When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Germany

Renewable Revolution, How Wind Energy Took Root In Germany

Eco-friendly national legislation and hard work on the local level has made it possible for wind farms to blossom throughout Germany. But it's not without costs.

More than 28,000 wind turbines have already been installed in Germany
More than 28,000 wind turbines have already been installed in Germany
Stéphane Bussard

AHLERSTEDT — An hour southwest of Hamburg, the horizon appears endless. Around the small villages of Wohnste and Ahlerstedt, the land is spotted with small farms, pig pens and fields of corn, potatoes and grains. Suddenly, gigantic towers appear, rising up into the sky, dictating the tempo of life in this corner of northern Germany.

Jan Ehlen, 46, is proud: He and four others manage this wind farm of 23 turbines and 52 megawatts for the Awomo company. "It runs in the family," he says. "My father Helmut used to produce energy using peat in the neighboring village of Ahrensmoor. He took advantage of new legislation to invest in wind turbines. The first wind farm here was built in 1999."

An engineer and economist who used to work for Airbus, Ehlen set up his office in an opulent-looking house near the entrance of Ahlerstedt, 5,300 inhabitants, in the state of Lower Saxony. On his computer he monitors the wind farm in real time: the turbines' operating speed, production (about 120 million kilowatt-hours per year) and, more importantly, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions spared. According to him, that figure already stands at 1.8 million tons.

For Ehlen, Germany's energy transition makes complete sense. Between 1998 and 2005, the Socialist-Green coalition government led by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and vice-Chancellor Joschka Fischer passed legislation to massively develop renewable energy and to fight against climate change. Under the legislation, the share of renewable energy in nationwide energy production is supposed to reach 35% by 2020, before climbing to 45% by 2025 and 60% by 2035.

Since then, wind farms have been sprouting all over the country, particularly in the north. "With this energy dynamic, it's not only the big energy groups, the oligopolies, that can benefit. Citizens can also get involved. The investment possibilities in renewable energy are a good thing for the middle class," Ehlen says.

Some see the energy transition as an act of democratization of energy production. In Ahlerstedt and Wohnste, 35 local landowners, or as Ehlen says, "35 families," joined forces to invest together in what the Germans call a Bürgerwindpark (citizen wind farm), to create the company Awomo. Almost all of them live in the two villages. "We built the turbines with the help of the industry giant Enercon, but we take care of the rest: managing surface rights, building rights, exploitation, modernization, etc."

Citizen wind farms abound in this region. Ehlen manages another one that involves 42 families. But there are hurdles to establishing the farms."We talked with the locals, to tell them exactly what it was about. They were all able to express their opinions, which we included in our reflection." There was even a vote in Wohnste, where 800 inhabitants live, says the current mayor, Hans-Dieter Klindworth. "The result was 55% in favor of the wind farm, 45% against. At the time, people were worried that such a project would bring down the value of their homes. This fear didn't materialize. Now, 90% of those who were initially opposed to the farm have toned it down."

Standing at the foot of one of these giant wind turbines, Ehlen says some of the locals had complained about the noise. Three turbines were too noisy because of a manufacturing defect. Other villagers were not happy about the infrasound produced by the turbines. But the engineer has an answer for everything. "When you drive with your car windows open or when you listen to the sound of the waves at the beach, you're exposed to more infrasound than near a wind farm." Wind turbines must be at least 1,000 meters away from people's houses and the noise must remain below 45 decibels.

And the villagers reap fiscal benefits thanks to the wind farms, says Klindworth, the mayor of Wohnste. The professional tax paid by the wind farms goes entirely back into the village coffers, as well as 15% of the profits. "We've also created a foundation that partly finances day-care centers, firefighters, and wheelchairs," Ehlen says.

Technological progress has also made it possible to reduce in part the noise pollution caused by the turbines. As part of a repowering process, the wind farm of Ahlerstedt-Wohnste invested 16 million euros (about $18.8 million) to replace some of its turbines. The new ones are 149 meters high with a diameter of 82 meters. The number of rotations per minute were reduced from 23 to 18 while producing significantly more electricity.

Renewable energies have already led to the creation of 130,000 jobs in Germany, and they represented 35% of the country's energy mix in the first half of 2017, making it Germany's first power source. "We should even reach 40%," forecasts Patrick Graichen, of the Berlin-based think tank Agora Energiewende, adding that the constructions of onshore and offshore wind farms are maintaining a sustained pace. More than 28,000 wind turbines have already been installed in Germany.

Berlin's plans for offshore projects are very ambitious. Germany wants to reach a production capacity of 20 gigawatts by 2030 and 30 gigawatts by 2035. But the government's subsidies policy comes at a cost. The price of electricity for the consumer has doubled since 2000. And, paradoxically, the wind energy boom has not prevented the return of coal plants.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Ideas

Shame On The García Márquez Heirs — Cashing In On The "Scraps" Of A Legend

A decision to publish a sketchy manuscript as a posthumous novel by the late Gabriel García Márquez would have horrified Colombia's Nobel laureate, given his painstaking devotion to the precision of the written word.

Photo of a window with a sticker of the face of Gabriel Garcia Marquez with butterfly notes at Guadalajara's International Book Fair.

Poster of Gabriel Garcia Marquez at Guadalajara's International Book Fair.

Juan David Torres Duarte

-Essay-

BOGOTÁ — When a writer dies, there are several ways of administering the literary estate, depending on the ambitions of the heirs. One is to exercise a millimetric check on any use or edition of the author's works, in the manner of James Joyce's nephew, Stephen, who inherited his literary rights. He refused to let even academic papers quote from Joyce's landmark novel, Ulysses.

Or, you continue to publish the works, making small additions to their corpus, as with Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett and Clarice Lispector, or none at all, which will probably happen with Milan Kundera and Cormac McCarthy.

Another way is to seek out every scrap of paper the author left and every little word that was jotted down — on a piece of cloth, say — and drip-feed them to publishers every two to three years with great pomp and publicity, to revive the writer's renown.

This has happened with the Argentine Julio Cortázar (who seems to have sold more books dead than alive), the French author Albert Camus (now with 200 volumes of personal and unfinished works) and with the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. The latter's posthumous oeuvre is so abundant I am starting to wonder if his heirs haven't hired a ghost writer — typing and smoking away in some bedsit in Barcelona — to churn out "newly discovered" works.

Which group, I wonder, will our late, great novelist Gabriel García Márquez fit into?

Keep reading...Show less

The latest