Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 15, No. 10, October 2019 Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor

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Germany's Renewable Energy Program, Energiewende, is a Big, Expensive Failure Alice Friedemann Originally published by Peak Energy & Resources, Climate Change, and the Preservation of Knowledge 20 July 2019 REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION After reading this post, or better yet the original 44-page document, you’ll understand why the Green New Deal is a bad idea.  This is a cautionary tale worth paying attention to. The goal of Energiewende was to make Germany independent of fossil fuels.  But it hasn’t worked out.  The 29,000 wind turbines and 1.6 million PV systems provide only 3.1% of Germany’s energy needs and have cost well over 100 billion Euros so far and likely another 450 billion Euros over the next two decades.  And much more than that when you add in the extra cost of maintaining fossil generation systems to back up the lack of wind and sunshine from seconds to weeks. Because of their extremely low energy density and need for a great deal of space, forests are being cut down, pits dug, and filled with hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete for wind turbines to stand on, 5 acres per turbine. With the forest no longer protecting the soil, it is now vulnerable to wind and rain erosion. Because wind and solar farms get a guaranteed price for 20 years, they have no need to innovate, do research, or please customers, who paid them 176 billion euros for electricity with a market value of just 5 billion euros from 2000-2016.  This is money that taxpayers could have used to build bridges, energy efficient buildings, or renovate schools, which would create even more jobs than the wind and solar industry claims so they can tout themselves as good for society, perhaps they aren’t so great when you look at other ways and jobs that could have been created with all the subsidies (Vernunftkraft 2018). Germany’s electricity rates have skyrocketed to the highest levels in the EU because of the Energiewende debacle. Other news about Energiewende: Germany’s Federal Audit Office has accused the federal government of having largely failed to manage the transformation of Germany’s energy systems (Energiewende  program), and will miss its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and the share of renewable energy in transport. At the same time, policy makers had burdened the nation with enormous costs. The audit further concluded that the program is a monumental bureaucratic nightmare. The build-up of renewables benefited from more than $800 billion in subsidies.  The country has not just been burning coal; it has been burning lignite, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. In fact, in 2016, seven of the 10 worst polluting facilities in Europe were German lignite plants. When it’s windy and bright, the grid is so flooded with power that prices in the wholesale market sometimes drop below zero. Transport consumes 30 percent and mining & manufacturing 29% of Germany’s power, but for each, only 4 percent of its energy comes from renewables. Households use 26% of power, but only 13% of it comes from renewables, and Trade, commerce and services 15% but just 7% renewables.   Germany’s carbon emissions have stagnated at roughly their 2009 level. The country remains Europe’s largest producer and burner of coal, which generates more than one-third of Germany’s power supply. Moreover, emissions in the transportation sector have shot up by 20 percent since 1995 and are rising with no end in sight. Note For the author's detailed analysis of the Compendium for a sensible energy policy, scroll down to "Vernunftkraft. 2018. Germanys Energiewende – where we really stand. Bundesinitiative für vernünftige Energiepolitik, Vernunftkraft" in this web page. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Alice Friedemann is the creator of Energy Skeptic and the author of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation. See also her recent article, Germany's Renewable Energy Program, Energiewende, is a Big, Expensive Failure, 20 July 2019. For more information about this author see, How I stumbled on the energy (and ecological) crisis. |Back to Title| LINK TO THE CURRENT ISSUE          LINK TO THE HOME PAGE

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