Wind power in Germany- subsidizing failed dreams (solar, wind turbines, costs)
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The problem isn't wind power, it is the lack of proper planning and the Germans aren't the only ones riding that wagon. Wind power projects in Maryland have run afoul of failing to abide by the 5 Ps too (or 6 Ps if you like).
It goes beyond pure economics though, in Germany, people complain about the noise because wind turbines are located too close to residential areas and makes life rather miserable in certain places, places where the homes existed long before wind power was the twinkling in the tax collectors eye.
No, sorry, not this time. Der Spiegel is known for its investigative journalism, particularly into political inefficiency and corruption, and they are known for their intensive fact checking. Although the billionaire Koch Brothers are spending many millions in the US and Canada to fight all forms of renewable energy and to promote the Keystone XL pipeline, which stands to make them $100 Billion if approved, there's no indication they were involved in the reporting on this current mess in Germany.
Simply put, the wind energy situation is chaotic in Germany because of poor planning, poor execution, political maneuvering and overall ineptitude. To me the most egregious aspect is the off-shore wind turbines that have already been built, but which have no power transmission lines available yet to distribute their power, so they're idle. Obviously this is a tremendous waste of resources, and it's affecting their economy, so the government has had to cut back on their program of financial incentives.
Germany has been very aggressive in promoting renewable energy resources, far more aggressive than the US, and consequently wind and solar is now supplying 25.4% of the country's electricity needs, vs. 4.8% for the US.
Yeah the issue isn't wind power technology, it's the power companies not implementing it correctly.
In Germany it involves a lot of political and governmental missteps as well, and European Union regulations complicated the situation even further. In attempting to drive faster growth of renewables, financial incentives were pegged so high that essentially all risk was removed for investors, and consequently investors put money into projects that had built-in issues. Now the German cabinet and Prime Minister Merkel have revised the incentives downward, to increase investor involvement and accountability, and to somewhat slow down the rate of new development, without stopping it altogether.
They remain committed to wind and solar energy as important to their country going forward, they're just reining it in a little.
In Spain they were catching people generating electric at night, the feed in tariff was so high they were using diesel generators.
How rich. It wasn't people it was the electricity companies selling the diesel produced electricty claiming it was produced by solar.. News - Spanish nighttime solar energy fraud
In other words corporate greed by energy companies that burn fossil fuels.
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