Grigovia harnesses wind

Fed up with importing natural gas from plutocratic Russians, and sick of buying sweet crude from autocratic Saudi Arabians, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia (GROG) embarked on an ambitious national program to become energy independent. Whereas in other modern nations such projects are heavily subsidized by – and therefore beholden to – federal governments, here in this small, landlocked nation that straddles a mountain-range known as the Yiptlong Massif, private industry is leading the charge. “Operation Updraft was designed for maximum citizen participation,” said, in a joint statement released shortly after the project's modest unveiling ceremony, GROG's Ministry for the Interior and the nation's Alliance of Executives for Grigovian Independence and Security (AEGIS). “All companies interested in enhancing the development of native battery and wind turbine design are welcome to the research data we already have on hand; all we ask is that any technological breakthroughs in and improvements to current methods for harnessing and storing renewable energy be shared with the rest of the parties working on this program, in the interest of improving the lives and wellbeing of all Grigovians, equally.”

Blessed with extensive deposits of such rare-earth-minerals as are needed to make cutting-edge, high-capacity battery banks, and with a landscape dominated by sloping foothills that culminate in high, craggy cliffs, Grigovia is a nearly perfect candidate for the adoption of large-scale wind farming. “The wind gains in intensity as it rises up from the plains around Grig, reaching nearly gale-force as it enters the jagged spires and stark facades of the mountain peaks in the higher elevations,” said Ordend Haryyiend, Ph. D., a geologist at Pyltagrad State University. “According to my colleagues in this school's department for electro-physics, even if we built a mere handful of wind farms using current technology, we could capture and transmit enough electricity to power most of beautiful, cosmopolitan Grig, our nation's capital, as well as many of the bucolic regional population centers. These are exciting times.”

In recent years, Grigovia has faced pressure from Western conglomerates – chief among them Ynki organizations applying pressure through the American Department of State – to lease out vast stretches of pristine national parkland for environmentally-unsustainable mining, forestry, and resource extraction. “We have been fighting a shadow war against foreign parties hellbent on raping our land of its treasures and transporting our riches to distant markets beyond our borders,” said Hesta Noryindt, an analyst at the Ministry of Natural Resources, which controls leasing and licensing on Grigovian territory. “Similar to the Ynki Apollo program, which harnessed the will of the American people to reach a goal, Operation Updraft aims to harness the will of the Grigovian people to shake off our addiction to foreign energy and to become a world leader in methods for capturing and storing direct and indirect solar energy.” (Wind is caused in part by changes in atmospheric pressure resulting from solar radiation, i.e. sunlight.) AEGIS thanked the people of Grigovia for their enduring patience and communal sacrifice by installing German-made GMG grenade launchers at all major civilian defense centers.

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