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Germany’s Wind Energy Mess: As Subsidies Expire, Thousands Of Turbines To Close

by Pierre Gosselin
April 24, 2018, 11:23 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 3 mins read
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As older turbines see subsidies expire, thousands are expected to be taken offline due to lack of profitability.

Green nightmare: Wind park operators eye shipping thousands of tons of wind turbine litter to third world countries – and leaving their concrete rubbish in the ground.

The Swiss national daily Baseler Zeitung here recently reported how Germany’s wind industry is facing a potential “abandonment”.

Approvals tougher to get

This is yet another blow to Germany’s Energiewende (transition to green energies). A few days ago, I reported here how the German solar industry had seen a monumental jobs’ bloodbath and investments have been slashed to a tiny fraction of what they once were.

Over the years, Germany has made approvals for new wind parks more difficult as the country reels from an unstable power grid and growing protests against the blighted landscapes and health hazards.

Now that the wind energy boom has ended, the Baseler Zeitung reports that “the shutdown of numerous wind turbines could soon lead to a drop in production” after having seen years of ruddy growth.

Subsidies for old turbines run out

Today a large number of Germany’s 29,000 total turbines nationwide are approaching 20-years-old and for the most part, they are outdated.

Worse: the generous subsidies granted at the time of their installation are slated to expire soon and thus make them unprofitable.

After 2020, thousands of these turbines will lose their subsidies with each passing year, which means they will be taken offline and mothballed.

The Baseler Zeitung writes:

The Baseler Zeitung adds that some 5,700 turbines with an installed capacity of 45 MW will see their subsidies run out by 2020.

The Swiss daily reports further:

So with new turbines coming online only slowly, it’s entirely possible that wind energy output in Germany will recede in the coming years, thus making the country appear even less serious about climate protection.

Wind turbine dump in Africa?

So what happens to the old turbines that will get taken offline?

Wind park owners hope to send their scrapped wind turbine clunkers to third-world buyers, Africa for example. But if these buyers instead opt for new energy systems, then German wind park operators will be forced to dismantle and recycle them – a costly endeavor, reports the Baseler Zeitung.

Impossible to recycle composite materials

The problem here is the large blades, which are made of fiberglass composite materials and whose components cannot be separated from each other.  Burning the blades is extremely difficult, toxic, and energy-intensive.

So naturally, there’s a huge incentive for German wind park operators to dump the old contraptions onto third-world countries, and to let them deal later with the garbage.

Sweeping garbage under the rug

Next, the Baseler Zeitung brings up the disposal of the massive 3,000-tonne reinforced concrete turbine base, which according to German law must be removed.

Some of these concrete bases reach depths of 20 meters and penetrate multiple ground layers, the Baseler Zeitung reports, adding:

Already wind park operators are circumventing this huge expense by only removing the top two meters of the concrete and steel base, and then hiding the rest with a layer of soil, the Baseler writes.

In the end, most of the concrete base will remain as garbage buried in the ground, and the above-ground turbine litter will likely get shipped to third-world countries.

That’s Germany’s Energiewende and contribution to protecting the environment and climate!

Read more at No Tricks Zone

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Comments 14

  1. EntropynEnergy says:
    7 years ago

    The predicament seems seems imposed by Physics, as no energy-producing device we build and use lasts long enough at work before going to junkyards, although its mass still almost the same since anew, as a recently circulating thesis in thermodynamics points out:

    https://the-fifth-law.com/pages/press-release?sm_ink=clichdisgerwind

    It is as if we are obliged to burn energy as much we’ve done when the Industrial Revolution has started 300 years ago, every day!

  2. Russ says:
    7 years ago

    My deceased father depended on wind energy to charge batteries. He was much happier to have the power provided 24 yrs daily. He should have been a real life professor instead of the BS fellas guiding our current up and coming generation. Ok, first you spend money to build a windmill, then you spend another greater amount of money for back up power?! Hello, anybody see a problem with this plan, anyone? Even that dumb peanut farmer we elected back in 1976 had the good sence to say that his most memorable moment in his life was when the power company dropped off the creosote power pole signaling his farm in Georgia was about to get 24 hr electric power. Please, all you wind power advocates move to the west coast, and leave us here in the Midwest alone!

  3. Maggie says:
    7 years ago

    Actually, with all the strong ocean current on the north sea, in the north of germany, they could actually make the same kind of electrical generating system that they have in brazil. It take the ocean current and transforms it into electricity. It can be found on the internet and it would save the air and the ground and other countries from the dismantled pollution

    • Mike Kell says:
      7 years ago

      Ocean turbines are so efficient and easy to engineer and install that they probably won’t need any subsidies. People will fall all over themselves trying to invest the money into this obviously good investment. Not!!!

  4. kazrikt says:
    7 years ago

    JB, Some of the stupid Aussies you are referring to are not in fact stupid!
    We do not want your worn out pieces of junk wind turbines.
    We already have a few of our own. Shall we send them onto you & dump them in your backyard?
    A nice pile of rubbish for your kids to climb over & play around, me thinks.

  5. Morgan McCallum says:
    7 years ago

    It is amazing, with all the given evidence, that the Climate Barbies of the world can not see this fact. Without subsidies, Solar, Wind and Bio-energy, cannot exist. So eager are the Climate Barbies to make it happen. They are making everyone pay for the recharges of any EV. In BC at least, and from what I was told by EV owners, across Canada. Each means of Energy, should be able to pay for itself, with a profit.
    By all means diversify our energy needs. But do it responsibly. Use the one we have an abundance of now, to provide capital to fund research of the new sources.

  6. Sonnyhill says:
    7 years ago

    Save the turbines! Give them names and adopt them out.
    Go Fund Them. Fat chance.

  7. JB says:
    7 years ago

    Take the old turbines to Australia. Those stupid Aussies will buy them, cash for clunkers and all that!

    • kazrikt says:
      7 years ago

      JB, Some of the stupid Aussies you are referring to are not in fact stupid!
      We do not want your worn out pieces of junk wind turbines.
      We already have a few of our own. Shall we send them onto you & dump them in your backyard. A nice pile of rubbish for your kids to climb over & play around, me thinks.

  8. Spurwing Plover says:
    7 years ago

    A few less of those Bird and Bat maiming things just rip them down and remake them into sine more useful that don’t harm the birds and bats

  9. Steve Bunten says:
    7 years ago

    But, but, but I thought wind turbines create free energy. How is it if they don’t get a subsidy these turbines will lose money? You mean the free energy isn’t true? Well isn’t that just amazing. And then when they are of no use there’s a very high cost to dispose of them. Guess another minor detail left out.

    • DGSchroder says:
      7 years ago

      I can understand that the initial cost of a wind turbine is very, very high. (Manufacturing cost, set up cost including its huge concrete foundation, power line connections, etc) But once the windmill is set up and running, the ongoing operating cost should be very, very low. The windmill does not need a fuel supply like natural gas, oil, or coal, which cost money. Are the economics of wind energy so bad that it cannot even cover its own operating costs after all the initial costs have been covered?

      • Steve Bunten says:
        7 years ago

        Actually I was being facetious. Surprisingly there is a significant amount of maintenance costs that are seldom (if ever) mentioned just to keep them working. And given the intermittent output of electricity due to times of low to no winds the average output of a wind turbine is way below its rated capacity so those maintenance costs must be spread over the actual generation not its rated capacity.

      • Terrence Brachmanski says:
        7 years ago

        http://images.realclear.com/205876_5_.jpg

        1 MW of wind turbine capacity requires 230 tons of coal for the steel.
        1 MW of wind turbine capacity requires 61 tons of coal for the concrete.

        That’s 291 tons of coal per MW of wind turbine installed capacity.
        Now a coal-fired plant has a capacity factor of ~87% and a typical wind turbine only manages ~25%. So it takes about 3.5 MW of wind power to generate as much electricity as 1 MW of coal power, assuming the wind blows.

        So, it takes about 1,020 tons of coal to offset 1 MW of coal-fired capacity with 1 MW of wind capacity.

        1,020 tons of coal would have generated 1.9 million kWh of electricity.
        1 MW of wind capacity would take 10 months to generate 1.9 million kWh of electricity.

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