Windmill Project Propels a Quixotic Quest

Peter Hayes is a Don Quixote for the 21st century, a tall, dashing dreamer with a mission that some find foolhardy and others farfetched, but that all deem noble in spirit and purpose. With a lot of imagination and a little money, Hayes has set out to rid the world of its deadliest weapons.

And he’s trying to do it with windmills.

To counter a well-financed campaign to build a U.S. missile defense system, Hayes is putting up wind turbines and windmills--”like right out of Kansas in the 1930s,” he says--in Communist North Korea.

The graceful towers with their spinning wheels are already providing water for dozens of North Korean homes and fields. The tall, spindly turbines, planted in fields of cabbage cultivated for the Korean dish kimchi, produce electricity for kindergartens, clinics and homes in the village of Unhari, about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Pyongyang.

The goal is to demonstrate the viability of alternative energy sources, particularly in rural areas, so the government will feel less need to build nuclear power plants that could, in turn, be used to develop nuclear weapons.

To some arms experts, it is indeed a Quixotic quest. And Hayes concedes that his project is not a solution for the entire country--nor a guarantee that a potential nuclear foe will soon become a peaceful neighbor. “North Korea is not a windy place. Windmills won’t work everywhere,” he said in an interview in a modest Berkeley office crammed with books on everything from the metaphysics of war to North Korean politics.

But to others, the groundbreaking collaboration between American and North Korean scientists represents a new kind of “alternative defense” that might reduce pressure for multibillion-dollar programs to block Pyongyang’s ability to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at the United States.

Idea Wins ‘Genius’ Grant

In recognition of his imaginative approach, Hayes this year was awarded one of the prestigious “genius” grants given to thinkers, scientists, writers and other innovators by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

At its heart, Hayes’ windmill project underscores a brewing debate over the best way to defend a nation in the 21st century.

“The missile defense argument is like saying the solution to America’s handgun problem is for everyone to wear body armor. It doesn’t work. There are too many handguns and bullets, and it isn’t possible to get everyone to wear armor on every part of their body,” said Hayes, founder of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, one of America’s smallest think tanks.

“Besides, the issue really isn’t about missiles and warheads. It’s about strategic rivalry and distrust and perceptions at a much deeper level. And that’s what we’re trying to deal with.”

An energy specialist who’s worked for the United Nations and the World Bank, Hayes began looking for ways to reverse tensions when North Korea crossed the nuclear threshold a decade ago by building reactors that it said would be used to generate electricity. By 1994, the government’s suspected ability to siphon off fissile material to make nuclear weapons had prompted the Pentagon to devise plans to attack the reactors.

The United States pulled back from “the brink of war,” according to a recent book by former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, after Perry advised the Clinton administration that it might ignite a wider conflict. Former President Carter then mediated an agreement that froze North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for U.S.-orchestrated aid and technology to build two “safe” nuclear reactors.

But the danger remains. For one thing, North Korea does not have to give a full accounting of its nuclear program until the reactors are built and working. Meanwhile, it may have in reserve enough plutonium for one or two bombs.

Because the reactors won’t be ready for several years, Pyongyang still feels vulnerable. Fuel supplies ended after the Soviet Union’s demise. North Korea’s electrical grid has been devastated by natural disasters. Millions of people have been left without regular electricity, contributing to the collapse of industry, communications, agriculture, transportation and the economy.

So Hayes and a small crew of energy experts set out to find an interim source of energy--and to plant the seeds of a relationship between the nations.

“A lot of what drives the military is fear or uncertainty. We’re willing to embrace uncertainty. Otherwise we’ll keep developing the same old world with the same old problems,” said Hayes, who grew up on a farm--with windmills--in Australia but has lived in the United States since finishing his doctorate at UC Berkeley in 1988.

With funding from American foundations, the Hayes team took the first seven wind turbines to Unhari in 1998. In October, on his sixth trip, he took a team to build two windmills to channel water for crops and human consumption to ease a famine that has killed an estimated 2 million people.

Both windmills and wind turbines have appeal because of their low cost ($2,500 to $12,000 each), low maintenance, readily accessible technology, environmental safety and sustainability, even in rural areas. The next step is designing a windmill using local materials.

The project illustrates the evolution of ideas about national security policy.

Throughout history, military might has been the key to defending a nation. But after World War II, with the development of apocalyptic weapons, President Truman proposed nuclear disarmament. President Eisenhower created the first nuclear power monitoring agency. And President Kennedy, who warned that 25 nations could have nuclear arms by the end of the 1960s, launched the first major treaty banning tests of nuclear weapons in the water and in the atmosphere.

Half a century of treaties on weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles--has led to destruction of existing arms, and agreements to halt new weapons, and has limited the spread of nuclear arms to only eight countries.

By 1996, former Defense Secretary Perry dared to say that the first line of defense was no longer weaponry but pieces of paper--an interlocking network of treaties.

“Paper has been more effective in intercepting and destroying more missiles than other weapons,” said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And the military has increasingly become the second line of defense, as a deterrent threat against those who use these weapons against you.”

Others disagree. “Treaties codify the status quo. But pure military power is still the key to influence, the coin of the realm,” said Mitchell Reiss, former chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea and member of the National Security Council during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Lines of Defense

As the 21st century dawns, two other visions are shaping ideas about defending a nation.

One is a national missile defense shield, a popular idea of uncertain capability projected to cost tens of billions of dollars. Some arms experts call it the third line of defense; others say it should become the first.

Building a national missile defense will mean renegotiating the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty or scrapping it altogether. Because of widespread opposition from Paris to Moscow to Beijing, changing the treaty could begin to unravel the entire network of arms treaties, since each builds on the previous one, most experts agree.

It could also trigger a new arms race by escalating the level of armament to a new plane.

A fourth line of defense is the emerging effort by disparate organizations, from the International Monetary Fund to the Nautilus Institute, to unravel the causes of tension before they become conflicts.

“The IMF does it with economic factors on a global scale with billions of dollars,” Cirincione said. “Peter Hayes does on a local scale what big institutions can’t or won’t.”

Even skeptics agree that Hayes has been an effective ambassador in helping to convince North Korea that the outside world is not necessarily hostile. But they doubt that his approach will replace traditional means of defense.

“Peter Hayes does amazing work, and the more interaction that you can have with countries like North Korea is probably good. But giving all the windmills in the world is not going to convince the North Koreans to dismantle their nuclear weapons program,” Reiss said.

“At best, cooperative efforts are helpful on the margins,” he said. “No one should be under the illusion that they’re a main motive for a country to change course.”

Criticism like that doesn’t faze Hayes’ team.

“We have lofty goals for a group of 15 people,” said Tim Savage, a Nautilus specialist.

“The fact we chose windmills, which have a connotation of dreaming the impossible dream, is appropriate for the kind of work we’re trying to do. We’re trying to help end the single longest conflict on Earth. The Cold War ended in 1990, but the Korean conflict began a half-century ago and still has no formal end.”