German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
You are literally commenting on an article where one of those countries has shut down a wind farm to go back to miming coal (never mind that my point still stand regardless because renewables are still just a fraction of electricity production, or that it is the wealthy people buying the electric cars who contribute more emissions than the poorest 50% of the population, but good to see the greenwashing has worked so well on you), so which of us is actually making noise, and which is addressing the problems we face?
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Do you believe every headline you read on the internet? Looks like it. This isn’t „Germany end all wind farms“, the people who wrote that headline want you to think that. Don’t be such an easy mark.
The title, paired with an expensive paywall and the fact that the quote below is the only part visible for free would certainly suggest that this comment is true.
Here’s the un-paywalled article intro:
"German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
One wind turbine has already been dismantled, with a further seven scheduled for removal to excavate an additional 15m to 20m tonnes of so-called ‘brown’ coal, the most polluting energy source."
I think this article from last year is relevant to this story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/26/german-windfarm-coalmine-keyenberg-turbines-climate
What I’m saying is RWE is a privately owned company. The headline says „Germany begins…“ which is objectively untrue.
It is trying to suggest that Germany passed a decree to disassemble all windfarms. Yet the opposite is true.
I agree, that’s what I’m saying. I used “this” ambiguously, I just realized. I edited “this” to “this comment”, and added another clarifying sentence before the quote.
Here’s an excerpt from the older article which isn’t paywalled, that I linked in my comment (before the edit):
"Constructed more than 20 years ago, the turbines at the small Keyenberg wind park are less powerful than modern equivalents, with each producing about 1MW of energy per hour at a wind speed of 15 metres per second, roughly a sixth of the output of a more efficient state of the art turbine.
Since windfarms in Germany are no longer eligible for subsidies after 20 years in operation, the park would probably have been “repowered” with new technology or wound down even if it were not for the nearby mine.
Nonetheless, North-Rhine Westphalia’s ministry for economic and energy affairs on Monday urged RWE to abort its plans to dismantle the windfarm.
“In the current situation, all potential for the use of renewable energy should be exhausted as much as possible and existing turbines should be in operation for as long as possible,” a spokesperson said."
Might be a good idea for you to read the article
Electric cars contribute less emissions than ICE cars even if the grid’s electricity supply is entirely coming from coal. Of course cars in general are a much worse solution to transport than really any form of public transportation, but that’s no reason to spread pro-ICE car propaganda.