This past weekend in Germany....an historic event of sorts briefly happened. Somewhere around mid-day on Sunday....German renewable energy actually hit the seventy-five percent point. The wind was sustaining itself enough, and there was minimal cloud cover over a fair amount of Germany.....which led to this brief period.
Environmentalists will say that it's been a long time in the funnel, and it's nice to hit some peak....even if it were just for an hour or two.
Numbers-wise....there's around 22,000-odd windmills and each week a few more are added to the number. No one really sits down and does projections, but it's safe to say that there ought to be twenty-five thousand windmills within Germany....by 2016.
The current trend? Well....it's not so much to chat about growth....as it is the stumbling blocks now being seen in Germany. Most towns and village ask questions and plan halting procedures to any windmill farms near their residences. Even if you suggest that the windmill farm will be several miles away on some ridge of a hillside....that just gets folks more charged up to fight the project.
Dead birds? Same deal. It's now brought up a fair bit over how birds seem to 'whack' themselves with the blades.
Ending the evil side of power production? Well...NO. You see....to hit seventy-five percent this past Sunday....they needed a front to come through and provide sufficient wind. Without that front....you had to have evil electrical plants (coal-powered or nuke-powered) to be in abundance and make up what the wind could not produce. The solar energy side of this deal? Same case....you had to have moderate to no clouds....to get some peak power.
Somewhere in this entire mix.....you have no choice.....but to build and sustain a coal or nuke power situation to meet what windmills or solar can't provide. It's like buying a car with really nifty brakes, but having a mandated requirement for an entire second set of brakes....thus adding cost to the car, and required maintenance for brake requirement one, and brake requirement two.
I suspect in six years.....we will hit some particular day with plenty of sunshine and a storm front coming through Germany.....and suddenly realize one-hundred-percent of the power for the day...came from renewable energy. The question would be.....how much stand-by power did you have to maintain.....via nuke or coal energy.....to reach this remarkable day? It might be curious to know that answer.
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