri Lanka is relatively modest, combining the opportunity with India’s growing offshore wind market could help attract more industry and supply chain investment. The message given is to partner with India for the development of offshore wind energy generation instead of developing environmentally costly onshore wind farms in Mannar Island.
The energy experts, however, claim that the Mannar Wind Farm Project is a low-hanging fruit the country should pluck. Yet, they do not seem to have given adequate recognition to the environmental costs involved in the same way as in the case of the Sinharaja Logging Project more than 50 years ago. The field of Environmental Economics has advanced substantially over the last several decades. As Chris Goodie, Chairman of the Oriental Bird Club advocates, globally available tools like AVISTEP (The Avian Sensitivity Tool for Energy Planning) need to be used to identify ecologically safe zones for such renewable energy projects.
Moreover, there are widely used open-source environmental economics software packages such as InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs), and they provide an effective tool for balancing the environmental and economic goals of these diverse entities. It enables decision-makers to assess quantified tradeoffs associated with alternative management choices and to identify areas where investment in natural capital can enhance human development and conservation.
It is not clear whether the EIA for this project has meaningfully addressed the environmental cost-benefits issues. If those could be brought into the equation, Sri Lanka would be able to meet its vital energy demand while safeguarding its critical birdlife and, more importantly, without compromising the ecological and economic benefits for the citizens of the country.
Resource Economic Analysis:
Sri Lanka will have to pay way above the market rate for a single unit of energy in US dollars if the permission is granted and the project continues. In Adani Wind Power Project, the energy agreement duration is believed to be 25 years and throughout that period, Sri Lanka will have to pay 4 US cents, as opposed to 2 US cents, which is the market price for a single unit. In a nutshell, for 25 years, Sri Lanka will have to buy power, generated via natural resources of our own, from India for double the price.
This wind power project is an unsolicited one decided according to the whims of politicians probably under duress during the recent health and economic crises. Engineer Pethiyagoda has very eloquently remarked on this issue: ‘We see a foreign company coming to Sri Lanka literally out of the blue, harnessing our wind energy, which is a sovereign national resource, and then selling it back to us for foreign currency over a fixed 25-year contract. How does this make economic sense? If the government called for bids from local companies, Sri Lankan shareholders would have had a chance to invest. That way we don’t bleed foreign currency, and what’s more, there’s tax revenue as well. What is the logic in giving this on a platter to a foreign company?
In that case, let them prove it by actually competing in a transparent bidding process. Besides, even the price they have quoted, USD 0.097 per kilowatt hour, is several times the wind energy price obtained in the USA, according to the US Department of Energy. They are making a massive profit on this, and Sri Lankans will have to foot the bill for the whole of the 25-year contract period.”
While both the conversion to renewable energy and ecological conservation are both important targets to achieve, ultimately the decision would come down to proper weighing of the economic and ecological costs and benefits.
Sri Lankan environmental groups are intensifying their campaign against the proposed Adani wind farm in Mannar. They have accused the Sri Lankan political parties of having ignored the disastrous environmental, social, and economic implications of the Adani wind farm to be established in Mannar.
Mannar Island and its Environs- A ‘Living Entity’ and a Classic Case for Environmental Jurisprudential Analysis?
A staff writer of The Hindu newspaper reported in 2022 that Justice S. Srimathy of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court invoked the ‘parens patriae jurisdiction’ and declared ‘Mother Nature’ as a ‘living being’ having the status of a legal entity. The court observed that ‘Mother Nature’ was accorded rights akin to fundamental rights, legal rights, and constitutional rights for its survival, safety, sustenance, and resurgence to maintain its status and also to promote its health and well-being. The State and Central governments are directed to protect ‘Mother Nature’ and take appropriate steps in this regard in all possible ways.”
The Mannar Island surrounded by several environmentally buffered sanctuaries serves as a strong candidate to be considered as a ‘living entity’ and develop the necessary legal infrastructure for establishing the status of a legal entity in order to confer ‘rights akin to fundamental rights, legal rights, constitutional rights for the survival of the natural wealth of the Mannar Island and its safety, sustenance. As Dr. Jagath Gunawardena points out, there is a clear case for legal action under Section 33 of the National Environment Act. This can be coupled together with a case for a ‘living entity’ taking a cue from other countries including those from India.
It is quite intriguing that on the one hand, Sri Lankan rainforests are among the progenitors from which the vast expanses of Southeast Asian rainforests evolved and diversified. On the other hand, Mannar Island and its surrounding areas have evolved as converging regions of millions of birds of European and Asian continental origin. Thus, both the Sri Lankan rain forests and the Mannar Asian flyway merit to be considered equally as living entities.
Other Successful Public Campaigns on Nationally Important Projects:
In addition to the Sinharaja logging project, I can recall at least two other potentially harmful – (environmentally, socially, and economically) projects where strong and well-substantiated scientific (and strong trade union-) actions prevailed successfully over nationally detrimental projects.
One was the FINNIDA and IDA-funded Forestry Master Plan of 1982. The project proponents eventually yielded to the strong and credible criticisms mounted on this project by the scientific and environmentally conscious community. A public seminar was held to present both for and against viewpoints and the presentations were published in a booklet published by the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka in 1988.
The international funders highly sensitive to the rationally presented negative sentiments expressed by the scientists, withdrew the project document and a far more acceptable Forestry Sector Master Plan was published in 1995 with almost 10 years of extensive studies on every conceivable activity related to the forestry sector including the formulation of a revised ‘Forestry Policy’ which is being used even today with its current revision.
The second is yet another low-hanging bitter-sweet fruit like the proposed Mannar Wind farm which was initially agreed by the Sri Lankan Government to hand over the part-completed Eastern Terminal of the Colombo port on a long-term lease to the same Adani Group. This time, the strong trade unions backed by their technocrats swung into action to highlight what Sri Lanka would be losing on this deal and forced the Government to reconsider its former pledge and persuade the Adani group to accept an alternative site – the Western terminal. The economic and social benefits of this project to Sri Lanka are yet to be seen and commented upon by economists.
A Challenge to the Patriotic Citizens, Diasporic Community, and well-wishers of Sri Lanka
As it happened in the case of the Sinharaja Logging Project in early 1977, a plethora of viewpoints both for and against the Mannar Wind Farm Project are peaking at a time when Sri Lankans are at the doorstep of a national election – presidential or otherwise. This provides an excellent platform for both in-country and diasporic technocrats/intelligentsia as well as others who are sympathetic to Sri Lanka’s current crisis and concerned about long-term sustainability to contribute their expert knowledge on this nationally important issue which has the potential to become a political issue in this election year, just like the Sinharaja logging project 50 years ago.
Politicians of different hues and colours could in turn be exhorted to express their standpoints on evidence-based information on this far-reaching issue of national significance preferably circumventing without caving into superpower hegemony. In this regard, the diasporic community in countries where they have had the opportunity to meet their favorite politicians in recent times have a role to advise their masters’ on how to tread on these political landmines. It indeed will help the intelligent voters at home to make their own decisions on the credibility of the Sri Lankan political fraternity.
The patriotic in-country and diasporic community are given a last chance to advise their political masters in this election year, a comparative cost-benefit analysis of the i.) the hastily prepared and inadequately evaluated on-shore economically sweet low-hanging fruit against ii.) a better prepared environmentally-, socially and economically (over the long term) bitter-sweet fruit.
In my layman’s opinion as a renewable energy enthusiast, this merits a rare opportunity for the scientists (environmental- social-politico-legal, etc.) and technocrats interested in seeing Sri Lanka coming out of the woods during this critical period to express their candid views supported by scientific evidence in the form of a pilot study.
Unlike at the time of the Sinharaja Logging Project, there are far more resources available to model different scenarios/trajectories leading up to 2048 – the year that the President of Sri Lanka has targeted for a complete economic recovery.
In the 1970s, the strong public outcries saved the endemic and threatened trees of Sinharaja being made into plywood boxes to export tea. Paper cartons emerged as an excellent alternative source of packaging tea for exports. In the same manner, we hope that the Mannar Island on-shore wind farms will be relocated to environmentally more friendly off-shore and alternative on-shore locations.
The On-shore low-hanging sweet fruit with a bitter seed inside providing only 6% of the country’s energy requirement is to be evaluated against the off-shore resource-based sweeter fruits still ripening in the difficult-to-reach higher branches – so to speak – and most importantly designated to be located in areas without environmental restrictions and exclusion zones with the potential of supplying more energy than the country needs (in addition, offering an opportunity to produce other fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia) as per World Bank ‘Windfall’ Road Map. This should indeed become an intriguing scientific, socio-economic, and politico-legal battle this year preparing for national elections. (Concluded)