Germany’s coalition agreement and the 2% target for wind energy
By Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(Text translated/edited by P. Gosselin)
After the phase-out of nuclear energy at the end of 2023, the coalition agreement aims to bring forward the phase-out of coal, “Ideally, this already would be achieved by 2030“.
To this end, renewable energies are to take over 80% of electricity generation, which is to increase from 600 TWh (terawatt hours) today to 680-750 TWh (p.56). While concrete generation targets are named for solar energy (quadrupling of today’s capacity to 200 GW) and for off-shore wind energy (also quadrupling to 30 GW), the agreement only speaks of a target for on-shore wind energy of a land take of 2% of the country’s surface area.
If we were to talk about an increase of 30,000 turbines – and this can be assumed if the area doubles from today’s 0.9% of the land area – this would not go down so well in the countryside.
But is the 2% area really accurate? It is just as inaccurate as the figure of 0.9% for today’s land area. This is because the area figures refer in each case to the narrowly defined area covered by the B-Plan. The necessary distances to residential buildings are not included in this area figure. The 0.9% corresponds to 3100 km² today (source: Federal Environment Agency and Competence Centre for Nature Conservation and Energy Transition).
“1,325 square kilometres and thus approximately 42 percent of the areas considered – taking into account the existing installations as of the cut-off date December 31, 2017 – are free for the installation of wind turbines.” This means that there were 28,500 turbines on 1800 km² in 2017 (today there are 30,000 turbines). This is, as I said, the area of the B-plans. This area does not include the necessary distance to residential buildings, which, however, must be covered by planning.
If you divide the number of turbines (28,500) by the area (1800 km²), there are 16 turbines/km², i.e. an average of 62,500 m² per turbine or 250 m by 250 m. This shows that the necessary distance to residential buildings is not sufficient.
6 times the area
If we calculate an average size of 5 turbines per wind farm, the wind farm would cover an average area of 176,000 m² (420 m x 420 m with 4 wind turbines at the edges and 1 in the middle) without distance areas (at a distance of 300 m between the turbines). With a distance of 600 m (which is already questionable from the point of view of emission protection) to the nearest residential area, the park requires an area of 1020 m x 1020 m = 1.04 km². This is six times the area of the B-Plan area, which is merely nestled around the plant configuration.
Even if one takes into account that today 5% of the turbines are located in the forest (where there are no distance restrictions) and in the future perhaps 20% will be built in the forest, the area required would only be reduced to five times the B-Plan area.
In other words, those who demand 2% of the land area with B-plans for wind power plants actually need 10% of the land area.
Now it will be conceded that the size and height of turbines will increase significantly, so that we can expect less than 30,000 turbines. That is correct. But the land consumption will remain in the same order of magnitude, because larger turbines also need a greater distance between each other (5 times the rotor diameter, at 120 m that is 600 m distance).
Moreover, they need a distance of at least 1000 m from residential areas. The output increases, but so does the land consumption. The fact that a multiplication of wind energy does not result in a guaranteed output does not need to be mentioned again here.
Even the windy November showed that wind energy production was often enough close to zero to 5000 MW, and thus less than 10% of the possible output of 60,000 MW. And 3 times zero is zero.
Source: Rolf Schuster.
OMG !!!
Was schiefgehen könnte?
Isn’t that German for…”Now your really screwed”?
Machine translation (I assume) of “what could go wrong”. A German would probably say “Was kann da schon schiefgehen?”
Alternative German phrase for this: “Wir gefickt.”
Per the above article: maybe 10% of Germany’s land for this future boondoggle.
Left unmentioned: maybe 30% of its GDP spent annually on wind farms for the next 10 years to reach their goal of achieving unreliable wind power dependence.
It’s the cost of virtue signaling at a national level, don’t cha know?
These people should be declared mentally incapable to be in public office.
It is wilful aim to cause illness and death to institute ridiculous policies like this.
Seems to be a choice between being ruled by tyrants who seek power for its own sake and will do anything to keep it, or Democracy in which idiots periodically take power and ruin everything.
The democratic/dictatorial duality.
Does the German law require the turbines to be tsunami-proof?
It remains incomprehensible to this old, experienced scientist why Germany, with its reputation for good technology, is going down this path to madness.
No nukes, for reasons of superstition and undeserved fear.
No coal, because the Potsdam Institute classed it as a demon. More superstition.
But, for a fair part of the last 100 years, Germany has been an international troublemaker. Ordinary German people go weak at the knees, like a chook staring down a snake. Surely it is time for the folk to tell their twisted politicians to resign. Or is the excuse “We were just obeying orders” going to be used again, despite the fearful trouble it has caused over the decades? Geoff S
Geoff
10% not enough, and there isn’t that much free land available, so I suspect it is a bit of ruse (not to say Russ). Neighbouring Poland has available as much as they require, so why not help themselves. Putin would love a bit of it too, he might even sign a treaty. it has been done before, move along, nothing new here./sarc
Lebensraum!
Pick your choice:
A. “Practice makes it perfect”
or
B. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Because more CO2 in the atmosphere really is changing the climate and that really is a problem: the Germans accept the science on that.
Science 🤓
Renewables=Gullibles
Unreliables.
Yep, that extra CO2 is greening the planet, increasing agricultural productivity, and reducing the severity of droughts. Well done Griff!
That extra CO2 from the ocean out gassing as the Earth recovers from the LIA.
good morning Griffo,
Thanks for a laugh among all this gloom.
Wrong as usual, griffter…….the windmills of your mind keep you in perpetual confusion.
Perhaps the perpetual breeze required for maintained operation has Griff’s neuron addled
🤣
Please show proof that CO2 has caused any significant warming.
He’s heard it said on TV, therefore it must be true.
It says so on the Internet so it must be true
Also The Guardian, NYT, WaPo, etc. It’s everywhere.
That’s an 8.5 on the GuffawOmeter
Griffawometer
An RCP8.5 in fact.
Griffy: Find a new song to sing. Yours is getting old…
“Because more CO2 in the atmosphere really is changing the climate and that really is a problem”
Griff says, with absolutely no evidence to back up his claim.
Models are not science.
I’m still waiting for you to produce any evidence that the weather has changed. Weather events that have been happening since before records were kept, is not change.
Is that what Fauci says? After all, he is Science.
How dare Fauci – Mann is Science!
Fauci is The Man.
Fauci or FauXi?
fauci is a crook
he gets rich from patents
he should know that he is conflicted
trump certainly did
but dudders biden has no brain cells to kick him out
Griff, why have worldwide temperatures not increased significantly in the 21st Century while atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have increased significantly? Who do you believe, politicians or your lying eyes?
Come now, Griff doesn’t look at real data.
Suppose we accept that its a problem. The question to ask is, if the Germans accept this, what they are doing about it?
And the answer is nothing useful. They are resorting to unreliable or intermittent technologies for electricity generation which won’t actually reduce their emissions significantly. Won’t reduce them because of the need for standby generation to bail them out after dark or in calms.
But even if you accept there is a problem, and even if you think what they are doing will reduce their emissions, what they are doing is still not a contribution to solving it, because nothing they or the West does in the way of reductions is going to put a dent in what China and India are doing.
Griff position makes no sense. Suppose the Germans are convinced that global CO2 emissions are a problem. They should then accept the obvious fact that there is nothing they can do to lower them. And then start thinking about what they can do to safeguard their population from whatever effects they expect.
Neither the Germans nor Griff nor any other of the climate hysterics seem capable of reasoning logically about this, but just keep advocating doing things which, if what they claim to believe is true, will have no effect. In fact, they will actually make things worse, because they are a diversion of funds and effort.
This insistence on doing things which make no sense are what has persuaded me as much as anything that we are dealing with an obsessive religious cult. Its reduce at all costs, for its own sake. It is demanding measures which make no sense in terms of what they claim to believe.
Well if they really believed CO2-has-the-cooties, then would at least be trying to do ocean fertilization, at least in some small part. But that was rejected right from the beginning, maybe big green couldn’t make any money from it, or it might work so well that people could have a life and enjoy it too.
I think eventually ‘they’ will figure out a way to ban carbon capture, but I don’t think it will ever be cheap enough to be a threat to big green.
As i said to some twenty something German backpackers 18 months ago, the whole purpose of these policys in the West and in Germany is to collapse the German economy and recreate the great depression, the socialists are ready and p;rimed to take over
CO2 is just trying to get back to the 1000-2000 ppm level that plants have enjoyed for the past 1/2 BILLION years. The whole biosphere is starving, stop being so selfish! How dare you!
I’m pro photosynthesis, till death!
HaHa oh ok wait…hahahah
And your evidence for this is?
science is a fact based evaluation of observation
not a bunch of IT / social science idiots creating computer models which don’t have reality to the facts
but dont worry these IT / social science idiots then apply AI to correct any erroneous raw data to fit their models
Really, hmmm.
Q.At what atmospheric concentration of Co2 does it produce its greatest warming effect ?
Q. Is that effect logarithmic or linear ?
Q. With every doubling of atmospheric Co2 is the additional warming produced larger or smaller ?
Q.What is the highest known atmospheric Co2 level in the last 11000 years and how do we know that ?
WTF?
At least the Germans love to manage their forests so that biomass makes up 9.4% of its electric power. And with a free by-product of plant food!
If they expand the wind farms into more of the forest, the forest will become easier to manage because it won’t be there anymore. That, and the people harvesting wood to heat there homes due to the high electricity costs…
Some forests in Germany have been managed for a thousand years. The first “professional foresters” in America came from Germany in the late 19th century- hence a certain Prussian style in American forestry- which I’ve rebelled against since Nixon was in the White House. I used to be on the list serve for the Society of American Foresters- I used to joke about how the names of the top people in that organization- their names sounded like the generals of the Wehrmacht- many were German Americans from the midwest. When I joked about that- they showed a lack of humor. :-}
What exactly do you rebell against, don’t leave us hanging.
The forestry “main stream” loves large scale clear cutting. I don’t. They also tolerate “high grading”- that is, cutting the best and leaving the rest, common in northern hardwood forests. They make excuses for it. The USFS used to carry out multi thousand acre clearcuts- which is what got the enviros to hate them. They like big clear cuts because they’re easy to carry out. It was because of large scale clear cutting on state land here in MA, that the enviros got so pissed off they forced the shut down of all logging on state land for 5 years. I had warned the state foresters about this. And much more- I could write and probably will write a book the size of a James Michener novel about forestry in America as I’ve seen it for half a century.
Let me offer the following view.
When Stalin ordered the German Socialists under Soviet control to vote for Hitler in the election that brought him to power, he explained that strategy to the Politburo as….Our greatest enemy are the democratic capitalists, HE (Hitler) will socialize the country and make it easier for us when we take over.
THAT is precisely what happened, East Germany is more cynical about socialism because they lived under the Soviets for much longer than under the National Socialist German Workers Party, though on both sides of the old divide there is a political class which considers socialist policys to be natural and normal, the effect of Hitler and Stalin still runs deep.
Look at the Potsdam Institute and the left aligned global warming propaganda it spreads, what has changed since the Soviets gave up control in East Germany, old habits die hard.
Lets NOT forget that the E.U is a Socialist political project designed to destroy democracy in the long term and enforce an effective socialist dictatorship in the manner of the Fabian Socialists not by revoloution but by a long slow propagandising, rember that Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who played a significant role in creating the E.U was a very keen supporter of the NSDAP.
It is really remarkable the amount of similarities betwen the Greens and The National Socialist German Workers Party policys from the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Though there are those in East Germany who are horrified at what they correctly see as a long slow return to a socialist dictatorship.
As one said recently, If we had known how many communists there were in the West we would NEVER have reunified.
Put another way, REALITY does NOT matter, German society is primed to go the socialist route again and for the same reasons it is being remorslessly pushed in that direction by its political and business elite.
This is all about social conformity to socialist policys, and those who point out that the Emperor has NO clothes can expect to be ignored for now and possibly dealt with later as the project moves toward its final form.
Merkels family happily moved into Soviet East Germany, AND IT SHOWS, scratch her and the young pioneer is just under the skin.
It started with Gore, progressed to now Wealthy Greta Girl, and add Socialism and Plandemic to the pack, and we have a fully compliant and obtuse youth with their iPhones (robots) aka our future. The problem with younger people is they think in terms of emotions, not rationality.
The schools are producing them, thousands at a time. And how are we to stop it? In simple terms, we need a huge disaster to bring back our humanity. Politicians and youth alike.
Fear not, a huge disaster will soon be with us all.
I hope, with all my heart.
For some 20 years, I worked as a rehabber for wild birds of all species. I would say 90% are the direct result of human presence. For years on end, I would take in close to 1,000 birds per year, all at my personal expense, under gov permit. And it breaks my heart to know that our governments are playing us as fools and we have no solidarity.
Only one way to stop this and it’s through our youth, those with the energy to march in the streets. Print flyers and distribute at schools, colleges, and universities, set up a meeting date and place… to stop all this. It is the only way aka Youth Rebellion. That’s the one thing BLM/Antifa taught us.
There exist strong eco laws in Germany and EU, the Greens forced to introduce and establish.
These same Greens will now try to raid these laws for a better windmill building management.
Not exactly – the Realo’s (realistic) Greens are bucking. This could splinter not only that party, but the Coalition.
The greens, the environment, a stair joke
It seems like a stair joke. The Greens, a party that once gave birth to the issue of environmental protection in the first place, would like to grind environmental protection in the EU. It is difficult to imagine that other EU countries would support the Germans on this special path, but the EU standards are obviously a major annoyance for the Greens’ plans. One that you yourself have worked on for many years. Now the anti-globalization opponent and State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Sven Giegold, is campaigning to grind environmental protection so that Germany can continue on its way to even more wind power.
The Germany radio reported on the plans. They are nothing more than a declaration of war on the environment. The Greens do not like the fact that the EU regards the protection of individual specimens of a species as important. You would like to have a population analysis. This means that species can be killed or scared off if animals still survive somewhere else. The problem with the matter: It would have to be constantly counted and observed in order to know reliably. Everything else would only be estimates and they can be one way or the other. It is therefore with good reason that species affected by measures are protected on site.
We have often tried to compare the farmer who trades in his last cow in order to buy a new milking machine. It still remains correct. Who would have dreamed that the Greens of all people would dump environmental protection? The BUND, otherwise a stirrup holder of the wind power industry in the Giegold project, is apparently not quite comfortable either. The BUND chairman Olaf Brandt rowed back vigorously and criticized Giegold’s statements.
““ Sven Giegold defended bird protection and other nature protection directives in Europe together with us. He would do well to do the same in Germany in order to keep the coalition agreement. EU nature protection is not an obstacle to the energy transition. “
There is a link in that article showing the 180deg about-turn of the Greens since 1983 when they called for a NATO exit. Today exactly the opposite. So it is not just the environment. This phenomenon is obviously a tool.
BLM / Antifa also taught us water bottles filled with urine and frozen milkshake cartons to hurl at police and public.
What other instructive tactics have they bestowed upon us?
Mostly peaceful demonstrations.
Could push to make the turbines twice as tall, but the blades the same size, to help avoid birds and bats.
“youth with their iPhones”
The screen zombies
All people with humanity revile those who desire “a huge disaster”.
Maniacs wanting “a huge disaster” can reduce risk to others by inflicting complete disaster on themselves in a way that does not hurt others; e.g. by feeding themselves to pigs, or by jumping from a high cliff into the sea. There is no need for them to thank me for having provided this information because providing it has been a pleasure.
Richard
Odd how nominal climate skeptics begin to sound like Extinction Rebellion.
Even odder is how the Vaccine Rebellion looks just like XR!
This cultural madness overrides all rationality.
bonbon,
The problem is concern trolls and not “nominal climate skeptics”.
There could not be a more clear demonstration of concern trolling than the posting of abhorrent messages which are clearly attempting to discredit global warming skepticism.
Pretending that climate realists advocate “a huge disaster” is about as clear an example of concern trolling as is possible, and IMHO such disgraceful behaviour should always be reflected back at those who do it.
Richard
PS For any who do not know about concern trolls I provide this quotation from the Urban Dictionary: concern troll
Unless the assumptions, definitions and science are correct all these calculations are USELESS. The greens don’t bother with that. It’s the message that counts:- A very dangerous attitude.
No wind can’t be compensated by more mills.
Same for sun power. Or they want to use candles to shine on the panels.
All those windmills will use up so much wind that there won’t be enough to go around1
Correct.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210603171247.htm
Of course winds actual output is around 30% of its nominal maximum output.
ZFT: Zerstörung durch Fortschritte der Technologie.
Destruction Through Technological Progress.
I don’t see progress in windmills. More a step backwards to middle age technology in new, modern clothes.
You and I may not ‘see’, but they most certainly do.
I think ZFT sums it up nicely for them
It does 😀
But their sight of ZFT is given f.e. by nuclear power.
That’s a play on Audi’s motto. Normally great hardware, until they closed down their test track, used computer models and cool shapes with the Audi TT. Result ? It lifted off the road at 180kmh and pirouetted as engineers adamantly foretold. Solution ? Spoilers, and back to test tracks…
This is the Managerial culture in action. They will not listen to engineers. They seriously believe they have the control knobs, ingrained in management training. Exactly the same in France. This crowd grasps at the CO2 control knob, and the IPCC simply feeds their need.
Ah yes the rise of the MBA, a modern equivalent to the Reichskommissar.
“in the future perhaps 20% will be built in the forest,”
Will that be possible?
COP 26 declaration:
We therefore commit to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
We will strengthen our shared efforts to:
Conserve forests and other terrestrial ecosystems and accelerate their restoration;
Here in Massachusetts, the greens have been screaming for more “green” energy. When the first solar “farms” were built in low income rural areas, where they don’t live, they didn’t mind the solar “farms” being built on fields and forests. But now that they’re being built in THEIR communities, they don’t like it. Now they’re saying that the forests should be locked up to do nothing but sequester carbon. Regarding “promoting an inclusive rural transformation”- one way is to put the forests to work- growing trees for great, low carbon footprint, wood products of all sorts, including for energy. But it’s difficult to manage the forests if you have no market for the least valuable trees, such as for energy- but the greens won’t allow it.
Mass is one letter too many.
I just, for the 4th time in just over 3 years, drove through Mass. It is funny to see the occasional solar patch, SMALL compared to sites elsewhere in the US, and the occasional, usually singular, virtue signaling windmill with signage to tell you what town installed it, to insure they get their signaled virtue properly assigned.
It reminds me of MASS efforts, through Kennedy and their federal elected officials, to force the integration of southern schools and school districts. BIG push to use federal power on others.
But what happened when, much later, a federal judge ruled that Southie in south Boston would be required to integrate with the city core and end up with different races in the Southie schools? Riots by the same people who forced the same solution on others.
I was just with some liberals in Gardner’s Grove Ill, west of Chicago. They moved to this wealthy separate enclave when their kids got to school age to be ably to give them a high quality education without sending them to private schools.. Intentional self segregation. The separation by city boarders protecting them from the city center “scum”. Nice liberals they are.
Finally: I raised my kids in Clark County Nevada. At one time there were numerous separate school systems, one for each City, and one for the unincorporated County. In the 70s a federal judge created from whole cloth the Clark County School District combining ALL the seperate school systems of the separate legal entities into one. The CCSD is still under the court order, although the legislature has passed a law to decentralize the district allowing more local control, and due to the fluidity of the freedom of people to live where they wish, the schools are largely self integrated, so the “racial” component is essentially moot. But the judge STILL must sign off on anything the CCSD may do.
Oh how I wish those that voted for the policies for other areas of the country would have to live under their own dictates. I would love to see the busses taking tens of thousands of the “poor” from the northern inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Philly, Minneapolis, etc.,etc. to be dispersed into the surrounding suburbs. Boy would the liberals scream! Then they would vote for “school choice”, charter schools, etc.
If you get out to the more rural areas in MA, you’ll see bigger solar “farms”. They typical size is 10-20 acres but bigger ones are planned.
Wind energy is great, you can actually increase capacity and produce less than before, what’s not to like?
https://www.wind-energie.de
What if the wind isn’t blowing?
If you depend on windmills, and the wind isn’t blowing, then you are out of luck.
Germany wants to make itself dependent on windmills. German politicians are really stupid.
Yeah, and the belief that it doesn’t get cold in Russia.
Really Stupid. I’m all for having a mix of power sources, not all one’s eggs in one basket, even if they aren’t all the most cheapest available, but at least in the ballpark, not crap needing subsidies and then batteries or pumped storage just to make it usable.
NO they are NOT stupid, they are introducing the policys they have been given to introduce, the whole idea is a rerun of 1929, the deliberate collapse of the German economy and then (just as in 1933) the election of a socialist candidate put into place by German and international business, to nominally solve the Volks problems by the introduction of a new socialist dictatorship.
well, we can all pray to the wind Gods to blow harder
I have the perfect solution: wind generators (powered either by coal or invisible climate fairies, your choice).
Reality will rear its ugly head way before then. The consequences of energy madness won’t be pretty. The yellow vest movement will look like a party in comparison.
From the article: “And 3 times zero is zero.”
That’s one of the problems with windmills: It doesn’t matter how many windmills you build, if the wind doesn’t blow, none of them work.
Even worse, when the wind isn’t blowing, windmills consume power.
There’s also the problems about what to do when the wind is blowing strongly and the sun is shining and you suddenly have an enormous surplus on a summer Sunday. Looking at the German forecast of 750TWh/a, that’s an average of about 85GW, which probably includes a winter peak demand of 150GW+ (could be quite a lot + depending on how they heat their homes), and a minimum not much different to today’s 40GW or so. So when you have 160GW of solar output what are you going to do? It doesn’t make sense to arrange to store it all, since such a level will only occur a relatively few number of hours per year, and you have to have the capacity to transmit it and covert it to something storable which will only get utilised but rarely, and thus be uneconomic. Here’s a look at Spanish load duration curves for solar (German ones will be rather less good):
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/e5qft/1/
The consequence is more and more curtailment, which just raises costs.
As everywhere increases their windmill installed capacity, sooner or later there will come a time when no one can “dump” their excess generation to another country. Basically, everyone will have excess capacity. What happens then?
Time machines. Send the energy back in time to when it was needed more.
Wind is generating less than biomass in Germany as I type. It’s 5th behind biomass, coal, gas and nuclear. They are totally dependent on coal.
https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE
They are living in la-la land.
Tony Heller has a great video on the Alaskan Senator who wants wind energy:
Will the people of Germany accept it?
History would say yes, Joao. Germany has served as one of the world’s crash test dummies in the past, along with France, Russia, China, Cambodia, North Korea, Venezuela & etc. at various times. Western governments are working hard to serve as cautionary tales for the leading countries of the future. But what’s to worry about? The votes are in the here and now.
In most cases when you look you find the same economic interests at work.
This is yet another example of ” we know it doesn’t work and we will increase the ineffective option of wind turbines just to be sure”.
I’m interested in the featured image,
.
That scene looks like sunrise with the morning light burning off the dew that formed overnight in windless conditions. The mist looks like it’s not being blown away or mixing vertically much, the temperature inversion seems to barely reach the rotors. There could be a decent breeze above the inversion, but if there were, the rotors would be spinning and creating turbulence that would have broken up the inversion.
So, I conclude that the power being generated by all the turbines in that photo is zero watts.
Of course, each turbine needs power for its SCADA system, maybe pumps, RF links, aircraft warning lights (probably not much during the day). Let’s call it morning parasite mode. 🙂
There is an old idiom :
Jeden Moment geht’s los
It will start any moment now…
Ric, I had the same reaction when first seeing the photo.
Definitely a Dim Watted idea
When they turn they produce MegaWatts and when they stand still they produce NegaWatts
This should be expected and accepted!
After all, God asks for 10% (tithe), so in the name of their green god Gaia, we should give 10% of the land as well.
I didn’t realize so many people in Germany hate birds. I kind of understand the dislike of bats but birds?
I like having bats around when flying insect populations become a nuisance.
When I said I kind of understand the dislike of bats is due to them generally being creatures of the night with a less than appealing look to them. I greatly appreciate their role in nature too.
Ah but the more wind farms you have the fewer insects because they are great at killing flying insects as well as birds.
In Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger quotes a study by Dr Franz Trieb ‘Study Report: Interference of Flying Insects and Wind Parks’ Sept. 30th 2018
“Wind-rich migration trails used by insects for millions of years are increasingly seamed by wind farms……..rough but conservative estimate of the impact…….loss of about 1.2 trillion insects of different species per year” (page 195)
Flying insects are important for many reasons especially pollination.
And that’s just in Germany
Casting a glance down-under, when the Queen sacked Australia’s Prime Minister Whitlam in 1974, Australia became the worlds largest quarry.
Whitlam intended serious industrialization. How dare he!
Fast forward to 2004 – The Queen dubbed Potsdam Climate Institute chief Dr. John Schellnhuber a CBE – Commander of the British Empire (which of course does not exist).
Schellnhuber’s Great Transformation for Germany was obviously the plan to create the worlds largest Wind power Plantation.
The difference with Australia is Germany has a long history of serious industry. Building the Berlin-Baghdad Railway was the reason for WWI – how dare Germany not only industrialize, but spread this to Asia!
The international oligarchy with Davos faces, sees the world of plantations, quarries, a bit of industry. Any nation state which resists plantation-quarries faces regime change or outright war.
So it is no surprise to see nominal German Greens outing themselves as the war party, threatening especially China, which will soon surpass the USA economy as Elon Musk said very clearly last week.
During 1975 the Whitlam Labor Government of Australia signed the UN Lima Protocol Agreement to effectively handover manufacturing industry to developing nations, there was no referendum to ask the people, no opposition from the unions, and gradually de-industrialisation was implemented.
Various other UN treaties and agreements were signed, Australia is not the only member nation that signed up, treaties such as Agenda 21 -Sustainability resulting in locking up large areas of public lands as UN registered National Parks where no new dams are permitted, no logging, no exploitation of minerals and energy deposits, and regulations covering many other areas that are effectively economic vandalism, restrictions on economic prosperity.
Even as a “quarry” the rules and regulations are strict and coupled to Greens opposition to any development application, new coal mine projects for example have been held up in the courts for years.
The Whitlam Labor Government was far left leaning despite Whitlam QC appearing to be a conservative at first glance, his father in law certainly was, a Judge and member of The Australian Liberal Party. Whitlam’s inner circle of cabinet members including Rex Connor who was a communist and typical of the Labor left and their objective was to buy back mining businesses and create public assets of them. The motive was clearly demonstrated by the signing of the Lima Protocol.
When Whitlam threatened to buy out Rio Tinto, its largest shareholder, the Queen, had him sacked.
Wrong, the Queen played no part.
Commander of the British Empire (Empire changed to Commonwealth of Nations), noting that Australia consisted of British Empire colonies before Federation of States, is an ceremonial award and title from the Queen or Monarch and recipients are usually citizens of now Commonwealth countries and including Great Britain of course.
Like Knight of the British Empire (KBE).
Looks like Germany is in the Commonwealth in spite of Brexit. The Commonwealth’s wind plantation.
Get the facts right THE QUEEN, did NOT sack Whitlam, it was the G.G Sir John Kerr, Whitlams own choice.
The Queen did NOT make the decision, Whitlam could easily have gone to an election as requested, but he would not do so as HE KNEW the Labor party would lose in a landslide,
thereby trying to deny the Australian people their right to remove them in an election.
The result they were removed, an election was called and the Labor party lost in a landslide.
They had only themselves to blame.
Whitlam signed the Lima declaration, which was aimed at industrial and agricultural deindustrialization, this was vigorously implemented later by Hawke and Keating.
Say they actually do this does anyone think the ones who caused it and profited from this disaster will live there themselves?
You can’t fix stupid.
Yeah, but you can make it hurt.
I still can’t understand how cutting down trees and replacing them with solar farms or littering the landscape with giant wind turbines is good for the environment.
We had to destroy the environment in order to save it.
We had to destroy the nation to save the planet for a new socialist dictatorship.
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
Aside from grids with a generous provision of hydro or geothermal, I know of no grid that has attempted to rely on renewables for more than about 60-65% of their supply. There are very good reasons for that, illustrated in this chart. In the German context you might like to think of the “nuclear” as base load biomass. The demand here is about 300TWh/a, or a bit under half the German forecast. The “CCGT” element is dispatchable power required to balance wind generation. In essence, it has to be capable of meeting the entire difference between peak load and the baseload supply. It never goes away. Meanwhile, as maximum wind generation starts to exceed minimum demand, curtailment begins to rise. As you add wind capacity that rise becomes initially quadratic as the rate of curtailment of marginal additional generation rises linearly. When marginal curtailment reaches 50% essentially you are paying twice the price for marginal generation because half of it is curtailed. That’s usually reckoned to be about the limit of what makes economic sense. If you want to get to 80% zero carbon power, then 85%+ of marginal wind output is curtailed, making it 7 times as costly for the useful MWh. It’s crazy.
Bear in mind Germany is part of a European grid in which electricity is traded based on day ahead prices, set according to predicted renewable availability (accurately predicted I might add). Germany also has a large electricity export surplus… much of which may be produced by running its coal plant to provide export electricity when prices are high.
France will continue to have to dump nuclear electricity when French demand is low.
In short, look at the wider European picture
If a country has a large export surplus of a product and their citizens pay higher prices for that same product than anywhere else, they are doing many things wrong. It would be like the Saudis paying $10/gallon for gasoline.
Say it isn’t so Griff…
Your vaunted Germany is actually producing electricity using CO2 belching Coal Generators with the express intention of producing a profit? They’re Raping the environment for €€€ I mean REALLY
Electric Vehicles are mostly recharged from fossil fuelled power sources.
So are you saying Germany cheats the environment, selling wind power to other countries because of its ‘greeness’ while actually running the country on coal? And re: the other point you were trying to make, I’m wondering if every country in western Europe falling over itself to build wind turbines, who’s going to buy the surplus power? Europe’s not that big, seems like the whole area suffers from curtailment or lack of wind at the same time. Better to build out nuclear, does need batteries, steady reliable power, 2x as green as wind, 10x as solar – and that’s not counting the potential for overalls at the end of the reactors’ typical 30 yr life extending it another 30 years like what’s going on with the Ontario reactors.
Bear in mind that German wind output is highly correlated with it neighbours across Northern Europe, which means that interconnection cannot solve the problems of weather extremes.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6yqhP/2/
Griff ard we talking about the same Germany?
You know, the one in Europe next to France and Poland.
Wow. Ruling class.
Here’s a quick calculation of the area required for solar power bearing in mind the collection area is optimal for the purpose and you won’t manage that in wintery climes-
Fortescue and Alinta switch on Australia’s biggest solar farm outside of main grids | RenewEconomy
it has a solar capacity of 60MW in a grid with an average load of 90-100MW, which makes it unique in its influence in a grid of this size, Bryant says.
The solar farm consists of more than 160,000 panels and is located on 120 hectares of land on Nyiyaparli Country, and contract value of $4.7m was awarded to Indigenous owned enterprises, Alinta says.
That works out at 20 squ metres of terra firma required to produce a maximum 1kW of solar power costing $556USD per kW and as they point out-
The Chichester solar farm sets a number of interest landmarks. Apart from being the biggest solar farm outside of the country’s two main grids (in the eastern states and in W.A.), it also has the highest penetration of solar in a network of this size.
That’s pretty much the bare minimum required and it’s all uphill from there.
Which gets the cogs turning re the Tesla fans et al and what solar they require with this brave new world of theirs-
Tesla Model 3 range, battery & charging | DrivingElectric
So a Tesla charging at home could minimally require 7.4 x 20 =148 squ metres of Gaia?
But whilst taking up a minimum 13 squ metres of Australian Standard paved angle parking at a Supercharger whilst no doubt acknowledging the original custodians of the land-
Australian Standard AS/NZS 2890.1.2004, Parking Facilities – Part 1: Off-Street Car Parking, Standards Australia, 2004 (planning.vic.gov.au)
they could be requiring 170 x 20 = 3400 squ metres of Gaia.
And these are bare minimums!!! Forgive them Gaia as they know not what they do.
I note that this solar farm is in an area already served by cheap gas. Would be interesting to see the energy cost differences between the solar energy and the cheap gas energy.
How long till we have to go back to Germany and straighten them out again ?
talk about careening out of control into insano land.
if we install enough wind turbines the earth will stop rotating because under the law of conservation we will have extracted all the energy
and when the earth stops rotating gravity will stop and we will all float away including the atmosphere
problem solved all life on earth will cease and climate change will not be a problem any more
and they still will have problems. It was estimated a number of years ago that to power Toronto with wind turbines the wind farm would have to be a as big as PEI and backup generation would still be needed. Foolish people keep pushing insane ideas and equally foolish people think that they just might work. Well, they won’t.
This is unbelievable. Just like covid, the data is right in front of them but, like a deer in the headlights, they’re blind to seeing the oncoming freight train. This is not a mistake on their part. They’re evil. We are truely in a spiritual battle.
In my younger days I used to admire Germany for it’s cleverness as a nation of superior machine design and manufacture. These days I don’ . .
I didn’t read all the comments, but I wonder how the windmills in Iowa, and the rest of the Midwest are faring due to the extreme high winds(in excess of 50 mph)
Germany: We shall be forced to re-take our rightful ownership of all the flat lands between Berlin and the Urals so that we may restore harmony and energy prosperity to all the citizens of the region. (If you don’t agree, then you can’t be a citizen.)
Somehow I don’t think it city people who will be giving up their apartments for this land grab. I wonder when the inner-city luvvies that think this is a great idea will realise the trade-off is energy for food or energy for national parks and nature.