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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?
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I live next to this coal mine and the wind farm is on my monthly Autobahn trip right next to me. Maybe to shed some light on the “why”:
The coal mine was scheduled to be mined until 2038. The plan was to extend the mine to the west, the wind farm is to the east of the coal mine. RWE of course has big investments into mining this lignite until the very last possible day. There are problems with extending to the west though: old towns still exist there and the residents would of course love to stay in their homes the family had for generations. To the east, where the wind farm is, there is nothing but fields and some wind turbines. There are about 150 turbines in the wind farm and ~15 of them are standing where the mine is extending to now. Those 15 also were the first to be built for the wind farm and they are nearly at the end of their lifespan, some of them are even deemed structurally unsafe.
Of course it would be better to stop mining the lignite but decades ago the contracts with RWE were made and just forcing a company out of a contract that is worth billions of Euros is extremely bad precedent and would hinder future investions. Buying out the contract to cease mining faster also was not possible, because RWE was unwilling to settle for a reasonable sum of money.
It’s really bad for $$ to do the responsible thing, so we’re going to proceed with existential environmental degradation. Because $.
Germany is still going to use the same amount of coal whether this runs or not, they’d just import it from another country or have another mine go faster if there’s one that still can
The way to reduce coal is to increase low carbon sources of energy and to reduce consumption
Nope. Dont import and scarsity will drive prices up and people use less. It’s pretty simple really.
We need to keep all fossil fuels in the ground. The way we do this is reduce energy usage.
To be completely honest (and I am a huge anti-coal-mining dude), currently I’m happy that we still have the coalmines running. It would not have been possible to build solar and wind power fast enough to compensate for the coalmines, the only feasible alternative would have been gas and that comes from russia
Maybe nuclear could’ve been better than coal?
There are a lot of things which in hindsight were better than coal. But when the decision was made to dig where the wind farm is, there wouldn’t have been any time to build a nuclear power plant anymore
Nuclear was already better than coal 50 years ago… the whole anti-nuclear movement was predicated on the Chernobyl disaster, making “natural gas” and renewables better than nuclear, with a supposed phase-out of natural gas. Coal was always the worst option, both in emissions, and in the impact of open pit mining, when it was already known that deep shaft black coals mines had been getting depleted for decades.
It was highly irresponsible to not renew the nuclear plants before there was at least enough renewables to replace them, and instead increase reliance on natural gas… from Russia from all places. Particularly after Crimea, there should have been a reassessment and a push to fast-track nuclear.
It takes only 5 years to build a nuclear power plant, Crimea was 9 years ago; Germany had plenty of time to prepare itself, instead of investing in increasing NordStream capacity.
It takes only 5 years to build a nuclear power plant, (…)
I agree with most of the comment, but this is just an oversimplification. I’m sure that you can build a nuclear power plant in 5 years, if you have the requisite infrastructure, engineers and knowledge. Germany did not have any of those in sufficient amount to build anywhere near enough nuclear reactors between the decision to switch to coal & gas in around 2011 and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Even France wouldn’t be capable of that in such a short amount of time.
Had they made that decision 30 years ago, sure, but in such short time? No way.
infrastructure, engineers and knowledge. Germany did not have any of those in sufficient amount
Germany had 17 nuclear power plants in 2011, when they decided to close half of them after Fukushima. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Last nuclear power plant closed in April 2023. I find it hard to believe that there was not enough expertise to build some new ones in all this time.
the decision to switch to coal & gas
This is what really rubs me the wrong way: coal should have been phased out before nuclear, not used to replace nuclear.
It all seems like a grift and a knee jerk reaction under the guise of “look how green we are”, while actually doing all the opposite.
Correct. You can add the vastly underestimated methane emissions of natural gas to that. (They are hard to measure but nobody seems toooo interested)
Or to have kept your nuclear running and not freaked out after the fukushima disaster…
Just saying
Do you really think it’s more responsible to force the families out of their homes and demolish several villages/towns over some old wind turbines? Or did you mean the responsible thing being investing in renewables? I really can’t tell, sorry 😅
It’s more responsible to stop mining fossil fuels.
Obviously the latter
What a beautiful society where companies have more powers than an state…
Ofc theses companies have our futurs in mind, right ?
Capitalism.
They don’t have more power than the state. The state could easily legislate any demands they want. Do so though and you end up rapidly like Venezuela. Contacts matter. Unless you think the state should be able to take your house with little to no compensation as well? That is not capitalism. Don’t be obtuse.
They don’t have more power - the government was just stupid to give them contracts this longlasting
Thinking of that one us city that sold its parking rights for a century for just millions
Also the many private-partnered public infrastructure projects built in Turkey with billing rights given to the companies that will let Erdoğans friends leech off the public for decades even if he loses political power
Why was the plan to ever extent to the wist if there is a town?
A lot of towns have been dug away for the lignite. The town now not digged away is just one of the few surviving ones. Also a lot of towns have been drowned for water storage lakes and Hydropower. Europe is populated way too densely to do any large infrastructure project without destroying towns in some ways. The residents are compensated with huge amounts of money, but for some they would still rather stay in the homes they have lived in for 50-80 years.
In this case the original plan was to move westwards because that’s where the coal lies in the ground. The lignite in the west is enough to keep the power plants running until 2050, the lignite in the east only until 2030. Because the date is now pushed forwards, it’s feasible to dig to the east. Also advanced technology plays a role: the original plans destroying the westwards towns were made when there was no technology to efficiently burn the lignite on the east, which is way less dense.
Thanks for your insight.
Germany, are you on the drugs?
Coal-aine all through those nostrils.
Hwhat they need is clean burning propane and propane accessories.
Maybe they should support more
nazis, sanctions against other fuel resources and further terrorist attacks against peaceful infrastructure by their so called 
“allies”.Stop trivialising fascism.
the only people trivializing fascism are those who see fascism symbology like the swastika, Black Sun, various nordic runes, etc on the soldiers they’re egging on and go “doesn’t look like anything to me!” while advocating for the double genocide theory
Have you any pictures of Azov with swastika, black sun, or such after they got integrated into the national guard?
Or is that just a convenient propaganda line to make you support an imperial aggressor fielding tons of fascist militias, itself being a mafia state slowly but surely turning fascist?
Have you any pictures of Azov with swastika, black sun, or such since 2014?
The Black Sun and Wolfsangel have been right on their fucking shit rag of a flag until last year, you fascist turd.
JFC the entire first page of your comments is nothing but nazi apologia, fick dich du kranke Faschosau.
Hey rember when they just got those new leopard tanks and some rascal painted a bunch of iron crosses on them, which libs insisted was from obscure world War 1 battalion and not where literally everybody knows the iron cross from, to the point the German government said they weren’t gonna keep giving them weapons if that shit didn’t stop
Leopards come with iron crosses by default, it’s the fucking signet of the fucking Bundeswehr. This is a Bundeswehr tank. These are three Bundeswehr tanks.
Cossack crosses are very similar.
It’s not just iron crosses, he’s thinking of the balkenkreuzes that are being painted on tanks. The symbol Germany stopped using after WWII.
The black sun got removed in 2015, this is the new one. But, go on, spin random bullshit.
JFC the entire first page of your comments is nothing but nazi apologia
Yeah I happen to be arguing with another fascism-trivialising hexbear idiot in another thread.
Oh and I can prove Azov are still distributing this free taster archive of the magazine via nackor.org, which is where the previous azov.press site migrated to later on. Here is a January 2022 archived page where you can see Azov are still giving away that selection of the magazine for free via their political spinoff the “National Corps”, this is one of several of their party websites: https://web.archive.org/web/20220409062917/https://nackor.org/ru/z-dnem-sobornosti-ukraini
Reference for National Corps being directly linked to Azov: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/ukraine-far-right-national-militia-takes-law-into-own-hands-neo-nazi-links
It is the regiment’s official political wing and has only suspended political activity during wartime.
nackor.org, which is where the previous azov.press site migrated to later on.
nackor.org is a gambling website now it seems. Certainly not a news outlet, certainly not from the outside.
Reference for National Corps being directly linked to Azov
Wikipedia. Yes they’re certainly linked the National Corps is the home of Azov’s Nazis.
…squinting at things and considering that National Corps ceased activity in 2022 (to go to the front) it doesn’t seem too unlikely that they gave up on nackor.org and the successor to the Black Sun. I guess (really, guess) that it was run by National Corps for the longest time after Azov got integrated.
Anyhow are you seeing those election results. I can’t blame Ukrainians for not being too worried about them getting into power.
The black sun got removed in 2015, this is the new one. But, go on, spin random bullshit.
The Azov Brigade’s official magazine is titled “Black Sun newspaper” which it produces and distributes to several tens of thousands within the Ukrainian military still uses the black sun, because it’s literally the fucking name of the publication.
Some but not all of them are available here: https://archive.org/details/black_sun/
Given that this archived collection goes up to 2017, you are full of shit.
Yeah no that’s indefensible and the original editor in chief is nuts (google translate from the Ukrainian wikipedia page):
This is an old Ukrainian sign, which means a force aimed at destroying all the old and restoring the new. There is another version of its origin: the black sun is the period of the year when water acquires special life-giving qualities. This usually happened at night, when there was no sun, but since the nutritional properties were always associated only with it, our ancestors nicknamed this time the black sun. There is no hint of hostile ideology here, this is our Ukrainian symbol, which has a sacred meaning.
— Mark Melnyk (“Viry”), editor-in-chief of the publication
Couldn’t find out when it was discontinued, the azov.press domain certainly is dysfunctional. Azov’s official news feed seems to be here.
Could neither find out how official the whole thing was, either, and especially not in the crucial post-incorporation times. They might just have continued to operate independently.
Still, though: Is current-day Azov out there doing Nazi things? Ultimately that’s the only question that matters. Of course from the Russian perspective yes it is according to Russian propaganda everyone opposed to Russia (and that includes being opposed to being invaded) is a Nazi.
The black sun got removed in 2015, this is the new one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social-National_Party_of_Ukraine
Panzergrenadierbattalion 13 of the Bundeswehr (1980-1992, dissolved because cold war over). You’ll find it in more insignia not to mention coat of arms of towns but that one is closest to Azov in the sense that it’s simply a singular Wolfsangel. At least among the ones I could find within 10 seconds of googling.
The Wolfsangel is not a Nazi symbol as such. If you want to outlaw everything the Nazis ever used then nothing would be left, including the Antifa flags because they totally did try to appropriate those. They’re getting off on that shit and you seem to be willing to play right into their hands.
Bruh that’s basically a swastika
Why carry water for a fascist group just do the lib thing and call them bad apples and move on ffs
It’s really sus
Have you gone to an optometrist lately. It’s a Wolfsangel.
Here, another swastika. Notice the three hooks pointing counter-clockwise?
Literally fucking why. The energy consumption of Germany is hanging by this like geopolitical shoestring. Renewables could make next winter or the winter after mildly affordable for Germans. Yet instead, the German state is expanding this dystopian arm that digs a massive pit in the earth… to burn the most pollutant fuel that we have. Like what? What an incredible act of defiance against the wishes and needs of its people. And that’s coming from an American.I’ve been schooled as to why this article is a misdirection and propoganda rather than serious need for concern.
I think the problem is that people really don’t like freezing to death in winter when there just happens to not be enough sun or wind. So you need something as a backup. But we’re afraid of nuclear and just happen to have all this coal lying around. That’s the sad why.
Fair. Very fair.
Because the entire economy of that region depends on coal mining and coal miners. You are aware that closing the mine down tomorrow would instantly land a fairly large group of people into poverty because they have no other marketable job skills other than coal mining, right?
That’s not wrong but really just a pretense.
The former government killed 100k jobs in the solar industry when solar power became too cheap for others to compete while whining non-stop about the poor 10k workers in coal mining. They did the same later for wind power and so even now some companies are in trouble as they had to size down so heavily that they can’t even get full use out of the boom in wind power now.
Jobs in coal mining are basically an issue for 2-3 local politicians, for everyone else of that former government it’s
corruptionlobbyism and jobs as board members and advisors.As for why they keep increasing the dig site: It’s actually jsut logical. They need coal for another few years and can either increase the area or dig deeper. And the latter is massively more damaging for the environment as it involves a lot of ground water manipulation.
The contract to expand the coal mine was signed a long time ago, it wouldnt be signed now. RWE, who mines the coal there, would have to be compensated if they werent allowed to mine there.
The compensation would probably be so high that its cheaper to just build renewable energy elsewhere, and the wind turbines are at the end of their lifespan anyway.
I just hope that we dont get a right wing government anytime soon that gives out the next stupid contract to mine even more coal there.
Because, in the end we have more coal underground than we ever need or should use, its not a question of finding coal, but instead of how or if we should mine it.
Why? Because you all want to hear that lie. That’s the whole reason they tell it. Because you pay in clicks for it. Germany bad always sells no matter how braindead the desinformation being poushed is.
Well if its disinformation, whats the truth?
Edit, since you replied many people have discussed in comments whh this is disinformation. I see now.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Germany is going for a complete coal phase-out by 2030. For this the new government (in office since Dec 2021) renegotiated the already contracted and approved increase of the area coal is digged for, so the last one happened earlier this year. But you have probably heard the story about the viallage of Lützerath “being demolished because stupid Germany started to increase coal digging again” in the media. That’s desinformation because in reality they stopped coal digging there, btw saving half a dozen equally small villages scheduled for destruction more than a decade ago already.
Germany has also shut down it’s remaining nuclear reactors that combined -up to their shutdown- produced the miniscule share of ~2% of electricity. In the same time they build up wind- and solarpower. In fact Germany’s complete nuclear power (and even at it’s peak it was not that much but only looks bigger because electricity demand in the early 1990s was much lower) was replaced with much more capacities in renewable power, so much indeed that they also decreased coal by nearly the same capacity at the same time. Yet, you have probably read dozens of times how “insane Germans think coal is clean energy and shut down all their nuclear to burn more of it”.
Wind turbines run about a decade before gear boxes, blades etc. need to be replaced. The whole thing (with replacements) can probably run 25-30 years, but this is rarely done because the improvements in tech make it more worthwhile to completely replace them with more efficient (and nowadays often bigger) models. With that in mind a company build wind turbines next to the digging site knowing that they will need to disassemble them a decade later again (side note: those particular wind mills were also quite problematic and the company went out of business a few years ago), which is shown in the picture. Again, framing this as dismantling wind for more coal power as negotiated by the German Green party is blatant desinformation.
Long story, short. Lobbyists pay good money to push story of insane Greens destroying the country and nature, too. Lobbyists pay good money to push the story of how it’s all hopeless to try to get rid of coal as big industry countries like Germany are increasing coal instead. And people love to hate on Germany and eat up that bullshit so for publications it’s a double win as this kind of crap also generated clicks like crazy.
For reference: The actual picture…
PS: And you can also see how the propaganda is working as right here in this thread there’s lots of “they are lying about renewables and just plan to continue burning coal forever” and at this point in time I’m not even sure anymore if it’s just the usual paid trolls or the brain-washing really is that successful.
I’m afraid that at least partly it’s that successful. I have heard a lot of complaints about how germany manages these, but I never heard this side of the story before.
Wow. Thank you!
Just shows how green capitalism is just a waste of time. You’d think a country as geographically small and vulnerable as Germany would take this into account but guess not.
China bad
city of Chinabad, capital of the union territory of Chinawar
So, if I’m reading this correctly, this is the Konigshovener Hohe wind farm which is built on the site of the Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine. According to this article, the site was inaugurated in 2015 with 21 Senvion turbines.
The problem is, Senvion went out of business in 2019, and customers have been struggling to support their turbines. Apparently the Senvion design is exceptionally dependent on software access. Siemens and others have stepped in to offer support contracts to Senvion turbines in good working order, but with the opportunity to mine more lignite at the site, maybe RWE felt that it was time to spin down the Senvion turbines.
It seems like there may be many factors in this decision.
We should be using open source solutions for things like energy security. It’s not like our civilization can run without energy generation. The control ought to be in the hands of people, not corporations.
Yeah the Senvion situation is an object lesson in the dangers of proprietary systems.
Thanks for providing this context. From what you say it sounds like a bad initial decision from RWE - tieing themselves in to 'wind turbine as a service’doesn’t seem sensible.
I’m not sure if that is the wind farm. Looking at the article photos, there are a lot of turbines in the area, so there is probably more than one wind farm adjacent to the coal mine. Even with Senvion out of business, it still feels far too early for them to be pulling down turbines - normally they have about 30 years’ life in them before they’re sold on to another country. However, the article also says they’re only pulling down 7 turbines, so even if it is the same wind farm they’re not fully dismantling it.
Edit: Actually I think you’re right about the site. It looks like it might be these turbines they’re pulling down, and I imagine the motorcross site could be included in the project also.
Yeah, but look up the story on the Senvion turbines. Basically, Senvion operators have had to pay big money for service contracts with 3rd parties since Senvion went out of business.
I’m not sure that’s the right wind farm. According to this guardian article, it’s actually the Keyenberg wind farm that’s being dismantled, a retired site from 2001.
Apparently the site is retired because the operator’s permit ends in 2023. Making way eventually for the mine expansion was part of the original deal allowing the land to be used for wind turbines, and so it’s not indicative of any change in climate policy from the German government. Additionally the turbines are somewhat outdated, having only a sixth of the power output of a modern one. They would have to tear down and modernise the turbines anyway even if not for the mine.
However from a publicity standpoint it’s not an ideal move. Could have given up on the lignite and put new wind turbines in instead, perhaps.
Ah, Germany, please never change. Those are the guys who claim nuclear is not clean enough.
Edit: Thanks guys, I can finally feel like Jesus - downvoted because I was telling the truth.
Who needs nuclear, we have all this clean lignite.
Didn’t the green party in Germany have power in government right now? And weren’t they the same guys who dismantled their nuclear plants?
I’m not very informed on German politics but if the answer to both was yes they should really rename their green party to the coal party.
The greens sadly are forced to form a coalition with the social democrats and the neo-liberals, the latter of which are trying to hold every progress back
Why not step out if the coalition then? Seems better to not be in power if your coalition partners stand against everything your party should stand for.
That happened here when our centrist, nationalist and far-right parties made a coalition. The far-right one was messing everything up so the centrists just went yeet and broke the coalition resulting in their coalition being in the minority.
We still live in reality, you have to be pragmatic. The greens are the second most leftist party in the Bundestag and the most leftist party in the government coalition. Them leaving the coalition would mean the social democrats and neo-libs wouldn’t get any majority anymore which would result in a conservative government. We had that the last 16 years, there’s a reason why we elected someone different this time.
That’s fair thoughI feel like that’s a position they could easily use to get actual green policies through. But again I know very little about German politics so that is a purely feels based idea.
They do what they can. In the beginning, all over media this coalition has been praised to have done more for the people in 100 days than the previous government has done in 16 years. Thing is, the yellows are actively trying to sabotage everything the greens put forth. Our green ministry for family and social affairs wanted to pass a “basic child social security”-law, for which they planned to allocate 12 billion euros, like previously agreed upon. The yellows however have control over the ministry for financial affairs, being able to determine which ministry gets how much resources. That’s why said law only ended up getting 2.4 billion euros. It was an absolute shitshow.
No. They are this close to legalising weed in Germany. Should be end of this year. After that, whatever.
The original contract with the company RWE was made in the 1990s and included destroying whole towns for the coal mine, which was planned to be in use until 2038.
What we see now is a compromise between RWE, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal government to save the remaining towns and close the mine earlier (in 2030). The wind turbines are from 2001 and are nearing the end of their lifecycle.
Why not introduce a coal tax of 1million per ton, no need to modify the contract at all. If they want to pay 1million per ton to mine the coal, RWE is more then welcome to do so. It is their legal right after all.
This would likely end up hurting consumers more than RWE, because the “merit order” pricing system sets electricity prices depending on the production cost of the most expensive unit of electricity that is being consumed at a given time (usually coal). So raising the production cost of coal-based electricity sadly will also raise electricity prices, so long as renewables don’t take over a larger share of the market.
I mean of course it would hurt consumer absent government intervention, that is the design of the market system. Socialize costs, privatize the profits. But it doesn’t HAVE to be that way if Germany actually wanted to go green.
the force is strong with you
they’re on fire!
The green party ruled my state for decades. Their commitment to “green” politics was always very surface-level and they catered to the erewhon customer type of voting base.
The Green parties are simply a way in which the capitalist superstructure ensures the security of the base by ensuring electoral support of the pearl-clutching petit-bourgeois.
RWE has no conscience left at all (doubt they ever had one). Coal is scheduled to be faded out by 2030 (recently rescheduled from 2038) and I do wonder if there really was no other option than to demolish those 8 windmills (and the nearby village).
That being said: This is a singular incident caused by long-time contracts of the fading industry. It’s not some paradigm shift in Germany. Coal will be gone soon and new windmills will be build.
Realistically speaking they need to get coal another 5 years. Which means either widening the pit or digging deeper. And the latter is massively more damaging, just for the management of ground water levels needed (also more expensive).
The tile is dangerously misleading. OP, please…
It’s the title of the article.
There is no rule that forces you to copy the real article’s name. In this cases you want to make your own title to spark better debate.
This should be all that’s needed to invalidate the comment you’re replying to, but it seems people are dumb.
Eco fanatics when they read this: “this is info war bullshit!” ; meanwhile the same eco fanatics : “chernobyl is still killing thousands of people and will do for millenia!”
Germany is basically what happens when an entire country embraces greenwashing as its ideology.
Dig it up locally. Burn into electricity in a neighboring country. A low emissions success story 😥
Can you elaborate on this?
Germany has been rejecting practical solutions for moving off fossil fuels, such as nuclear. Current government is also pursuing a policy of pretending to reduce emissions through deindustrialization which only moves emissions to other countries since people in Germany still need the goods that were produced. This way Germany can claim to be lowering emissions simply by externalizing them. Finally, we see return to coal which is one of the dirtiest fuels around because wind and solar evidently can’t keep up even with the energy demands.
Germany has been anti-nuclear for some time, unfortunately. That could be what the above poster was referring to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Germany
That’s an old wind farm that would be due being taken down. Wind turbines have a finite life span, they oscillate slightly and this loosens the ground around the base, so after around 30 years they’re taken down. Typically they end up being sold to poorer countries where they’re installed on a new base.
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I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
Renewables are cheaper than coal.
What you’ve misunderstood about capitalism is it’s not the thing that is cheapest that gets investment. The investment goes to the thing that gives you the highest ROI, return on investment.
If it produces a better ROI per square meter, it gets the investment.
The problem is capitalism.
It always was.
And most often high costs mean higher ROI. The wind farm doesn’t get continued funding precisely because it produces electricity when supply is high and hence prices are low. Electricity is not worth the same at all times; you can sell your coal fired watts when the wind speeds are low and the unit price jumps up. Instead of trying to solve the hard problem of storing electricity to fill the intermittency gap, capitalism takes the easy way out of burning fossil fuels unless you force it not to by regulating.
Yeah that’s another issue. This video gives another generally good overview on the topic: https://youtu.be/3gSzzuY1Yw0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/3gSzzuY1Yw0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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