Handlesblatt: Germany has a big new problem, dealing with its failed wind turbines. [View all]
A while back, on another website, using the exhaustive database available on the Danish Energy Agency's website, I showed that the average lifetime of a wind turbine is rather short, of the thosands decommissioned, the average turbine lasted considerably less than 20 years. Sustaining the Wind Part 1 – Is So Called “Renewable Energy” the Same as “Sustainable Energy?”
In the above, I provided references showing that in just ten years, from 2004 to 2015, the planet foolishly invested $711 billion dollars in wind energy, which has no effect, no effect whatsoever, on the rate of the degradation of the planetary atmosphere: 2015 was the worst year ever recorded for increases in atmospheric concentrations in carbon dioxide, and the figures being recorded thus far in 2016 are, for anyone who bothers to look, nothing short of terrifying.
Note that $711 billion dollars his hardly a trivial amount: It is more than each of the gross national products of countries like Sweden, Norway, Argentina, and, um, yes, Denmark. It is slightly less than the GDP of Saudi Arabia. Surely by the end of 2016, the "investment" in wind energy will surpass one trillion dollars since 2004 and of course, unless the world comes to its senses, considerably more by 2024, when the wind turbines built in 2004 will have become useless junk.
The following comes from a German financial newspaper, Handlesblatt.
The original version (in German) is here: Sprengen, fällen oder gebraucht verkaufen
The text of the article involves the fact that many of Germany's wind turbines built in the 1990's are now failing or useless; in addition, apparently the German regulatory authorities require that after 20 years, any wind turbines that have not already been abandoned must be recertified as safe.
The following translations of excerpts are mine, the caveat being that I haven't been reading in German that much in recent years, and am quite rusty in executing translations from that language:
More than 25,000 wind turbines are spinning across the Republic. For some, this represents the mutilation of the landscape, for others, they are symbols of the transformative power of German energy to renewable energy...
...In the 1990’s a large number of wind turbines were built in the Federal Republic. It follows that now many of these have reached old age. In the coming year, more than 7,000 turbines will have reached 15 years of age. After 20 years, they must be shut down and dismantled, unless the owner can prove that they remain stable and operational…
The brief article reports graphically that 511 wind farms in Germany have been abandoned.
The choices of recent generations will be hell to pay for future generations. The most sobering commentary on which it has been my misfortune to report in this space, other than the raw data for recent increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, is this one, from a commentary in the scientific journal Nature:
"Current models of climate economics assume that lives in the future are less important...than lives today, a value judgement that is rarely scrutinized and difficult to defend..."
The wind industry and so called "renewable energy" remain popular, but the data shows very clearly that embracing this "renewable energy" strategy is a grotesque failure, and is a mere affectation in which one pretends that doing nothing is the same as doing everything necessary. It is not the people who bought into this cockamamie fantasy who will suffer from the results of our decisions; it is future generations. Today's wind farms are just another part of the useless junk and waste we will leave behind for them to clean up.
Future generations, should they survive what we have done to the planet, will not forgive us, nor should they.
Enjoy the remainder of the weekend.
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