If it were not a draft of the decree written on the headed paper of Palazzo Chigi, complete with the announced signature of the banker of Europe who became President of the Council, one could think of a joke. In one of the paragraphs of the device of the new text on the energy decree for Sardinia, sent by the Minister of Ecological Transition to the Region, the lords of Rome had the audacity to write: "allow a greater number of approaches for the purpose of loading the LNG on barges for the virtual connection ». These two expressions, barge and virtual connection, would be enough to understand everything and send it back to the sender complete with a sound rejection. The energy future of the island, the only true island region in the Mediterranean, together with Corsica, will be entrusted to "barges" and connections that are not there. viale Trento in Cagliari is a succession of real subterfuges to "impose" a plan written in the secret rooms of the energy lobbies.

Transition & Sardinia

The spirit that animates it is clear: Italy must meet the CO2 emissions reductions within the time limits established by the last climate conference in Paris. To achieve that objective, proportional reductions should be imposed on each territory, distributed throughout the boot, capable of amortising the initial negative effects on the economy. However, offering sacrifices to everyone is obviously not convenient. Why doesn't the government try to tell Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Campania or Lazio to renounce the power plants that feed the productive development of those regions?

Green propaganda

The thesis of green Sardinia, promoted far and wide, is actually nothing more than a devious plan to unload all the weight, or a large part, of the Italian ecological transition on the island. If there are sacrifices to be made, the decree prepared by the government basically says, they must be concentrated in Sardinia. After all, it is written in the back thought, Sardinians are few, far away and isolated. It is for this reason that the Minister of Ecological Transition is "struggling" in every way to get Mario Draghi to sign that "commissioner-occupation" of Sardinia. All over Italy coal plants are converting them, almost all of them, to gas. In Sardinia, the only Region, no. Here they turn them off, as if there was no tomorrow. No conversion. Suddenly they make the two coal plants disappear, by 2025, that of Portovesme and that of Porto Torres, canceling 1,500 megawatts of energy that feed most of Sardinia, abundantly three-quarters of the island. It is all too evident that the cancellation of 1,500 megawatts of electricity production only serves Italy and not Sardinia. Those closures are used by the government to guarantee all the other power plants scattered throughout the rest of the country.

The Sardinians pay

Sardinia, therefore, pays and the others enjoy it. Here closed plants and in the rest of Italy electricity produced with new gas plants, powerful and autonomous. The national weight of the ecological transition is therefore completely unloaded on the Nuraghi Island. An operation studied at the table, and not from today. The decree turns out to be only a modest screen to actions already decided, written and carried out on the heads of Sardinia and the Sardinians. An act of the Government, should it be signed, clearly in contrast with the main Constitutional and Statutory provisions which assign to the Sardinian Region the "exclusive" competence in the Government of the Territory and in the Protection of the Landscape and the "competitor" one for the "Production and distribution of 'electric energy".

Fortunetellers

If it were approved it would be a real commissioner, both for the exclusive competence and for the concurrent one. In reality, however, the Government is pursuing this path to "cover", or give a semblance of administrative cover, to a plan that the Italian energy lobbies and not only have already decided for some time in the secret rooms of Rome and Milan. It would not be explained otherwise the fact that on 28 December 2020 Snam Rete Gas entrusted the "design" of the FSRU, the floating storage and regasification unit of Portovesme to a French company with an Italian name, Technip Italia for 2 million and 300 thousand euros. And it is equally prescient to have announced, on 15 March 2021, again Snam, a procedure for the purchase of gas tankers and the supply of Floating Storage Regasification units, in practice always the same floating units for which three months earlier it had banned the design. An undeclared amount for the purchase of barges and floating regasification plants, but estimated at three hundred million euros.

Government in tow

One solution, that of floating regasifiers, strangely indicated in paragraph 4 of article 2 of the decree announced by Palazzo Chigi. In short, first Snam starts the purchase of barges and floating units and, then, the Government inserts that solution in the Sardinia decree. As if to say, this decree "plans" what, instead, is already taking place, in spite of the agreement with the Region. And it is precisely this solution of the floats that generates one of the most impacting vulnerabilities on the island's energy economy. The decision to place the regasifiers in the sea, a sort of floating Saras, allows us to understand the government's approach to the energy cause of Sardinia: provisionality and marginality. All this while ignoring the risks of these real environmental monsters to be placed one in Portoscuso, a stone's throw from the stacks of Pan di Zucchero and the Island of Carloforte, and the other on the north side, in Porto Torres in front of Asinara, in the stretch of sea a stone's throw from the Pelosa. The decree does not pose environmental problems: it authorizes everything with the illegitimate commissioner of the Sardinian Region.

366 houses in the sea

The "float" of Portoscuso will have a gigantic dimension: in practice 366 apartments of 100 square meters each, placed in the middle of the sea, on the tuna, ferry and boat route. A floating deposit of 110,000 cubic meters compared to the 25,000 expected in Porto Torres. That of Portovesme, for which the Mayor, Giorgio Alimonda, has already declared holy war on the project, should serve the "industrial segment of Sulcis", now reduced to the bone due to its energy cost, pushing itself with a "mini backbone", unauthorized and without hypothesis of costs, up to the metropolitan city of Cagliari. A project that overlaps with that regasification plant that others want to build in the flamingo pond in Santa Gilla.

Divided island

The goal, therefore, is to supply gas to only one part of southern Sardinia, the one connected to Portovesme, perhaps Carbonia and Iglesias, and possibly with a connection that no one knows who will pay and at what costs to connect Cagliari. For the north, the connection will be reserved only for Portotorres and Sassari. In Oristano, the depot already built in the port will be dedicated to serving "neighboring users" states the decree. Those who want the LNG elsewhere will have to be satisfied with tank wagons walking around the streets of the island, regardless of dangers and risks due to unprecedented road loads on routes that have always been inadequate and unsafe. Of the backbone, however, nothing, for the childish stances of those who, instead of defending Sardinia, protect the interests of the strong powers. For the rest, the island will run on batteries, with the installation of synchronous compensators, used to stabilize the electricity grids. A "very expensive" solution, say the experts, which will be used to try to reduce the power sags and voltage drops.

Responsibility

Actually "third world" solutions, barges and tank wagons, with an avalanche of new wind turbines and infinite expanses of solar panels, which will not guarantee a fair price on a par with other areas of the country, and will make Sardinia pay for management electricity from underdevelopment, given that the government cancels almost all energy production, saving only the Saras-Sarlux power plant, strangely excluded from the green process. Last item. The Constitutional Court has written down a principle: the exclusive powers of a Region with a Special Statute cannot be transferred. To share with the State the choices on matters of concurrent competence, however, writes the Court, "strong agreements" are needed. In practice, the subscription must take place in the sunlight and with the approval of the Regional Council and the Regional Council itself. To be responsible, at all levels, for what they subscribe to.

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