Posted on 09/05/2017 1:22:55 PM PDT by Lorianne
While Germany likes to fancy itself as being among the “global leaders” in tackling climate change by expanding green energies, the country has in fact taken very little action recently to back up the appearances.
If anything, Germany is more in the green energy retreat mode. There are good reasons for this.
German flagship business daily “Handelsblatt” reported here yesterday how Germany’s wind energy market is now “threatening to implode” and as a result “thousands of jobs are at risk“.
José Luis Blanco, CEO of German wind energy giant Nordex, blames the market chaos on “policymakers changing the rules“. Subsidies have been getting cut back substantially.
The problem, Blanco says, is that worldwide green energy subsidies are being capped and wind parks as a result are no longer looking profitable to investors. The Handelsblatt writes that “things have never been this bad“.
50% drop in new German parks
The online Hasepost here reports that while in 2016 some 4600 megawatts of new German wind power capacity were installed onshore, the figure will fall almost 50% to 2450 megawatts of new power by 2019. The fall could even be greater.
Blanco told Handelsblatt:
In the next two years we will see a substantial collapse in the installation of new wind parks in Germany – we will have to react to this.“
Recently Germany moved to scale back subsidies for new wind parks because the power transmission grid has not kept par with the rapid wind park installation, and as a result the grid has become riddled with inefficiencies and has become increasingly prone to grid collapses from unstable power feed in. Also consumer electricity prices had been skyrocketing.
Citizens groups increasing their protests.
There has also been growing protests against wind parks by citizens groups. Angela Merkel’s campaign stops are increasingly being met in part by wind energy protesters. Yesterday in Brandenburg Merkel was met again by wind energy protesters, who however were over-shadowed by a raucous 1500-strong crowd of right-wing protesters shouting “Merkel must go!”
Despite the loud protests, Merkel’s party remains poised to win the coming late-September national election handily, as she and her party lead the rival SPD socialist party, led by Martin Schulz, by double digits.
Wind energy, once greeted with open-arms a decade ago, is now increasingly unwelcome and getting the door slammed in its face.
Comeback coal
Yesterday at the East German Energy Forum in Leipzig, both the centrist CDU and the SPD socialists were in agreement: brown coal (lignite) must remain a part of Germany’s energy mix, the online Lausitzer Rundschau writes. Speaking before 400 industry representatives, Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke (SPD) complained that green energies are foremost “unreliable energy sources“.
“More realism”
Saxony Anhalt Minister President Reiner Haseloff (CDU) called for more realism, saying that “brown coal belonged to east Germany until 2050″.
Saxony Minister President Stanislaw Tillich (CDU) called the European Commissions limit values for CO2 emissions “as going beyond the technical possibilities“.
What does this all tell us? Despite all the hype over green energies in Germany, the general sentiment and movement in the country show a very different picture.
When the wind doesn’t blow, that sucks...
“Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).”
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster/
Stupid is supposed to hurt.
The article is from 2010...a little old.
I think her policy is no nukes, no fracking..and everyone rides a bike.
Sorry. I was wrong. The article linked in a comment was from 2010, not yours.
True, but I believe it’s more, “When government funds (subsidies) don’t flow, that sucks.”
None of these concerns can stand on their own, if I understand correctly.
If they can’t, then they aren’t viable and don’t deserve to continue to exist.
Blow, Angela, blow!
Handelsblatt: the sound made when a large insect strikes the window of a BMW.
So, the unstable variability of wind supplied electricity is not the real culprit. It was the existing transmission grid that wasn't upgraded properly.
Anyone with half a brain would realize that ANY idiot scheme can be made to look like a "good investment" as long as there are enough public funds backing the venture with subsidies.
1. People don’t like living near wind farms.
2. Wind farms cause grid instability.
3. Electric rates have been skyrocketing due to the subsidies.
What could go wrong?
And the article left out the slaughter of both birds and bats, something the environmentalists seem to overlook when it comes to their favorite power source, just as they overlook the direct harm done to people who have to live with their policy idiocy.
Meanwhile, Texas generates 21,044 MW or slightly less than half the Texas 44,470 megawatts wind generated annually in Germany
Germany should temporarily move all their windfarms to Montserrat and Saint Barthelemy. In about two days from now they will have collected enough wind energy (according to the weather forecasters screaming about a cat-9, or is it cat-99, Irma) to last for the next century.
Als, windmills add to global warming. Ever seen infrared images of the wind trail from a large windmill. When you create energy, you generate heat, that heat goes into the atmosphere.
What's that equal to, about 40 natgas plants?
[The problem, Blanco says, is that worldwide green energy subsidies are being capped and wind parks as a result are no longer looking profitable to investors.]
The problem from day one. Propped up on the backs of taxpayers.
...and speaking of policy idiocy, we haven’t talked yet about the west burning up enough forest, and might I had carbon sink, to supply logs for log homes enough for a significant percentage of the population. Federal forest policy and the millions of acres the forest service, and BLM are tasked to care for are in very very poor hands, with the American people as usual, carrying the burden of those poor policies.
Those lands need to be in State hands where hopefully they will be cared for with a bit more appreciation.
and when it does blow, it sucks even more.
“is that worldwide green energy subsidies are being capped and wind parks as a result are no longer looking profitable to investors”
That just Blows-me-away! I wonder if Trump’s dropping the
Paris Accord agreement had any kind of result? Maybe?
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