Swiss Daily NZZ: More Than 1000 Citizen Wind Energy Protest Groups …Germany “On Path To The Unknown”

Although resistance to littering the landscape with industrial wind turbines continues to grow strongly and the power grid is becoming ever more unstable, the German government refuses to back off its expansion of wind and solar energy.

Protests groups reach over 1000 in number as wind turbine litter the German landscape. Photo: Windwahn.

Jonas Herrmann of the Swiss NZZ here comments how Germany “is struggling with its wind turbines”.

It started 28 years ago, when the German government enacted a law that forced power companies to buy up any green power produced, pay exorbitant prices for it and feed it into the power grid whether it was needed or not. Over time the installation of solar panels and wind turbines exploded and today many parts of the countryside have become littered with unsightly wind parks.

Ruined landscape, yet a long way to go

Yet, Germany today remains far away from supplying its energy needs through “green” sources.

The NZZ comments: “The landscape has changed in many places as a result. A longer drive through Germany inevitably leads past dozens of wind turbines.”

Moreover, every community has been impacted, Nikolai Ziegler, says the chairman of resistance group Vernunftkraft, which is the major umbrella association of wind power opponents. According to Ziegler: “In Germany there are more than 1000 citizens’ initiatives that are mobilizing against wind energy” and that these groups are getting involved in politics.

Wind and sun will never be able to do the job

Not only are wind turbines ruining Germany’s idyllic landscape, but the NZZ writes that much of the resistance is also based on wind energy’s technical unreliability as a power supply. The Herrmann at NZZ cites engineering expert Dr. Detlef Ahlborn, who says wind energy is too erratic and thus unreliable.

According to the NZZ;

With the umbrella organization Vernunftkraft, everyone is convinced that wind and solar energy will never be able to ensure a secure power supply.”

Proponents in denial

This is a claim that the German government and green energy proponents refuse to acknowledge. Proponents in Germany believe that the problems with green energies will somehow go away and the supply will miraculously somehow smooth out if more and more volatile wind and sun capacity gets installed.

Critics like Nikolai Ziegler also criticize that there really hasn’t even been any real Energiewende (transition the green energies) so far because electricity is only one fifth of Germany’s total energy demand. Green energies provide only one third of that one measly fifth, and so “it’s relatively meaningless”.

The NZZ notes that “most of the leaders of the protest group Vernunftkraft are “male in the second half of their lives” who “are united by their anger at wind energy”, but adds most have a background in natural science almost half of them are professors.

“Path to the unknown”

Vernunftkraft is calling for an end to green energy subsidies, a stop to the construction of additional wind turbines and instead greater investment in gas-fired power plants

The NZZ writes:

However, a political majority is not in sight. Although the AfD and parts of the FDP [parties] believe the Energiewende is a mistake, the German government can hardly prevent a further expansion of renewable energies. Germany is thus still on the path to the unknown with the Energiewende.”

16 responses to “Swiss Daily NZZ: More Than 1000 Citizen Wind Energy Protest Groups …Germany “On Path To The Unknown””

  1. Yonason

    “Germany ‘On Path To The Unknown'”

    Oh, I think we all know where this is headed, what the ultimate outcome will be if it isn’t fixed. While technically sort of true, perhaps it would be more correct to have said, “Germany ‘On Path To Nowhere’,” or still more correct, using an American idiomatic expression, “Germany ‘Going Nowhere Fast’.”

    I hope it gets fixed, for their sake, and for that of the nations around them who will be affected if they ultimately fail.

    On the up side, it’s a good sign that there is so much push-back, and from older professionals who know more what they are doing than impressionable children who just want to be a part of a cause they don’t understand.

  2. Sommer
  3. Sommer
  4. Sommer
  5. Kurt in Switzerland

    Case study about what a virtue-signaling parliament can accomplish if the general public doesn’t protest.

    The Renewable Energy Law was a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation, as it never set a cap on what it should cost, nor did it have any means of measuring whether it actually accomplished anything useful.

    The metric of achieving x % of electricity produced through “renewables” is arbitrary. Moreover, it does not actually accomplish the inferred goal of reducing Germany’s CO2 footprint. Yet it costs upwards of 25B Euros per year and growing.

    Das EEG war und bleibt ein Fehlgeburt; es bleibt am Leben nur dank 25 B Euro Zuschub pro Jahr (tendenz steigend).

    1. Yonason
      1. Kurt in Switzerland

        Yup. That sums up the main points of the braindead ‘Green’ policy.

        1. Yonason

          Ian Plimer gives us the view from Oz.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvnmgI38yFU

          Strange, isn’t it, that when insanity strikes, it usually grips all or most of the world at the same time.

          1. tom0mason

            “Strange, isn’t it, that when insanity strikes, it usually grips all or most of the world at the same time.”

            Mass hysteria?

            It’s a crazes like the hoop-a-hoop, yo-yo, Pong, Tamagotchi, Angry Birds, Facebook, Global Warming, etc.
            You’ll have noted that over the years these crazes have moved from real physical things (that people are amused by but don’t understand why ) to virtualized computer generated ones that they still do not understand like cAGW (aka Climate Change™).

            And that is the problem. So many people for no good reason have faith that Global Warming is real despite the evidence of their senses. Since about 2004, overall summers aren’t getting much hotter and winters are getting colder.

          2. Yonason

            Yeah, tomO, and it keeps ’em occupied so they don’t notice how they’re being enslaved and robbed blind by the Left.
            https://youtu.be/MDAjEaFPnwY?t=106

            (there thru 2:08) – whole thing’s worth watching, IMO.

  6. John F. Hultquist

    Thanks Pierre,
    As usual, very interesting.
    At this point (and from this Swiss Daily NZZ), it is difficult to gauge the diversity of the views.
    Some people likely object primarily to the sight and sound.
    Some might know all of this will not alter the World’s temperature.
    A few perhaps have lost, or will lose good jobs from the closing of nuclear plants, and others.
    Still others {a point made in the article} may realize cost of electricity is rising, and also there are issues regarding the grid and all aspects thereof .

    Text mentions older males, natural science backgrounds, and professors.
    In contrast, what are the characteristics of those still pushing for more wind and solar? Are they young with green colored glasses, or are they older folks with a view toward the money to be made?

  7. sasquatch

    The Germans are beating their heads against the wall with their wind farm fake green monkey bidness.

    If you keep doing the same thing over and over again like beating your head against the wall, you will eventually lose consciousness.

    Besides, it feels so good when you quit.

    Gravity and metal fatigue will doom wind turbines.

    The ennui is there already for Germans, they’ve probably had enough of wind energy and are ready to move on.

  8. pochas94

    There is only one place to lay the blame. German politicians.

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