Chile has a diamond of 105,000 km². The Atacama Desert is one of the most important in the world due to its extreme aridity. That is why it is key to studying the adaptability of fauna and flora to very harsh conditions of drought and salinity, but it is also a gem for space observation and renewable energies. But there are mixtures that do not work, and Atacama is an example of how one of the best natural laboratories for the energy transition and one of the best places to look at the universe do not combine well.
Spoiler: the astronomers have won. For now.
The Atacama battery. It is not the first time that two disciplines collide in the Atacama Desert. Due to its conditions, this desert has become the country’s renewable battery. Not only solar energy projects are triumphing, but also wind turbine parks. And just as important as this: one of its salt flats hides one of the most important lithium reserves in the world.
This is vital to build batteries for the energy transition of cars, for example, but the price is too high: we are destroying biodiversity. In parallel to this battle, another has been fought: that of a huge renewable energy project to create green hydrogen that came into conflict with one of the most important observatories in the world: the Paranal Observatory of the European Astral Observatory.
The threat of INNA. The American AES Corporation, together with the Chilean subsidiary AES Andes, was preparing the construction of a photovoltaic park of more than 3,000 hectares, wind turbines and refining facilities to produce green hydrogen and ammonia. Green hydrogen is one of the pending energy bills and is positive, but there was a problem: it would be only 10 kilometers from the observatory.
The astronomers shouted to the sky pointing out that the microvibrations of the facility, the dust and, above all, the light pollution would disturb the daily work in a facility that is located in a privileged location, precisely because it is in the middle of nowhere. This facility is of global importance because it houses the Very Large Telescope (one of the most powerful in the world) and will have both the Extremely Large Telescope and the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory. The thing about telescope names is one thing.
Scientists working at the observatory agreed to sign an open letter in which they pointed out that the construction of the facilities would seriously jeopardize the missions being developed there, describing the program as “an imminent threat” to humanity’s ability to investigate the cosmos.
Victoria. After months of fighting, the astronomers won. It was at the beginning of this year when AES Andes announced that it would abandon the project, noting that it would focus on other facilities, but mentioning that INNA was “fully compatible with the activities of the region.”
It was no longer a fight just for the Paranal Observatory because there are about 30 astronomical sites in the area, many of them international, and its importance is what it is because, apart from the zero light pollution, it is estimated that there are more than 300 nights each year without rain or clouds that interfere with scientific work.
Yes, but. The problem is that one thing is the interests of astronomers and researchers of the universe and another is the priority of energy companies… and even of the country itself. Researchers point out that there is increasing pressure to convert the Atacama Desert into that aforementioned ‘stack’ of Chile, and INNA has not been the only threat that the observatories have experienced.
In 1955, a major solar station operated by the Smithsonian Institution of the United States was forced to close due to mining expansion in the area. Unda-Sanzana, director of the Astronomy Center at the University of Antofagasta, points out that “we have had 70 years to learn from history and avoid repeating those same mistakes,” lamenting how close they have come to reliving the situation.
And the problem is that things haven’t changed much. This victory has been suffered, but astronomers point out that Chilean sky preservation laws remain lax and outdated, so this should be remedied instead of fighting each battle individually.
Image | G. Hüdepohl/ESO
In | The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet. And right there a bunch of “crazies” are trying to get water out of the fog.
