Reposted from The NoTricksZone
By P Gosselin on 7. April 2021Share this…
Looming “massive power outage”?
Another signal that the German Energiewende (transition to green energies) is not working out are actions and comments recently coming from the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, as reported 2 days ago in a newspaper: (Hat-tip: Misaki – im Widerstand)
“Emergency plan for the food supply. Berlin. The Federal Government and the states have agreed on an emergency plan for securing the food supply, according to information from Federal agriculture Minister Julai Klöckner (CDU). as an example for a supply crisis she named a ‘massive power outage”, she told in an interview with this newspaper.”
Germans scale back on wind energy
The German government loves to talk about the importance of green energies, but when it comes to their expansion, it is in fact doing the opposite: Old wind turbines are being removed without being replaced by new generation turbines.
Perhaps it’s beginning dawn on the German government that especially wind and solar energy just aren’t working out, and so they have massively scaled back subsidies with the aim of scaling them back.
More and more old wind turbines coming off the grid
At the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) Andreas Demmig writes about a recent report on wind energy appearing on NDR German public television: “New energy act: More and more wind turbines going off the grid”.
NDR featured the dismantling of three wind turbines in Altenstedt (Lower Saxony) after having been in operation for 20 years. “They are no longer profitable to operate” after the expiry of the 2o years of guaranteed feed-in tariffs to their operators.
No longer economical without the subsidy
The three wind turbines together generated 2 million kWh of electricity annually, meaning 666,666 kWh/ turbine per year. But now that the subsidies have ended, owner Horst Mengels explains he can no longer operate the turbines economically at electricity market prices of less than three, sometimes even one cent. Menawhile private consumers of electricity now have to pay 30 cents and more for a kWh. Repair and maintenance of the turbines are no longer possible at the low market prices.
“Gravedigger of the Energiewende”
Mr Mengels has built 99 wind turbines, the last one in 2020. Last year he hoped for a satisfactory decision from politicians on how to proceed with the old turbines, but in disappointment: “Politics is completely despondent, hesitant and dithering. Economics Minister Altmeier is the gravedigger of the energy transition.”
Scalebacks as electricity demand rises
For the proponents of green energies, Germany’s retreat is baffling in the least. Veronika Grimm, Energy Transition Commission of the Federal Government is convinced that, contrary to the opinion of the Federal Government, electricity consumption is not declining. It estimates that in this decade electricity demand will increase by up to 30% – through electromobility, heating with electricity and heat pumps, the hydrogen strategy.
More coming offline than what is being added
Last year, only 200 new wind turbines were built. At the current rate, more turbine capacity will be coming offline than what is being added.
Prof. Volker Quaschning, expert on green energies, says that the dismantling of wind (and PV) plants, spurred on by the expiry of subsidies, sets back the energy turnaround by years. “If you look back, 20 years ago more was built than what we see today. There is a danger that at some point we will end up with zero new construction, or even a net reduction. – Then we won’t need to talk about climate protection in Germany any more.”
16 GW coming offline
The NDR reports that in the coming years, 16 GW of wind power will be removed from the subsidy system. Almost two-thirds of this may not be replaced by new, more powerful ones.
As far as Altenstedt goes, where the three featured turbines are being dismantled, the NDR reports: “No more wind turbines may be built in Altenstedt, there are no more planning permits. The energy transition is now history here.
The remaining infrastructure: transmission lines, access roads, transformers etc. are available and are now no longer being used. In Altenstedt they will probably become the first relics of a past idea that went sour.
NDR summarizes: “The consumer has paid around 30 billion euros a year in feed-in tariffs. […] a lot of money for an instrument that fails to deliver”.
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A monorail that’s what is needed, a monorail I say!
Monorail, Monorail!
At least they take them down. Is there some sort of restoration bond in Germany that discourages abandonment?
The innocentive.com organisation had a project last year to the effect of proposing environmentally kosher methods to recycle materials of windmills. My guess is the steel goes back to Krupp and the blades to landfill.
From the above article: Horst Mengels stated, in disappointment, “Politics is completely despondent, hesitant and dithering. Economics Minister Altmeier is the gravedigger of the energy transition.”
Well, he certainly had a different position as long as he was receiving the full government subsidies for ALL of his 99 wind turbines as part of “the energy transition”.
We have reached “Peak Griff”.
Meanwhile, while Germany was subsidizing all those wind turbines, they were shutting down nuclear power plants, which also do not emit CO2. If there is a power shortage due to increasing demand and decreasing supply of wind power, will they restart the nuclear plants or have to build new ones?
Neighboring France to the west produces about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power plants, with most of the rest from hydroelectric plants near dams in the Pyrenees and Alps. Will Germany be forced to buy electric power from France? The French will certainly sell it to them, if the price is right! Besides, the spent fuel from French nuclear plants is buried in Germany!
A quick pass through the thread and not a peep from griff. Rather telling, even its staunchest defenders stand silent, if only they had shame for their blatant lies.
“Economics Minister Altmeier is the gravedigger of the energy transition.”
This by a crony capitalist who own the mills that aren’t economic without a huge subsidy that has tripled German consumer electricity costs. The grave is for this fellow’s gravy boat.
I’ve noted in the past that those ‘experts’ with jobs, PhDs and silly titles heading up the faculties, institutes and gov departments of “Saving the Planet” will one day come to see that their legacies are a cruel joke, that they were shallow, elevated high above their intellectual capacities and were just a terrible drain on the wellbeing of their fellow humanity. Gee, dad, what did you do back in those silly days?
The fallout psychologically will be pandemic. The Climate Blues caused by ‘The Dreaded Pause’ is only a small foreshadowing. And what of Western Universities (I’ve been scoping out Japanese, Indian and other alternatives outside the corrupted university calamity of the West for my grandchildren)?
Perfect answer to a perfect example of wrong planning …” der wind ausfahrt” (wind exit) – translated – the answer my friend is blowing in the wind.(Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, your choice).
Only one thing better than tilting at windmills:
And that is tearing them down.
Somehow, the Etta James song comes to mind:
“At Last”.
Bob,
Maybe some of the towers can be converted to raptor nesting sites to try and restore the birds most often killed by the bird choppers: our beautiful hawks and eagles!
Can’t wait to see Wind Farms on “Mysteries of the Abandoned”.
So not “coming off line” but losing subsidy status. NOT the same thing.
The heading is written as a current factual event. The rest of the explanation shows that it is another of those “trends” projected forward to a hypothetical future which is then presented as happening now. Where have we seen that kind of tactic before.
The developments are interesting but I do not trust this misleading source for a minute. He is spinning to fit his own narrative totally distorting the facts.
BTW it’s Altenstadt not Altenstedt
You may use your search engine to find out, for how many mills the demolition began and is on the way.
Of course this will be absent from the MSM. Wouldn’t want people to get the wrong ideas from the truth.
I didn’t see any comments from Griff. Maybe he fell out of his chair after reading the title of the article.
Those are used up subsidies littering the ground. It is the ratepayers that are still up there on the hook.
Who pays for dismantle, transport, and final disposal?
Who pays for for dismantling and final disposal of nuclear plants and their heavily contaminated waste?
In Germany, we are prepared for costs around 170 billion €, for only 19 reactors… and that is still an underestimate of what really expects us.
In France, only 30 % of that sum are planned for… 57 reactors.
J.-P. D.
For disposal of reactors that are still functional, taken offline for political reasons.
I guess you can say the same for the windmills, but the political reason is lack of subsidies.
Now, why do you need to tear down the reactor containment structures? Just secure in place. But the greens will find a much more expensive and less safe way to do it.
As to the waste, do as the French and reprocess and reuse it.
By “dismantled” did they mean also digging up and busting up the massive concrete foundations?
Charles Rotter can tell us here all what he wants.
I look at how numbers really develop over the years, and not at little peaks and downs in between.
I look at Wikipedia
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windenergie#Statistik
and at some other sites (government, wind enegy industry, etc).
Here is a small table showing the situation as it is since 2013:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YB3u7IjgR0WKkgemZjZpSpmZzCEKPQ7k/view
On column 2, BEC is the gross electricity consumption in Germany.
Columns 3-6 show installed power, generated energy, share of gross electricity consumption and the number of installed, active units for onshore; colums 7-10 show the same for offshore.
Here is the net electricity production in Germany for 2020 (i.e. without the respective internal consumption):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o5d_hYdmMCBcoiTJV_t5nE9ad21cAfxk/view
In about 3 months, the same stat will be produced for Jan-Jun 2021, and we’ll see how it looks.
To be honest, I don’t feel the need to convince anybody here.
Who doesn’t believe me, doesn’t believe me. So what!
J.-P. D.
Griff in a more intellectual mode… 😀
Tja. Man tut, was man kann.
J.-P. D.
Wind is pretty much a non-entity when it comes to energy consumption in Germany
Oooh!
WUWT’s most aggressive poster is here again, and.. as usual, is completely wrong.
fred250, you should stop your ridiculous ankle biting, and try to think before you write.
One more time, you did not grasp that we are not discussing total primary energy consumption, but… that used in producing electricity.
And whether you want or not, my graph is the correct one, because it shows the ratios of various primary energies used for electricity production:
https://postimg.cc/F7gxfz4h
And I repeat: I’m not interested in small ups and downs, but in continuous information:
https://postimg.cc/ZB2wLM7Z
J.-P. D.
But it doesn’t include all generation nor does it include energy from other countries …… does it? These days it’s hard to glean anything from charts about energy in the EU. It’s like what is done in California and supported by the media. Don’t lie, just leave out the whole truth. Selective reporting.
ROFLMAO. Facing REALITY isn’t your strong suit is it..
Holding RUBBISH is what bin-liners are for..
So you think a variable amount of highly erratic wind in the electrical sector, when its only 4% of the total energy use, actually means something
Yes it does.. It means the MOST EXPENSIVE ELECTRICITY in the world.
For CO2 reduction it means NADA..
Germany still RELIES MAINLY ON FOSSIL FUELS.
Wind is just a pittance, a MEASLY 4%, yet still destroying the economy.
.
Yep, because the REALITY of total primary energy use shows up the UTTER POINTLESS WASTE OF MONEY on wind turbines
You really can’t cope with that basic idea, can you, muppet waiting for a hand-up.
RUN AWAY from the facts. !!
Hide in your bin.
.
Good think, hey, because you have definitely FAILED, as always.
Back to your job as a bin-liner. !
“I don’t feel the need to convince anybody here” And yet you keep posting. For someone who keeps saying you don’t care you care an awful lot.
…666,666 kWh/ turbine per year.
wind turbines with biblical satanic power!
RelPerm
Yeah. Polemic is always simpler than seeking for valuable info.
At the other end of your nice calculation example you see the little Alpha Ventus offshore wind park (only 12 units with today ridiculous 5 MW each).
Since 2010, it continuously produces on average 210 GWh per year, i.e. 17.5 GWh per unit per year. That is a load factor of 0.4. Most energy is produced during fall and winter.
The reason why there is so few of that is that we have a conservative government, and a very powerful electricity production industry.
For now over 10 years, this industry has been fighting with all available political means against high-voltage lines that connect the North Sea with German industry in the south.
*
Personally I have nothing against highly modern gas plants, but not very surprisingly, the industry shot many of them down years ago, because the stoopid coal is cheaper…
J.-P. D.
.
You mean like the FACT that wind only produces a MEASLY 4% of Germany’s energy usage !
.
What.. even when the wind wasn’t blowing
You are LYING bin-liner. !!
Let’s see how German wind “suppLIED” in 2015/16
Percentage of name plate was less than 20% for 60% of the time.
That is NOT continuous.. it is a FARCE. !
It’s ironic that South Australia, which was heavily settled by Germans, and Germany, which was even more heavily settled by Germans, have both fallen into the wind power trap. Must be in the genes.
Of course, this doesn’t explain all the other countries and states that have experienced similar problems. Was Texas heavily settled by Germans?
Whats about California ? 😀
I think the common denominator is that all these groups of people have been brainwashed by the Western world’s Leftwing Media into believing things that are not true.
re: “Was Texas heavily settled by Germans?”
Ever heard of Wurstfest?
It’s held yearly in -wait for it- New Braunfels, Texas.
https://wurstfest.com/photos/
Lots of German and Czech settlers.
On top of that there’s this:
Germany was relying on NordStream 2 for electrons and obtaining an industrial and economic edge, and is happy to sell-out eastern and Nordic European security to get that. Looks like they’ll be getting US Sanctions and European boycotts instead, and that will trigger a collapse in the EU Commission, plus major NATO reforms.
This will also prompt Biden to continue with the plans to redeploy American forces out of Germany to more committed eastern and southern allies in Europe as quickly as possible. Which means Germany will lose that economic support, and will actually have to pay for its own defense from here as well. And Germany will in fact need to be much more concerned about EU strategic security issues. They will actually need to consider what Eastern Europe thinks of Germany because German EU influence and diplomatic cred is headed for a massive downgrade as the amazing mess that Merkel has created, for Germany, and for wider Europe, more fully blooms from here.
Scarce electrons and high prices will just be part of their looming major challenges. The post-cold-war days in the EU lime-light are very much over now.
Virtue-signal that.
“Scarce electrons and high prices will just be part of their looming major challenges. The post-cold-war days in the EU lime-light are very much over now.”
Nice article on The Marshall Plan, which helped Europe, especially Germany, to become the EU it is today. It was written before the Euro was instituted. The benefits of the Marshall Plan and the defeat of the USSR have run out and now the EU is standing on its own, or not.
https://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/Marshall_Plan_1947-1997_A_German_View.pdf
Why have the DemoKKKrats been so intent on driving Putin into an alliance with China? The CCP is by far the most dangerous, criminal organization in the world; they must have a lot of dirt on many besides Swalwell!
There’s not much difference between the criminal enterprise running China and the criminal enterprise running Russia. Both groups are just a bunch of murderous gangsters.
The United States currently has a criminal enterprise running it, too, The Biden Administration/Clinton-Obama Swamp.
The only difference is this criminal enterprise has not gone to the extreme of locking political opponents up or eliminating them outright, yet. They don’t quite have total power yet. God only knows what they would do if they got it. It wouldn’t be pleasant for their political opponents.
Red States would not take it lying down, though.
Putin uses energy as a military weapon. Just ask some of his customers. Germany will end up finding out the hard way, unless they capitulate to Putin’s wishes.
John Solomon has a good book out about Putin and his machinations: “Nuclear Bribes,Russian Spys, and the Washington lies that enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasities”
€30B would buy a lot of coal fired energy every year….
What would be helpful to understand the implications of what is occurring by not replacing the three (3) turbines, is
1 – What is the national current population of generation.
2 – What is its gross productive output capacity.
3 – What number of units and capacity is already in the pipeline for planting new capacity
4 – What is the replacement policy for all other other regions.
When does the rising curve of production reach a peak and start declining ?
This would be interesting
Here they want to build 1000 wind turbines
https://notrickszone.com/2021/04/10/climate-insanity-german-greens-conservatives-push-for-100s-of-wind-turbines-in-black-forest/
About 20 years ago I asked the investor relations guy for a large German power company why they were so bullish on wind power. His response:
The German mess is like a melon patch – a mix of green on the outside, red on the inside watermelon-activists, and green on the outside, gold on the inside honeydew-crony-capitalists.