Molinos y gigantes

The energy issue is more than ever at the heart of public debate and the political agenda. We know that the energy transition is inevitable because it is the only way we have to fight climate change, but this is not a mere technical issue that should be left in the hands of companies and technocrats, but a political issue that requires broad debate, participation citizenship and popular struggles. Because there can be many transitions: for example, those that seek yet another enrichment for the giants of the electric oligopoly or those that aspire to the democratization of resources and the protection of nature. Thus, Molinos y gigantes is, first of all, an invitation to learn about the political and economic history behind the Spanish electricity sector, from the caudillo's personal agreements with the ultra-Catholic president of Hidrola (now Iberdrola) to the decreed liberalization of the sector by the Aznar government and the subsequent imbrication of renewable energies in the successive brick booms. Secondly, this book carries out a critical reading of the model that characterizes wind development in the Spanish State, dominated by large companies, with an extractive approach, concentrated in rural areas where it produces a significant degradation of the lives of its inhabitants, with hardly any environmental concerns and lack of democratc participatory mechanisms. To do this, Jaume Franquesa -in the line of authors such as David Graeber or James C. Scott- takes southern Catalonia, the most nuclearized region in Spain and one of those with the highest density of wind farms, as the study area, where he has lived for years and collected the testimonies of its neighbors, who have been fighting for decades to defend their land and roots against the great electricity oligopoly, and remind us: "Renewables yes, but not like this". In short, the energy transition will only be real if it guarantees a vibrant rural world and the dignity of its inhabitants.