This morning on N-TV (German commercial news), they had this short update on wind-power generators (the turbines).
If you've ever driven through the region from Mainz to Kaiserslautern (roughly an hour's drive)....you'd notice all of these turbines on both sides of the road, and at night.....there's these fairly bright red 'signal' lights that blink.....supposedly to warn pilots of the tall structure. This requirement for the red blinking lights was something written into building codes from decades ago.
Well....on the list of things that get Germans hyped up and negative about the wind generators.....it's this stupid red blinking light. If you live within a mile of a turbine....sitting on your balcony at 10 PM....you are bound to notice this blinking red light, and get irritated.
So fast forward to this week, when the Transport Ministry announced that it now had the technology to turn the blinking red light 'off', and use modern innovation....a transponder that picks up aircraft, and flips the blinking light on for a couple of minutes, and then flips off when it leaves the area.
Future placement of turbines? They will all have this technology installed. Amount of time before all turbines get the blink-technology? Well....it's not exactly clear, and it kinda appears that it might be twenty years before every single turbine is upgraded.
On the list of ten things that get Germans negative about them? Obviously.....but don't go anticipating that the other nine issues will be resolved.
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