Energy Experts Warn German Renewable Energy Path Tantamount To Economic Harakiri

Energy experts Jürgen Großmann and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt wrote in an opinion piece in Saturday’s hardcopy edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) that renewable energies are expensive, costing 2 to 3 times more than conventional energy.

FAZ_Gmann_Vholt

FAZ: “Worry over transition to renewable energy”

The two German experts warn that any attempt the country makes to reach the target of 45% renewable energy by the year 2025 is tantamount to economic Harakiri.

28 billion euros annually

Already Germany’s budding Energiewende is costing German consumers and businesses 28 billion euros annually, or roughly an average of 300 euros for each household. These costs are driven in part by insanely high leasing costs that wind turbine operators pay to wealthy land owners –  and subsidies paid to growers of corn for biofuel.

Storage technology “prohibitively expensive”

Großmann and Vahrenholt also remind readers storage technologies are “prohibitively expensive” and offer no solution the problem of evening out the highly volatile wind and solar supply.

Sizzling power grids

Another major problem, the two energy experts comment, are the extreme uncontrolled power surges occurring on both sunny and windy days. In such cases the operators of over-fed, sizzling grids are forced to dump surplus electricity into the power grids of neighboring countries, which has the effect of upsetting both their grids and power generation markets. Another peculiarity is that wind park operators are routinely ordered to shut down, yet are paid for the power that never gets produced. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel once said that other countries think it’s “crazy”.

Großmann and Vahrenholt, both former top energy executives, characterize the demands made by the influential German Greens to shut down the country’s coal power plants as naïve and simply unworkable, and call plans to install large wind parks near the Baltic Sea before constructing transmission lines to take the power to markets “nonsense”.

German reductions would be wiped out in just 3 months

The economics of the German renewables project also border on insanity. Vahrenholt and Großmann remind that all the CO2 reductions that are to be made by Germany would be wiped out by China’s massive growth in just a matter of three months, making all the pain and cost for nothing. China represents 29% of the world’s CO2 emissions, Germany only a paltry 2.5%.

Vahrenholt and Großmann conclude that Germany must return to rationality by getting back on a renewable energy path that is technicaly and economically feasilble, and not one that destroys the environment and economy, as is the case currently in Germany. They point out that Great Britain, Spain, Poland, Denmark and Italy have all scaled back their renewable energy development so as to not further overburden their consumers and industry.

27 responses to “Energy Experts Warn German Renewable Energy Path Tantamount To Economic Harakiri”

  1. Analitik

    The real question is how long do Germans have to be told the same thing over and over before they accept the utter failure of Die Energiewende?

    On another not, does everyone else experience a long moderation delay?
    It really interrupts with trying to perform “whack-a-mole” on sod’s posts

    1. yonason

      “does everyone else experience a long moderation delay?” – Analitik

      Sometimes, and while it’s annoying, I’m guessing Pierre is doing the best he can digging stuff out of spam that shouldn’t be there. The alternative is allow more junk through, and that would I think be even more annoying.

      But, yeah, I hear ya.

      1. Mindert Eiting

        NN is a young male, is unmarried or was left by his partner years ago, lives in Germany (Baden-Wurttemberg), doesn’t have a job, and is digging computer stuff day and night. Who is NN, you think?

    2. yonason

      Here’s something you might like. It has an analysis of pumped hydro, too, though I would like it to have been more developed.
      http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/

      Or, for those who like visual aids, while this one is from 6 years ago, it’s still sufficiently accurate to illustrate the relative costs of various power generation schemes.
      http://halfwisehalfwit.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-spend-little-when-you-can-spend-lot.html

      (un)renewables really are not a solution.

    3. sod

      “On another not, does everyone else experience a long moderation delay?
      It really interrupts with trying to perform “whack-a-mole” on sod’s posts”

      actually moderation is unusually fast these days. Are we flooding the stack, so that some comments appear at once?

      sometimes older comments are held up longer, which can cause confusion. But i think that is just a minor problem and i really think that moderation is working fine and fair.

      1. sod

        test (will this jump moderation at once?)

        1. sod

          yes, looks like it did.

  2. Boyfromtottenham

    Good article. However IMO the statement “Grossman and Vahrenholt … Characterize the demands made by the influential German Greens to shut down the country’s coal power plants as naive and unworkable” is incorrect, as proved by recent reports that One of Germany’s biggest power generators is nearing bankruptcy. The way that the Greens have cleverly manipulated governments across the globe to introduce these patently mad schemes that give multiple subsidies to build huge amounts of useless “renewables” while forcing base load generators to buy the equally useless non-dispatchable power is not in the least naive or unworkable, it’s achieving the aims of the Greens perfectly!

    1. yonason

      “…’the demands made by the influential German Greens to shut down the country’s coal power plants as naive and unworkable’…” – Boyfromtottenham

      Calling it “naive and unworkable” is giving them far too much credit for being sincere but wrong. The truth is more “malicious and subversive.”
      http://www.newsmax.com/Pre-2008/Ecoterrorists-Plotto-Destroy/2002/07/15/id/667466/

      Maybe the ‘useful idiots’ don’t know what they are doing, but the top leadership does.
      http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/media/Coast_Green.html
      Anything that they are for can’t be good for anyone, including the Earth.

  3. CraigAustin

    The Greens want to depopulate the planet, this explains all of their wacky sounding ideas, nothing else does.

  4. DirkH

    “Already Germany’s budding Energiewende is costing German consumers and businesses 28 billion euros annually”

    That’s the number from last year. We’ll see 31bn this year.

    1. yonason

      Use guys better quit complaining. It’s for da good of da planet, see. Now, fork over more dough!
      http://www.energytribune.com/78768/wind-energy-the-greenfellas-connection

  5. sod

    “The two German experts warn that any attempt the country makes to reach the target of 45% renewable energy by the year 2025 is tantamount to economic Harakiri.”

    And who would disagree with such experts?

    I mean, Germany just got 32.5% from renewables last year (that is 5% above the year before).

    https://www.agora-energiewende.de/de/presse/agoranews/news-detail/news/2015-war-rekordjahr-fuer-erneuerbare-energien-stromerzeugung-und-stromexport/News/detail/

    Obviously another 10% increase over the next 10 years would destroy the country. That is 100% sure!

    1. David Johnson

      “Annual assessment shows: Ever more coal power is being exported, but this is not improving Germany’s carbon footprint” But you are, according to your viewpoint, still destroying the world.

      1. sod

        ““Annual assessment shows: Ever more coal power is being exported, but this is not improving Germany’s carbon footprint””

        you do understand that you problem is your assessment on a national level?

        If Germany is exporting more coal power, then German CO2 values are shown to be higher, because the exports are not subtracted and added to the other countries level.

        So there are two scenarios that you should consider: German coal is displacing renewables in other countries (rather unlikely) or cheap German coal energy is producing additional energy demand in other countries (total nonsense).

        So the most likely explanation is, that German coal is replacing coal in Poland, which does not change a thing (apart from national CO2 levels).

        1. DirkH

          “German coal is displacing renewables in other countries (rather unlikely) ”

          sod, renewables are entirely dependent on the continuing existence of the old energy infrastructure as NO STORAGE EXISTS.

          So indeed, coal power does not DISPLACE renewables, it makes renewables POSSIBLE – renewables can only exist as redundant parasites on an existing base load infrastructure – as long as no storage is economically possible – this means that renewables currently exist ONLY to enable grand theft by the insiders (those who make the subsidation rules: Look no further than our leftist parties SPD and CDU: corrupt comrades the lot of them.)

    2. Stephen Richards

      The country is already in shit. Its economy is stagnant, its industry has moved east and west and it people are going to die in numbers in the next bitterly cold winter and boy do they get them. If ruinables reduce the AGT significantly (they wont but lets assume idiots like you are correct) then the -20C they saw in the 80s will be warm in comparison.

      1. sod

        ” and it people are going to die in numbers in the next bitterly cold winter and boy do they get them. ”

        The Gerrman grid is the most stable in the world and it is getting more stable.

        https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electricity-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition

        Your arguments contradict the facts. What is your world like?

        1. AndyG55

          roflmao..

          You would still say that in the middle of a 3 week blackout !

          Coming soon… if it weren’t for fossil fuels.

    3. Henning Nielsen
  6. AndyG55

    GREAT NEWS from Africa and India,

    China is helping them develop new COAL-FIRED power.

    None of this ineffective, un-reliable renewable CRAP, which can only ever be a niche market or is destined to fail.

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/new-coal-and-gas-plants-for-africa-india/

    This is where the next world atmospheric plant food surge will occur. 🙂

    PLENTY of CO2 to feed the world. 🙂 🙂

  7. AndyG55

    Philippines, Indonesia absolutely ZERO interest in the anti-COI2 fraud.

    http://www.thegwpf.com/philippines-wont-honor-paris-agreement/

    Coal, Coal, COAL.. is the way forward.

    Did you know that Indonesia surpassed Australia in coal production in 2013/2014.

    PLENTY for all those that aren’t SUCKED-IN by the anti-CO2 scam.

    Let those who are SUCKED-IN, suffer the consequences as the once third world countries overtake them. 🙂

  8. StewGreen

    Tip : Piers UN criticises UK and Germany for betraying Paris climate deal
    Paul Homewood comments on some “NEWS” in the Guardian (seems like constructed PR not news, cos I cannot see at what event she said that)

  9. Graeme No.3

    South Australia is in all sorts of trouble because they relied on too much wind and solar. With cold overcast weather the wholesale price of electricity jumped to $A103 per MWh when the eastern states were paying $30-32.
    The July figure will be much higher as there have been times when the cost has jumped over $A10,000 per MWh.
    It has been noted that when the turbines were contributing zero power they were drawing 50MW or an average 83kW per turbine.

  10. AndyG55

    I don’t have time to digest this until the weekend,
    but someone might like to look at this article on how much energy wind turbines actually CONSUME !!!

    http://windfarmrealities.org/?tag=power-consumption

  11. Jon-Anders Grannes

    It’s not a failure. This is marxism attacking Western culture and economy. Remember “Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” — John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001 and Obama? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4

  12. David Johnson

    It’s OK, with a few batteries you can solve the unreliability of wind and solar 😉 http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=7243#comments

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