Qualidade dos relatórios ambientais simplificados de empreendimentos eólicos

Abstract

Worldwide, when it comes to energy production via air masses, Brazil is one of the countries that have the most exceptional renewable potential. In Rio Grande do Norte, the wind power ventures in operation concentrate mainly in the micro-regions of Baixa Verde, the Northeast Coast, and Mossoró-Macau. However, even though it is renewable energy, its production generates environmental impacts, making it essential to make an accurate evaluation in any energy generation venture, especially those implemented in places of great environmental interest. Based on this premise, this work aims to analyze the Simplified Environmental Reports (Relatórios Ambientais Simplificados - RAS) of wind power generation ventures deployed in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, to assess their quality and their ability to correctly diagnose the study area and identify the real environmental impacts caused by these ventures. As study area, three microregions were selected in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, the microregions of Mossoró-Macau, Baixa Verde, and Litoral Nordeste, because they are in environments with high rates of deployment of wind power plants. For each one of them, two municipalities that had licensed wind power ventures were randomly defined, and in each municipality, a venture was randomly chosen to have the environmental study analyzed. As a result, it was observed that most of the RAS do not present a detailed environmental diagnosis of the area, especially concerning the biotic environment, compromising the identification of environmental impacts according to the characteristics of the area, which generates a description of the impacts in a general way, standardized by the type of venture and not based on the environmental aspects present in the study area.