Germany’s Green New Deal Debacle

Written by Jack Dini on December 17, 2020. Posted in Current News

Renewable zealots tout Germany as the benchmark for the inevitable transition to wind and solar, but its energy system is a complete debacle.

Germany’s so-called Energiewende (energy transition) has turned into a power pricing and supply calamity.  The goal of Energiewende is to make Germany independent of fossil fuels. But it hasn’t worked out. The 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million PV systems provide only 3.1% of Germany’s energy needs and have cost well over 100 billion Euros so far and likely another 450 billion Euros over the next two decades. (1)

Germany’s vision of a clean, environmentally friendly energy supply system, all to be discreetly nestled in an idyllic landscape, is in reality morphing into an environmental dystopia of catastrophic proportions.  (2)

The German state of Hesse’s largest contiguous forest area will become a wind industry area if profit seeking planners get their way. The place is known as the ‘treasure house of European forests’ or ‘Grimm’s fairy tale forest.’ Twenty million square meters of 1000-year the old ‘fairy tale’ forest will be designated as an industrial wind park zone. Approval procedure in final phase. The 1000 year old ‘fairy tale’ forest is slated to be industrialized for ‘green’ energy.  (3)

The first 20 wind turbines of unprecedented size are planed, the approval procedure is in the its final phase. And that would only be the beginning. A total of more than 60 of these gigantic wind turbines could be built on 7 large areas.

Concurrently, pressured by climate activism, power generator Vattenfall announced it will shut down its recently commissioned modern Moorburg coal power plant in Hamburg, Germany.  The plant was commissioned in 2015 and is still considered as brand new on a power plant scale. It came with a 3 billion euro price tag and was scheduled to run until 2038. The power plant plays an important role in the power supply in northern Germany, in Hamburg and the surrounding area with its port, metal operations and Airbus.

With Moorburg’s rated capacity of 1.65 GW, it will take over 1600 wind turbines with a rated capacity of 5MW (operating at 20%) to replace the power plant. That could mean a profound impact on forests and landscapes in Germany if they have to be cleared for more wind parks. (4)

The goals of the German transition to green energies are simple in terms of energy policy:

1. phase-out nuclear energy by 2022
2. phase-out coal by 2035
3. phase-out oil and gas in parallel and completely by 2050

The energy needed for electricity, heat, mobility and industrial processes in climate neutral Germany will then have to be supplied by wind and solar energy and a few percent by hydropower and biomass. This is at least

according to the plans of the German government, which are supported by all major social players.

To meet all requirements, two-thirds of Germany would need to be outfitted with 200 meter tall rotating wind turbines at a distance of 1000m, no matter if there is a city, a river or a highway, a forest, a lake or a nature reserve.

Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt says the German transformation to green energies will fail due to wind power. (5)

A paper by Swiss researchers further intensifies doubt, finding that solar power remains an inefficient way to produce energy in most cases. It’s beginning to appear that Europe has wasted tens of billions of euros in a mass energy folly. (6)

From today’s point of view, one has to expect a tenfold higher electricity price. Any person can imagine the consequences for jobs and prosperity.  (5)

Not only has electricity gotten expensive in these countries, but the supply is highly unreliable. Germany’s massive 110 GW of installed sun and wind produced next to nothing over a period of five days early in November 2020, not even close to meeting the country’s demand. (7)

In 2017 German families and businesses were pummeled by 172,000 localized blackouts. In 2019, some 350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their power bills. In Britain, millions of elderly people had to choose between heating and eating decent food; many spent their days in libraries to keep warm and more than 3,000 die every year because they cannot heat their homes properly, making them more likely to succumb to respiratory, heart, flu, or other diseases. (8)

Last year, Germany was forced to acknowledge that it had to delay its phase out of coal, and would not meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction commitments.  (9)

Today the German Energiewende energy policy finds itself stalled and floundering. Germany’s carbon emissions have stagnated at roughly their 2009 level. The country remains Europe’s largest producer and burner of coal. Moreover, emissions in the transportation sector have shot up by 20 percent since 1995 and are rising with no end in sight, experts say.  (10)

A final note on Energiewende: Joanne Nova reports, “Compare the outrage: Germany abandons carbon target, but stays in Paris agreement. US abandons Paris but makes actual carbon cuts. One of these nations is a global pariah. Which is more important, paper promises you don’t keep or lower outputs of planet destroying gas?”  (11)

References

1. “Germany’s renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big expensive failure,” energyskeptic.com, July 20, 2019
2. P. Gosselin, “Germany’s enviro-dystopia: wind parks devastating rural regions at catastrophic proportions,” notrickszone.com, December 1, 2020
3. P. Gosselin, “Environment of dystopia: Germany plans to wipe put 20 million square meters of 1000-year old forest, for wind parks,” notrickszone.com, December 8, 2020
4. P. Gosselin, “Energy masterminds announce latest folly: shutdown of modern coal power plant commissioned just 5 years ago,” notrickszone.com, December 11, 2020
5. Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, “The German transformation to green energies will fail due to wind power,” kaltesonne.de, November 14, 2020
6. Ferruccio Ferroni and Robert J. Hopkirk, “Energy return on energy invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation,” Energy Policy, 94, 336, July 2016
7. P. Gosselin, “Unreliable, most expensive: green energies make Germany’s electricity prices highest in Europe,”notrickszone.com, November 28, 2020
8. Paul Driessen, “How exactly to they plan to replace fossil fuels?,”wattsupwiththat.com, March 16, 2020
9. Tom Finnerty, “The false promise of affordable green energy,” principia-scientific.com, November 14, 2020
10. Paul Hockenos, “Carbon crossroads: can Germany revive its stalled energy transition?”, e350.yale.edu, December 13, 2018
11. Joanne Nova, “Germany drops carbon target,” joannenova.com.au, January 12, 2018

About the author: Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has written for The American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, Hawaii Reporter and Canada Free Press.

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