Edit: what's with the downvotes? A URL is not an argument, and neither is some raw data without any interpretation.
Even if a plot is not perfect, consistent wind (well above the ground) can be tapped by tall wind turbines and still be net positive. Ground wind speed is very different from up where they operate
Quiet .. theres insufficient wind here (aerial not at ground level or behind lederhosen) in southern Germany.. maybe we shouldn't invest millions into it
Data .. lack of wind in southern Germany on website dedicated to tracking wind in Europe
Can't blame them though, a landscape filled with wind farms is hardly enticing.
Of course there's also access and wiring.
Wind farms are large scale, long term, industrial sites. There are not forests or fields...
Covering a country in wind farms (which is literally what's needed to get decent reliable-ish production) is all downsides with a single upside: electricity is renewable with no emissions. Very far from being ideal or even a first choice.
Well, at least you're acknowledging that this is political and ideological, which is always a hindrance on these issues.
Nuclear would be a good option.
In term of wind, I think offshore wind is much preferable to on-land wind, but I suspect that Germany is also limited there.
As an example for that "10+ years" timescale, you can look at our direct neighbor France: They are now starting the planning phase on new nuclear reactors that are supposed to go on-line in 2035-2037, so 13-15 years from now. And that's in a country that's a) pretty much all-in on nuclear and b) already experiencing power shortages (that are only offset by the ability to import power from other countries such as Germany).
There was surely a time where constructing nuclear reactors went quicker in Germany, around the 1960s-1970s, but that's because we had an experienced industry at the time. Once you stop building specific things like this for some time, you lose the specialists required to do so.
At the moment nuclear is the only source that guarantees vast amounts of electricity on demand. I think it's unrealistic to think that wind and solar (at least in Northern Europe) will be enough to meet demand of industrial nations, not least when all vehicles are EV.
By exiting nuclear Germany has both put itself in a corner and committed to continued high emissions (despite their claim that they are going 'green') because they have to keep relying on coal and gas. Ideological dogma is never good.
[1] https://www.enappsys.com/interconnectorreview/#:~:text=Franc....
* a plethora of safety problems, often created due to a lack of maintenance and lax oversight - most famously more than a dozen reactors are offline for years because of corrosion in neglected backup cooling systems
* large reactors require huge amount of cooling water. They usually take water from rivers and release the warmed water right back to it, but rivers often run low in the summer, or are already so warm that rising the temperature any more would kill the river.
* nuclear reactors are hard to regulate below a threshold of about 40% of their peak, which requires base load demand to be reserved just for them if they are to be run.
The last one is almost funny, because the base load problem of nuclear reactors is often somehow portrayed as a benefit. Power production must match power consumption though, so an inflexible power source is a burden. Without the ability to export power to its neighbours, France's reactors would have even less uptime than they have now.
With wind you are totally reliant on the weather, which is also why offshore wind tends to work better as apparently wind patterns are more constant and predictable.
Your three bullet points are all strawman arguments.
You're going to need some serious citation for that.
The argument is a little disingenuous in any case because temporarily stopping reactors for maintenance, especially planned maintenance (in this case delayed because of Covid), is not at all the same as the inherent uncertainty that sources dependent on the weather (e.g. wind) suffer from.
As said, with nuclear/gas/coal/etc you know what you'll get pretty much day in day out. With wind it's never guaranteed.
[1] https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/la-questio...
What? Since when? Most of the land of the world is still occupied by nature, and with cities expanding and remote villages disappearing the trend is not going against nature as much as you think.
all of this is based on modelling that is open to question.
I am pretty sure such a change will ruffle a few feathers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Therm...
Perhaps not close enough.
- look up "infrasound" and "undercutting minimum distances", better use something else than Google for this.
- also check the requirements for the base materials: concrete, aluminium, fiber-reinforced plastic. Calculate the energy requirements for producing them.
- familiarize yourself with the space requirements (~ two acres of highly compacted soil, not including access roads)
- duration and disposal
- soil dehydration, other environment impact issues
- ... and as always of course, base load capability and storability
https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/renewables/weekly-data-how...
If you don't mention the societal needs, and merely make unsupported claims that "windows kill birds," then you are being woefully disingenuous. Because windows do not kill eagles, but wind farms do! This is an important distinction which your blanket statement does not cover.
As for what's marginal, damaging or wasteful, then why is Germany supporting the construction of a woefully and inadequate technology when they have a much better alterative: Nuclear power?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germa...
The Green Party is a result of the Anti-nuclear movement in Germany. They need to do a 180 first, before nuclear in Germany can happen again. That probably happens in the next three months...
All electricity generation is for societal needs.
And those eagles? One unfortunate incident, fixed by decommissioning one tower?
They predict that it will increase into the tens of millions, as more windmills are constructed.
Perhaps that number is "negligible" in a relative sense, but why kill birds at all? We should be working to increase the bird population, not adding more ways to kill them.
I'm not an expert, but just a bit of web searching has turned up some alarming studies and predictions. Maybe they're exaggerated; maybe they're one-sided. But it seems to me the problem shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand.
Birds eat ticks and other pests. 50 years ago, flocks of birds were much larger. Huge swarms of birds would descend on a pasture or a green grass yard and pretty much eat all the bugs. This is a beneficial thing.
Stopping wind power expansion because of the birds that die in collisions is like not extinguishing a building on fire because of fears of the damage the water will do to the building.
That said, many laws include provisions to minimise the harm to birds and bats. Including the German one under discussion.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200302-how-do-wind-farm...
https://www.treehugger.com/ways-to-protect-bats-and-birds-fr...
Apparently, transparent buildings kill a lot more birds than wind farms do.
As others have pointed out bats are actually much more in danger of windmills then birds. And they got lots of other problems too (White-nose syndrome)
Most birds of prey (well just about any predator species really) are usually endangered not because we directly kill them directly but because we destroy their ability to eat either by destroying the environment they hunt in or lower the amount of prey species available for them.
There are some exceptions like wolves, etc that kill livestock and thus farmers will hunt them usually to the point of wiping out the local population if given the opportunity.
Other than that, there are no more dead birds under a windmill than anyplace else. Such a study was posted here on HN no too long ago.
Absolutist statements aren’t very helpful in that context. Obviously wind turbines do kill birds. The correct consequence of that fact is not to never build wind turbines. It’s to find the right trade off between protecting birds, while still preserving the ability to have a shot at the needed energy transformation.
Bird killings just aren’t bad enough or frequent enough to justify that.
What specific issue do you take with the way this change proposes to deal with birds?