By P Gosselin on 26. March 2022
Once welcome with open arms, wind turbines are falling out of favor over much of Germany since swaths of treasured forests have been cleared away to make way for massive industrial wind parks.
Progress and awareness: Developments such as these are increasingly becoming unwelcome in Germany, especially in ancient forests. Symbol image: Vernunftkraft.de.
Over the years the blighting of idyllic landscapes has turned off a lot of Germans. Many are actively resisting wind parks now that their ugliness is apparent.
German energy new site Blackout News here reports how one of the country’s leading nature and biodiversity conservation groups Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) no longer wants wind turbines in forests. Recently the group criticized the planned siting of wind turbines in forests, which we recently reported on here. In the past, NABU was an especially active proponent of wind energy.
“NABU demands that at least all protected areas and all historically old forest areas, as well as ecologically particularly valuable forest areas are excluded as sites for wind turbines. This was demanded by NABU state chairman Holger Buschmann on the occasion of Forest Day on March 21,” reports Blackout News. “It must be the government’s goal to preserve as many near-natural forests as possible.”
Germans across the country have become horrified as idyllic forests are falling victim to wind energy industrialization. Delicate ecosystems have been blighted and once quiet forests have since been disturbed forever. The Reinhardswald, also known as “Grimm’s Fairy Tale Forest” in the state of Hesse has most recently fallen victim to wind park industrialization madness. The ancient forest inspired some of Germany’s most famous fairy tales and dates back to the Medieval period.
“The Hessian state government has planned 18 wind turbines that will require 35,000 hectares of forest to be cleared for their installation,” Blackout News reports.
“From an ecological point of view, the expansion of wind turbines in forests would be a fatally flawed development,” writes Blackout News. “According to NABU, the already damaged forest would deserve the highest protection and must not be considered as a possible commercial area.”
Other groups are calling for “a rapid change in forest management”, promoting “structurally rich mixed deciduous forests in place of monocultures, which are vulnerable to drought and bark beetle infestation.
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Pass the Milk Duds.
I’ll go to the kitchen. Do you want a cold one too?
Good old Germans
See the error of their ways just as the bunker falls.
Unfortunately Boris Johnson is still holed up in his Bunker with Carrie, Kwasi and his chums doubling down on failed models. He may be seeing the light on fracking so there may be light at the end of the tunnel- at least on windy days
He may be seeing the light on fracking so there may be light at the end of the tunnel- at least on windy days
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Windy days? Windless nights and cloudy days maybe.
Don’t think it matters much. Aren’t we just about to have a Global Thermonuclear War? I don’t suppose any of the forests or the turbines in them will survive that….
That’s one way to prep for the bird choppers, nuke the forests.
Boris the clown is planning for more onshore wind farms
The latest wheeze is to give a discount to the people who are unfortunate enough to live near them
What you might call a green bribe
“Boris the clown is planning for more onshore wind farms”
Yes. The really interesting part of this is WHY?
It’s an admission that the offshore wind farms are bl*&dy expensive. Onshore may be just as intermittent but they are certainly cheaper.
Speaking of offshore wind farms they’re looking for volunteer paramedics if you’re feeling adventurous-
Jet suits are being trialled for paramedics in offshore wind farm teams | RenewEconomy
I volunteer Griff to apply and attempt the training
Cost is probably #1 but they impact the environment.
“Damage to seabed compounded by offshore wind construction and maintenance, sandwave clearance etc. and the potential/lack of recovery of benthic habitats from infrastructure installation”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1035024/OESEA4_Scoping_Government_Response.pdf
Above the surface who knows what happens to the Kittiwakes and other seabirds?
The UK has 24.6 GW of installed wind capacity that this morning (27 March) has been generating less than 1GW of output – herein lies the biggest problem with wind power – if the wind isn’t blowing it doesn’t matter how many turbines you install the output remains the same 🙂
Yes, but its a GREEN 1GW not like that nasty anti social Gas power keeping our lights on and our homes heated. (no need for sarc tag surely?)
Why? I suggest you start looking closer to home – even in the bedroom, perhaps!
Cheaper perhaps, but no less an ugly nuisance to the eye or the ear.
There is no free bribe.
Someone else has to pay it, or it is added to national debts
“There is no free bribe.”
Indeed, there are energy bills…
NABU finally against wind turbines due to forest destruction? This is one of those “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” stories. The NABU website (en.nabu.de) lists “climate change” as their first topic, and their statement regarding climate change reads like any other rabid group’s. OK, they at least stand up for old growth forests, but don’t think they are our friends.
“The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, no more, no less.” Maxim #29.
NABU is acting like greedy, selfish children.
It seems they are callous and indifferent to the future. They really need to rethink this and understand that Saving The World is way more important than a few stupid trees. Worse, they did have it right and wanted to preserve the forests, not too long ago.
But then, it looks like something changed. Something must have changed, to cause such a radical reversal. But what?
Maybe what happened is Nord Stream II and the Russian natural gas deal. They may greedily and selfishly be opposed to handing over a fair chunk of their national treasure to a hostile foreign power every year. They may also have come to the paranoid conclusion that handing over something as critical as energy production to the same hostile power constitutes a national security threat. at the end of it, I think what really tipped the balance for them was the realization that clear cutting the forest will be necessary to provide the firewood they will need to keep from freezing to death next winter.
The greedy, selfish children at NABU seem to have concluded that not freezing to death next winter is more important than Saving The Planet. They do not have the backbone to stand for their principles when the first tiny bit of personal sacrifice becomes involved involved.
*Shameful*
I will note here for the record, that if the Russian natural gas deal is in place they will need the firewood. Also, if they build the windmills, they will need the firewood.
You assume the world needs saving ? What evidence do you have ?
Sales of flea collars is up, and videos of old George Carlin routines are going viral.
I’m curious about the RSPB’s (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) position on this in the UK, as I was an avid birdwatcher when I lived there. Is it still that phony baloney man-made climate change will kill more birds than wind turbines, or have they got out of their short pants by now?
They supported them like credulous fools for 20 years. Then they realised that the thing they were born to do was to protect birds. But by that stage it was too late, and their historical support for wind farms was thrown back in their faces. They have opposed the wind farms that threaten the gannets of Bass Rock, for example, but lost the case.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/casework/cases/forth-and-tay-wind-farms/
Thanks for the response. I’ll add this to my list of things I keep track of. I hardly dare ask about the Farne Islands situation. Are the climate cretins going to destroy that too?
They are still trying to say that puffins are at risk from climate change, without any good evidence of that: https://cliscep.com/2021/01/07/birdageddon-2-the-puffins-tale/
Nice article. You write well. Here’s a pic I took on the Farne Islands last time I was there. These guys know how to pose for the camera. I have a few good shots like this. If you need an original Hi Res image, let me know and I’ll give you my email address. Cheers:
1/ Was there something wrong with making the windmills taller than the trees.
i.e. Leaving the forest intact and regarding its canopy as ‘ground level’
What was/is the requirement to chop the trees?
(No,I’m not trying to justify windmills, am trying to illuminate the stupidity of the people building them)
2/
Quote:”Other groups are calling for “a rapid change in forest management”, promoting “structurally rich mixed deciduous forests in place of monocultures, which are vulnerable to drought and bark beetle infestation.
No no noooooo – someone PLEASE deliver us from these muppets
The forest will look after itself.
Monoculture (fake) forests will break down naturally (that is the bark beetle) and much more acclimatised species will ‘invade’
Do not fiddle with something that you patently don’t understand. Australia with its Eucalyptus, house mice, rabbits, sheep not least being a fantastic example – and where do Cane Toads fit into all this as well?
If anyone really wants to help the forest (my pet subject).
The Very Best Thing they can do is to simply feed it – create some genuine man-made global greening.
e.g. As was the practice in the USSR prior to the May Day parade on Red Square, military cargo planes were sent up – loaded with cement and guys with shovels
They patrolled the skies upwind of Red Square and if any clouds were spotted, flew over the top of it with the loading ramp lowered while the guys inside threw the cement out the back.
Bingo ta-daaaaah – it was found to be always a blue sky sunny day on Red Square on May 1st.
Always.
So, to help the forests of Germany and everywhere, follow that lead but instead of cement, load the planes with crushed basalt or crushed granite
In UK, crushed granite can be had from most builder’s merchants. They call it ‘Grano Dust’ and it’s intended for making a tough ‘skin’ on concrete as you lay the stuff.
here’s some
OK it’s maybe 50 or 60% silica but typically also contains 19 different trace element micro-nutrients.
And it is the lack of one or more of those that let not only the bark-beetle in, but ultimately the wild-fire.
You listening California?
PS Cement would also work and is in fact why moss grows on ‘cement tile’ roofs here in the UK.
Once sufficient Carbonic Acid (rain) has fallen to the tiles to soften them up, the mosses & lichens can get a hold and they feed off the micro-nutrients contained in the powderised shale that went into the kiln, along with limestone, to make the original cement
Oooooooh says The Enquiring Mind – “Us humans make & use a lot of cement these days”
I wonder what becomes of all the dust raised not only in its manufacture but most especially, as it is worn-away/eroded/consumed/weathered in its final application.
What say you Shirley, no chance of a bit of greening anywhere when that shit comes back down to earth?
edit to PS.
Cement might be a very good choice – for an initial ‘application’ or fly-over.
It would act to raise the soil pH of the normally very acidic soil/litter on the forest floor – releasing vast amounts of otherwise ‘locked up’ Phosphorus.
The trees would love it.
Watch Mikey Mann’s head explode when he sees it happening/working – it would be worth a small experiment just to see that happen, haha
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Watch Mikey Mann’s head explode when he sees it happening/working – it would be worth a small experiment just to see that happen, haha
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Vindicated by losing a lawsuit, ha ha ha. Nice try scumbag.
Yes increasingly the social license for these low density energy collectors is coming under curtailment from the NIMBYs despite the subsidy mining-
NSW “agri-solar” farm and potential 600MWh battery gets kick-along from CEFC | RenewEconomy
From the article: “This was demanded by NABU state chairman Holger Buschmann on the occasion of Forest Day on March 21,” reports Blackout News. “It must be the government’s goal to preserve as many near-natural forests as possible.””
Ok, we have you onboard for protecting ancient forests, and we applaud you for it. Now, you need to come out and say all windmills should be torn down and scapped because they are killing all the birds and bats. Birds and bats should get protection too, just like ancient forests.
Having spent the bulk of my career at the GM Proving Ground in Michigan, the difference between it and the Opel Proving Ground in Germany is noteworthy. In the US, the entire road system is devoid of trees. It’s done for driver safety. There are none to hit for any inadvertent road departure. Opel is the opposite. The entire road system is built around tree lined obstacles. It’s up to the drivers to avoid them.
On a visit there a number of years ago, I asked my guide why the trees weren’t removed. His reply was that “the government doesn’t permit it”. A permit was required for any tree to be removed and they were not given unless the tree was right in the middle of a necessary road. Driver safety was secondary to trees.
So now, the government closes the nuclear power plants and builds solar panels over its farmlands, disallows wind turbines in its forests, and shuts down its gas pipelines. And I once thought the Germans were smart?
Like many advanced countries, the German people are good but their politicians not so good. Seems the same the whole world over…
They’re pretty normal for an industrialized country, certainly nowhere near the smartest. link
Germans love order and organization. link You might think that would be a good thing but it could also be a symptom of a kind of mental pathology.
Iain McGilchrist has a lot to say about brain lateralization. The left hemisphere is very good at procedures and it demands certainty. The right hemisphere is the one that deals with context. It’s the brain’s bs detector. The right hemisphere keeps you connected with reality.
The same way your muscles develop according to how they are used, the brain develops according to how it is used. It’s called neuroplasticity.
The American and Canadian education systems strongly develop the left hemisphere and don’t do much for the right. That’s why the most educated people tend to be the most removed from reality. Defund the universities.
I have no idea about the German education system or about Germans in general. It’s possible their right hemispheres haven’t atrophied. It’s also possible that Merkel, educated under Marxism, was particularly left brained, and now that she is gone, saner minds prevail.
The vultures are coming home to roost, waiting for Wind Power to hurry up and die.
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Everybody loves wind turbines so long as they are put up somewhere else.
When you start running out of ‘somewhere else’ to put up wind turbines, then suddenly the turbines are not so loveable.
Try putting up a 300′ tall wind turbine in your yard and see if the Home Owners Association doesn’t complain. You’ll be receiving a sternly worded letter for sure.
Everyone wants them until they get them, then they don’t want them. They don’t seem to notice there’s a pattern there. When will people notice and just say no right up front?
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(Note: Above, I’m talking about the general public that gets indoctrinated by the YSM boob tube, not people who have done the math on wind turbines as baseload.)
Yep, the hypocrisy is palpable. People’s “love” of wind turbines is based on ignorance. But at some point, reality has a nasty habit of intruding.
Maybe Merkel’s exit will harbor some intelligent decisionmaking in the future.
Gosh, who’d a thunk that?!?
NABU’s statement;
“From an ecological point of view, the expansion of wind turbines in forests would be a fatally flawed development,”
should be changed to – The expansion of wind turbines would be a fatally flawed development.
Wind turbines are ecologically, economically, and dependability flawed. Wind and solar power generation are only useful in niche applications.
The Hessian state government has planned 18 wind turbines that will require 35,000 hectares of forest
That’s about 2,000 hectares for each turbine, which is clearly nonsense…
You’re right – it is utter ridiculousness and complete nonsense. Yet, at the same time, it is completely true – they have earmarked 35,000 hectares of forest to be cleared for 18 Vestas V150 wind turbines.
Wind turbines I’ve seen in the forest in Canada usually have 1 hectare or less of cleared ground. If you add in access roads, it might add up to 5 hectares per turbine. I suspect that the 35,000 hectare number refers to the total area encompassing the project, and that most of the trees within that area would be left standing.
Doesn’t make it a good idea though.
The problem is that the area encompassed within the 35,000 hectares isn’t continuous forest – there are several roads, a couple of villages and several farms in there as well. These divide the forest up into smaller woods or copse’s as well as a few clearings which are pretty much the only areas where you can put the turbines. There will be very few trees left within that whole area when they’ve finished.
Yes, WUWT published an article giving a total figure of 2,000 hectares.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/04/green-wrecking-ball-germany-clearing-undisturbed-1000-year-old-forest-make-way-for-massive-wind-park/
This article says: “The Hessian state government has planned 18 wind turbines that will require 35,000 hectares of forest to be cleared for their installation,” Blackout News reports.
But if you click on the Blackout News article link in this post, there is no such statement written. In fact is states the 2,000 ha number from the WUWT article that Alba linked: “A total of about 2000 hectares ( 20 million m²) of the thousand-year-old Reinhardswald was designated for destruction by the state in order to clear the way for a massive wind power plant development.”
Did the writer assume that 2000 ha (7.7 sq mi, i.e. a 3 mile diameter circle) was being cleared for each turbine? I could find no corroborating source for that statement. Did the original article get corrected or something?
The Reinhardswald is about 35,000 ha in total area – as I’ve mentioned above this includes lots of inhabited areas and roads which are unsuitable for siting turbines, reducing the available area to those not being used for anything else at present. Unfortunately those unused areas are where all the trees are – they are basically the only areas in the Reinhardswald where you can site turbines where they are far enough away from habitation and infrastructure to be safe.
When is Griff going to admit he backed the wrong horse?
He’s a neighsayer, he’ll just trot out another lie to canter the truth. Get him to pony up and saddle the bill before he says anything more.
Right, I’ll get me coat then…..
Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans” documentary developed into something unintended (an exposé) when he discovered the horrors of forests being chopped down in Vermont for “biomass” and a solar panel ‘powered’ concert fronting a hidden diesel generator which provided nearly all the power. He had never heard that fossil fuelled-backup was used wordwide to make the renewables work.
That was the beginning of the cracks in the renewables sc@m and it dealt a terminal blow to the image and career 350.org’s Bill McKibbon. Unfortunately, Michael started a rant against the Koch brothers right on the threshold of a much the much larger discovery of Crisis Climate as window dressing for the New World Order.
I sent him an email encouraging him to dig deeper into political climate for the bigger story. I think the wave of attacks from the left stunned him into silence, I hope only temporarily.
What’s German for NIMBY?
nicht in meinem Garten, literally.
nimG?
Sounds close enough to “NABU”….
“The Hessian state government has planned 18 wind turbines that will require 35,000 hectares of forest to be cleared for their installation,” Blackout News reports.
Shouldn’t that be 18 “wind farms” instead of “wind turbines”? Since 1 hectare ~= 2.471 acre the above statement would mean approximately 1,944 acres or 3 sq. miles of forest per turbine. That just sounds a little excessive even if you include long access roads, tall trees and short small turbines :<)