By P Gosselin on 19. July 2026
Wind energy means a large-scal technological regression
Image: EIKE
In his presentation at the Climate and Energy Conference held by the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) in Halle, Prof. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke explored the energy efficiency of wind turbines and finds that it is a terribly inefficient way to produce electricity.
Prof. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke concludes that wind energy is leading us “back to the Middle Ages.”
Lüdecke argues that human progress has always depended on continuously increasing the available power and energy density. This historical progression began in agriculture with draft animals, moved to medieval windmills and waterwheels, advanced to the steam engine and combustion engines, and culminated in modern coal and nuclear power plants.
According to Lüdecke, never before in human history has a society shifted on a large scale to a method that is backward-looking and yields a lower power density than already established technologies. Because wind turbines have an extremely low power density (averaging only about 3.6 watts per square meter annually and locally, compared to approximately 7,000 watts for coal plants), he views their large-scale expansion as a technological regression.
Lüdecke emphasizes that wind turbines suffer from fundamental flaws based on the laws of nature that cannot be fixed. In addition to their extreme dependence on the weather (“volatile power”), this includes the physical law stating that a wind turbine’s power output is proportional to the cube of the wind speed, If the wind speed drops by half, the power output plummets to just one-eighth (12.5%).
In summary, he views the attempt to power Germany primarily with wind and solar energy as a politically forced effort to return to an unreliable, medieval method of energy generation, thereby ignoring the historical principle of energetic progress,
The full video with all details can be found here
First priority of any government when it comes to power generation is making it as cheap and readily available as possible.
” Energy is too cheap”
Angela Merkel
Seems those “priorities” have changed in the meantime – and in all western countries.
No matter who is where in charge.
(A dozen UK prime ministers in a row have have proven to be the same person -and so will be the new one)
That takes you back to Wilson, I hardly think that Thatcher can be described as “the same person” as the idiot we’ve just lost.
It is not acceptable for an advanced society to ask/order its citizens to reduce energy use on an average hot summer day, because the power grid cannot keep up with demand.
The first priority of any government when it comes to power generation is to stand clear and let free market supply and demand flourish.
As long as economic externalities are included. Since they are not, carbon taxes on fossil fuels are justified.
Since there are no externalities associated with fossil fuels, your assertion is meritless.
You have not justified your assertion with any resource that has done a full and complete cost/benefit analysis concerning CO2. Nothing from the IPCC analyzes the benefits that offset costs so don’t refer us there.
Bullsheet.
The cheapest and most reliable forms of electricity are currently coal and gas, (and hydro where it can be done)
If you want reliable electricity, when needed, wind and solar do not even get a mention.
It is absolute idiocy to tax the much needed by-product called CO2, all it does is make electricity more expensive. (unless you are a socialist and that is your aim)
Ever since Michael Mann smeared himself all over the catastro-sphere, being a Professor doesn’t carry as much weight, it seems…
Excellence is in the eye of the beholder and some just have a dirt speck in it.
And some think their comments are SO important, they must bold every one of them.
Whilst capturing the wind energy may take us back to the middle ages, capturing the sun energy takes us back even further. Whilst producing energy released by burning coal or timber is releasing solar energy, it was also being released by the beasts of burden who converted the solar energy captured by the fodder they consumed not only to survive and grow, but who consumed additional fodder when called upon to exert extra effort in order to produce what we now know as horse-power.
In fact one wonders if the energy produced by a beast of burden was a more efficient use of the solar energy captured given it was generally captured and released locally.
Windmills weren’t “energy generation”, as the article headline suggests.
What were they then? If the wind is driving a saw that cuts trees, how is that not energy generation? It simply using the energy generated on the spot.
Energy capture, or generation of electricity.
Just as fossil fuel energy is conversion, so is wind.
This all seems a silly quibble
Apart for E=m x c(squared) the topic under discussion is utilising a source of energy to do work.
Water wheels, sails and windmills all use fluids in motion = kinetic energy to do work.
Windmills were usually used for either pumping water, or crushing grain.
The headline says “Wind energy”. Wind is kinetic energy.
Now, again, we are faced with the common/social context derived definition fallacy.
Windmills convert wind energy to both electricity and thermal energy. Electricity is the output used by consumers. Thermal energy is the result of the inefficiency of conversion. In the generator coils, the wires have resistance. Energy (J) = I^2 x R x t sometimes wrongly identified as “heat.”
you forgot to include noise!
The Greens are Luddites
Luddites have always been around in one form or another-usually fairly harmless and ignored for the most part by sane, ordinary people, The present bunch, the greeniwhacks and so on, are just simply communist, fascist, or whatever authoritarian flavor is in vogue…they are truly dangerous in a way not previously seen-they want to destroy modern civilization, not just simply rule the world (tho that too).
It’s hard to explain, the Federal Republic of Germany of Adenauer and Erhard that I remember visiting on a few occasions nearly sixty years ago was dynamic with high productivity and prosperity linked to engineering excellence, maybe the reunification with the much smaller population of the German Democratic [sic] Republic in 1990 or post-war generations somehow trying to make amends for the faults of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations are factors. Very puzzling.
One thing is forever certain: any country that styles itself “democratic” in its national title never is. Look at Congo, for instance.
The DDR first took over all of Germany, and then they began to run the EU.
The long potwar period of affluence and stability bred complacency and indolence.
Any balanced assessment of wind/solar/battery systems will conclude that they are net energy negative. That’s why they cost three to five times per kw/hr more than coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro power systems. The cost difference pays for the conventional energy used to make the “renewables”.
Prove me wrong, give me any examples of a “renewable” system using predominantly its own power to produce more “renewables”. I’ll wait….
No proof here. Rather, I think you and Professor Lüdecke have it correct.
Back to beasts of burden, horses are much better than wind and solar in many respects. In addition to performing work, they procreate. Their flesh can be used as meat, their wastes as fertilizer. Their bones and skin can be used to make numerous products. They’re entertaining to race as well.
Hell if they could gallop at 60 mph for a good amount of time, I would ride a mustang to work. Still, the superiority of fossil fuels and its products put the majority out to pasture.
I agree with you. What I am wondering is what size the demo project has to be to prove you right. As it is, the answer is obscured in complexity the “renewable” promotors (dictators?) hide in. I think about a demo complex – say 100 square miles – that is “spotted” wind and solar, roads, power grid (isolated), buildings, and most importantly, the means to make new solar panels and wind machines. I guess raw material must be spotted, along with some precision machined parts like roller bearing, Krap, it’s getting complex again. Anyway, I bet no replacement solar or wind can be made, and the affair dies after that becomes obvious, say in 5 years.
Wind “Turbines” A 13th century solution to a 21st century non-problem.
Yes, well said. Wind turbines exist because of an artificial ideology and not because of economic and engineering reality. We must stop narrow minded ideologues from making decisions that affect us. Do not let them possess power over us.
We are progressing toward this goal in the USA. Europe must follow.
CO2 is a life gas. In greenhouses, CO2 is increased to 1000 ppm to increase plant growth. That means at 425 ppm the plants are starving.
We must not reduce CO2, we must increase it.
https://willempost.substack.com/p/the-climate-cult
Build 60- 80 y nuclear plants, instead of 20-y wind and 25-y solar plants, plus a whole lot of support systems to make wind and solar work.
HIGH COST OF OFFSHORE WIND ELECTRICITY PER kWh.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-of-offshore-wind-electricity-per-kwh
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The reason costs are ballooning is because the focus has been on the cost of offshore wind electricity, say 15 c/kWh, after the equivalent of 50% federal and state subsidies.
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Hidden Costs: These are the A-to-Z costs (windmill to land fill) almost all folks are kept ignorant about.
At a future 25-30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if no curtailment, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total: 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
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Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, with equivalent of 50% subsidies
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
Some values increase due to inflation and as more W/S systems are added to the grid.
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Such expensive W/S electricity would have made the US even less competitive in world markets.
Any US tariffs on the European/Chinese supply of W/S systems would greatly increase their turnkey capital costs/MW and their electricity costs/ kWh.
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1) The European elites have screwed themselves by going hog-wild for wind, solar, batteries, etc.
They closed their near-zero-CO2 nuclear plants and their coal plants and refuse to frack for clean-burning gas.
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2) Because of grossly too many rules and regulations emanating from Brussels, and a lack of nuclear plant building experience, all recent nuclear plants cost $10,000+/installed kW and take 10+ years to build; China and Russia build such plants for about 6,000/kW and take about 5-6 years
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3) These elites are encouraging the displacement of native populations. A total of 64.2 million unvetted, uneducated, untrained, culturally different, non-citizens were in Europe at end 2025 (not counting their children and grandchildren born in Europe). In 2025, the A-to-Z cost was about $160 billion to grow the economy to provide goods and services for the additional people. How will Europe ever get rid of these people, before its rapidly growing population is greater than the shrinking population of natives?
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4) These elites imposed a ban on Russian low-cost fossil fuels and other natural resources much needed by Europe, so Russia cannot profit from them; the sanctions backfired on Europe.
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5) After NATO was established in 1949, these elites, dependent for defense on the US, saved themselves $trillions by spending only 0.5 to 1.5% of GDP on their own defense, while the US spent about 4 to 5% to keep the peace in the world. How can you claim to be sovereign and not be able to defend yourself?
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That grossly inequitable situation came to a screeching halt in 2025, when Trump required Europe to spend up to 5% of GDP for their own defense, because the US was “busy elsewhere”.
For MAGA, Trump 1) imposed tariffs on European imports to reduce the US trade deficit, 2) will reduce US troops and their costs in Europe, 3) requires Europe pay for its own defense, 4) no longer pays for Ukraine, but will provide US weapons, if Europe pays for them.
You need middle age tech to relegate humanity back into the middle age.
That way they’ll never ever be able to oppose or challenge a tiny high end technocracy.
A bit of a Zardoz-scenario.
In those days, they were used for grinding grain, or pumping water for irrigation or water level control.
The grain was stored on an upper floor. If the wind was blowing, the grain was slowly inserted between two horizontal grinding stones driven by wooden gears.
The milled WHOLE-GRAIN product was collected in bags for distribution to baking shops.
Using windmills to generate electricity is insanity on steroids.
Now you see why the super-screwed-up UK keeps on digging itself a deeper hole. The new PM, a socialist hack, will not make any difference.
Wasn’t Lüdeckeis one of the guys who predicted, in a couple of papers, that global temperatures would start to decrease by ~2020 and continue to do so until ~2050 due to some ‘harmonics‘ or ‘multi-periodic dynamics‘ – or something like that?
Not going too well, so far. The years 2020-2025 contain four of the five warmest years in the global surface temperature record, with 2026 and 2027 looking set fair to join them.
Ah well, let’s change the subject and start talking about energy production instead….
You linked exactly one paper and obviously don’t comprehend even that one.
Professor Lüdecke is among thousands of other scientists and non-scientists in the realm of climate who have made failed or inaccurate predictions. If they are being honest practitioners and without bias, partial or complete invalidation of a hypothesis does not negate a person’s credentials. This is how science works.
Science advances through exactly that process: formulating testable hypotheses based on data and analysis, then letting subsequent observations serve as the arbiter. A prediction that doesn’t hold up (or holds only partially, or whose timeline is still unfolding) doesn’t automatically discredit the researcher’s broader credentials or good-faith effort—especially in a field as complex and multi-decadal as climate, where baselines, natural variability, and signal-to-noise issues make definitive short-to-medium-term verdicts challenging.
The statistician’s phrasing (“fail to reject the null,” confidence intervals, etc.) reflects this humility: evidence can weaken or strengthen a hypothesis, but absolute proof or disproof is rare. Most scientists, including those with differing views on climate drivers, operate in this provisional space.
With respective wind and solar power (along with biofuels), professor Lüdecke is saying nothing new, but he does so as one experienced in quantitative analysis. I have long said that a smart high school student asking the right questions and using the Internet and an Excel spreadsheet with fairly simple arithmetic can easily conclude that wind, solar, and biofuels are big-time costly losers in the energy density and reliability race.
Horst-Joachim Lüdecke is a physicist and professor emeritus of computer science, physics and operations research at the University of Applied Sciences of the Saarland. He is now retired.
Before his position at Saarland, Lüdecke worked for the chemical industry creating numerical computer models for chemical facilities and for flow processes in pipelines and supply pipe networks. His doctoral research was in nuclear physics.
Pretty sure he would have a very sound understanding in energy production and distribution.
Far more than the complainant seems to have.
Unfortunately, his performance is sorely lacking.
Another failed ad hom, based on nothing.
Ludecke performed a mass FAIL, because he’s not a scientist who looks at all sides objectively. Like most wuwters, he has an agenda, and must be blind to the facts in order to preserve his dreams.
He has a far more subjective science outlook than you have.
You have an agenda… and are blind to all facts.
He is Physicist Phd spec. fluid mechanics and prof emeritus.
Projection much?
Oh look, it’s TheFoolishNincompoop whining about “changing the subject” while himself changing the subject. LOL.
I know the average age here is quite old but this always feels like I’m dealing with teenagers.
And he’s just pointing out that everyone here trusts the opinion of a random guy as long as it’s in line with the own world view – no matter their past credibility.
Or in that case education, he doesn’t seem to have any connections to the energy world, beside being a mouthpiece for EIKE. Which – OH WONDER – has a connections to the heartland institute / CFACT. And here goes the whole fossil fuel / Koch brothers gravy train again.
CHOO CHOO my fellow teenagers!
And now LosernameRetarded weighs in. I do love a good clown show.
You call that a clown show? There are two people in this thread thinking renewables have an eroi < 1.
It is well established fact that wind and solar renewables must be backed up by dispatchable power, if society is to have electricity available during peak use periods. California does this by purchasing power from the grid during part of the day. Building and maintaining the grid is not free, thus California residents pay the costs of delivering electricity to their homes and businesses. The state’s electricity production has been lower then its electricity usage by a substantial margin ever since the morons in Sacramento begin massive shutdowns of dispatchable power plants. This is why we are paying double the national average for our power.
I would propose that the cost of electricity in California proves that you are wrong.
What else will it be, a presentation of scientific knowledge? 😂🤣
We will tak you seriously the moment you show us a wind turbine or a solar cell being manufactured exclusively using “renewable” energy.
the name “renewables” is utterly senseless, ridiculous and misleading.
The new gadgets cannot and do not break the physical laws of thermodynamics, they are built using fossil fuel from components mined and processed and transported by use of fossil fuel and then manufactured and distributed and erected using fossil fuel and the wind gadgets need a fossil fuel nanny to watch over them 24/7
What in all of creation is RENEWED, ffs?
So you can’t think of a way to refute the article, so you immediately descend to a personal attack. It’s no wonder why sceptics are winning the argument, if this is the best that you can do.
I have no conhections to the energy world too, but the knowledge of simple physics are enough to see, that wind and solar can’t drive an industrial society.
But when ideology tells otherwise, physics are obsolete, as facts in general too.
It’s more than obvious that fossil fuels cannot drive modern civilization without rapidly — and dangerously– warming the planet.
“without rapidly — and dangerously– warming the planet.”
Except they don’t…. and haven’t.
It is currently impossible to quantity how much of the modest beneficial warming of the last century is due to human activities. Anyone claiming otherwise is either lying or delusional.
Prove it
“rapidly — and dangerously”
Right. Spot on with the religious ideological beliefs.
1.5 C in 170 years is not rapid or dangerous. And that assumes ALL of the change is due exclusively to CO2, which it is not, not even by a fraction.
Why do you persist in making lies about temperature trends?
So you admit to being a teenager. One day you’ll grow up.
If you have read the linked paper you’ll know that the authors did not give great emphasis to the prediction shown in their Fig 6 – they certainly made no mention of it in the Abstract, which, if they’d felt it was a key outcome of their paper, they would likely have done. Instead they made it clear in the penultimate and final paragraphs that (a) the prediction was driven by the 64-year cycle identified in their analysis and (b) there may be other determining factors.
And then you spout the tired old fossil fuel / Koch brothers gravy train BS again. You really do need to look in the mirror from time to time.
Has been shown many time that funds flowing to the climate trough are magnitudes more than flows to the climate realists.
ludecke is long past his prime — and should be ignored
more baseless ad homs…
He is far more a scientist than you will ever be..
So says the pseudoscience advocate who wants to replace real science!
He doesn’t “seem” to have….. Find out before you make this comment. BTW, he’s not the only one discussing the inefficiencies of wind energy due to low density or low inertia. Stay on topic.
The global surface temperature record is incomplete at best and seriously flawed at worst.
I would not rely on it for conclusions.
There is no global average temperature, except in a spreadsheet.
Your whole ideology is based on lies and failed predictions –
Why do you have problems with them now?
You must have missed the fact that the temperatures have cooled by about 0.5C since early 2024.
Has cooled a lot since mid 2024. !
That warming has all been because of increased absorbed solar radiation…
Not human CO2.
Mostly, yes. There is much we do not know, so one has to avoid absolutes.
in a nutshell, yes.
The current cooling is not explained by some weird mechanism, it is clearly explained by the dramatic decrease in the solar magnetic field shielding the earth from galactic cosmic rays thereby allowing much more ice crystal nucleation and so increased reflection of solar radiation back out into space by significantly increasing the cloud cover.
I’m sure that you can be convinced that cow caca is chocolate. Go to the CO2 Coalition website and take the quiz. What we can learn from one graph is that based on our knowledge of geology, the modal temperature over the last 500 million years has been about 73 f, and that is the case regardless of the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, over most of that period, CO2 has dropped in straight line fashion from about 7000 ppm to our current tiny 400 ppm, our current level being more dangerous to the biosphere than when it was 7000ppm. Why did it drop? Some organisms were folded into the earth rather than deteriorating and returning their CO2 to the atmosphere. When we burn fossil fuels, we finally return the CO2 to the atmosphere. However there is another part of atmospheric CO2 that never gets returned, the part that animals suc as mollusks, etc. turn into stone. Since we can’t reasonably release this CO2 from the stones, eventually all CO2 will be eliminated from the atmosphere and all life will die.
Absurd anti science nonsense
What part of Conrad’s post do you disagree with?
Make yourself useful and tell us where you know the carbon in oil and gas originated.
Another empty statement is all you can make here, what happened to the concept of posting a rebuttal?
“Since we can’t reasonably release this CO2 from the stones,”
Actually, limestone can be made to release a lot of CO2.
With coal or gas at the moment, to make cement.
There may be a time in the future when nuclear energy is used with limestone to replenish the low levels of atmospheric CO2…
But with China and Asia’s and many other developing countries building many new coal-fired power stations, that will be a long time in the future.
The anti-science of CO2 derangement cannot last that long.
One little disagreement from me. The “turned to stone” is limestone.
Not only do volcanoes release CO2 from burning limestone but humans use it and similar carbonates to make cement.
Weathering of rocks also occurs when they return to the surface by the continental drift processes and rain and wind get to eroded them.
What’s that got to do with density and inertia issues with wind, or anything else he said? Stop trying to change the subject. If you disagree with what he said then present hard evidence to the contrary.
Failed Climate Prediction Timeline – Watts Up With That?
Why is Germany going Net Zero? What will it achieve?
Suppose you have a cold cup of coffee.
You put it in the microwave.
You set the timer for 0.06 seconds.
Will the coffee be warmer?
Yes, by about the same amount as the temperature increase in 2100 AD if Germany totally abandoned Net Zero today.
Ah but what if your microwave can be set to 11?
Or has cowbells attached. 😉
Germans are doing a great job ignoring the graph of electricity cost vs renewables. It links directly to another chart on competitiveness.
The real question is how did the AGW proponents get so much support from the media and the politicians? We know the “scientists” and universities were threatened with losing their livelihood and grant money. I believe the media was bought and fellow travelers put in charge. And it’s looking more and more like our politicians are heavily infiltrated by the same fellow traveler ilk. And not a shot was fired.
Follow the money, and the Reds, including our dear friends the Chinese. Fellow travellers is a good historical reference…don’t forget “useful idiots” either
I don’t think it’s ‘money’ but ideology that drives the Marxists. Their world wide goal is to displace Capitalism with Marxism. They keep elites and the rich around long enough to help their cause then delete them when no longer ‘useful’. Yes, useful idiots driven by the fellow travelers increases their numbers exponentially.
Chinese are the better capitalists looking at their developpement.
Marxists use Capitalism when it helps them to reach their goals. Recently they realized without Capitalism they couldn’t feed and house their people properly. Every Communist country gained their power by stealing from Capitalists and Monarchs. What you see now in China is them building a war chest. It has nothing to do with embracing Capitalism.
A good description of Trump and MAGA
So wrong.
Ah, kinda like the French Revolution, only there some of the marxists were sent to the guillotine too. Karma?
Facts tend to get in the way of the Denier cult.
Facts are totally irrelevant to AGW cult alarmists.
They have none… and they don’t want any.
Considering the Trans-Reality Alarmists are the real deniers, your post is correct.
Wow you are on a roll with dead replies today, forgot your wake up coffee?
Media became profit centers for large corporations.
Ad clicks are revenue, aka profits.
Time to publication became critical to garner those ad clicks.
Hyperbolic headlines added cash to the till.
Scan and scroll and been institutionalized. Read the headline and maybe a sentence or two in the lead paragraph and you read everything they wish you to “know,”
What once was the shining torch of truth is now just another money grab.
Note: I am not against money grabbing, just the consequences of the means selected.
Finally, someone sees through the smoke and says it. I’m sure that this story gets supressed by media. But he wrong in one regard, while wild power moves toward the medieval, these groups (commies and greenies) are interested in going all the way back to the Stone Age, because any well organized society will always shine a light on their inability to be useful, and that’s why they hate capitalism and modern life.
Woo woo
The professor entirely neglects to consider the reason that nations are transitioning away from fossil fuel energy — the damaging effects of climate change.
Only the very stupid nations are destroying their economies by trying to “transition” (its a leftist thing).
Developing countries are embracing coal, oil and gas because they know it is the only way to build a viable sustainable economy.
CO2 from fossil fuels does NOT effect the climate.
There is no climate emergency…
All recent atmospheric warming is from increased absorption of solar radiation.
Climate change can damage nothing.
Climate change is the comparison of two climate intervals.
Climate and climate change are mathematicl calculations.
Math cannot infllct damage.
What climate change is that?
It is the same in my region the entire Interglacial period. The climate classification remains the same.
BSk
This guy is right.
I am confused why the UK burns millions of tonnes of imported wood chips but won’t burn coal (wood pellets and coal, at the chimney, are just the same)? The answer, as I see it, is simple: accounting tricks, not physics. Coal is banned because its CO₂ counts at the smokestack. Wood is allowed because international rules count its CO₂ where the tree was cut down usually the USA or Canada so the UK can pretend it’s ‘zero‑carbon’.
And here’s the kicker: wood actually emits more CO₂ per kWh than coal. Around 1,200 g/kWh for wood pellets versus around 900 g/kWh for coal. So we’ve shut down efficient coal plants and replaced them with a system that burns shiploads of wood, produces more CO₂, and gets billions in subsidies because the paperwork says it’s green.
If you change the fuel, change the accounting rules, and ignore the chimney emissions, of course wood looks ‘clean’ and coal looks ‘dirty’. That’s not climate science, that’s creative bookkeeping.