Wind turbines in Hessen, Germany. By Wirestock Creators @ Shutterstock.com
Originally posted on June 27, 2023.
The Bumpy Road to Energy Utopia
Wind Power: It’s clean, free, renewable. Go ahead, Google the subject, and you will find article upon article “claiming electricity from wind is now cheaper than electricity” from dirty ol’ fossil fuels. Then why, as the Manhattan Contrarian wonders, doesn’t some country somewhere get all its electricity from wind?
In fact, despite now several decades of breakneck building of wind turbines, no country seems to be able to get even half of its electricity from wind when averaged over the course of a year, and no country has really even begun to solve the problem of needing full backup when the wind doesn’t blow.
The current world champion of trying to get electricity from wind is Germany. Why doesn’t Germany also get it from solar? Not going to work in the world’s cloudiest county, explains Francis Menton:
According to Clean Energy Wire, December 2022, in 2020 Germany got 45.2% of its electricity from wind and sun. Then that declined to 41% in 2021, due to lack of wind. In 2022 they appear to have bounced back to 46%. Germany has enough wind turbines that they produce big surpluses of electricity when the wind blows at full strength. But they still haven’t cracked the threshold of meeting 50% of electricity demand with wind and sun over the course of a year.
Francis Menton explains other news relating to the future utopia of wind power. We have a piece in the Wall Street Journal of June 23, he continues, with the headline, “Clean Energy’s Latest Problem Is Creaky Wind Turbines.”
The first sentence is “The ill wind blowing for clean-energy windmills just got stronger.”
The article reports that shares of German wind turbine giant Siemens Energy fell 36% on Friday after the company withdrew profit guidance for the rest of the year and stated that components of its installed turbines are wearing out much faster than previously anticipated. Thus costs of fulfilling warranties will greatly increase; but also, the expected replacement cycle for the turbines needs to be shortened.
The writer (Carol Ryan) comments, “The news isn’t just a blow for the company’s shareholders, but for all investors and policy makers betting on the rapid rollout of renewable power.”
A Huge Setback
Siemens Gamesa CEO Jochen Eickholt is quoted in Barrons:
“The quality problems go well beyond what had been known hitherto. . . . The result of the current review will be much worse than even what I would have thought possible.”
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