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<\/p>\nA wind turbine billed as the world’s tallest is rising in eastern Germany, winning praise as a beacon for a clean, green energy future and headwinds from the far-right AfD party.<\/p>\n
The giant structure – set to dwarf the Eiffel Tower at 365m once completed – is going up in the former coal-mining region of Lusatia in Brandenburg state.<\/p>\n
Once its huge rotor blades start spinning in the steady high-altitude winds before the end of the year, it is expected to generate enough electricity to power 7,500 households.<\/p>\n
“We’re achieving the same performance levels as an offshore wind farm, which means double the output compared to standard wind turbines,” Jochen Grossmann, founder of the Dresden-based developer Gicon, said at the site in a forest near the town of Schipkau.<\/p>\n
As workers braved a cold rain, the structure doubled in height within a matter of hours, as 350 tonnes of steel were hoisted into place by huge yellow construction cranes.<\/p>\n
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The project is financed to the tune of \u20ac20-30 million through a government agency that sponsors cutting-edge tech, and seen by promoters as a new milestone in Germany’s decades-old energy transition.<\/p>\n
Europe’s top economy has shuttered its nuclear plants and is phasing out coal while subsidising renewables, which last year generated almost 59% of electricity, about half of it through wind.<\/p>\n
Mr Grossmann sees such projects as the way forward if resource-poor Germany wants to meet its emissions targets and wean itself off fossil fuels from conflict-torn regions.<\/p>\n
“For the time being, our only options are solar and wind power,” he argued.<\/p>\n
“Coal reserves are running out, and nuclear power has been phased out. We have only limited supplies of natural gas and oil.<\/p>\n
“And at the moment, with the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and everything else, it’s clear that we’re also not independent when it comes to natural gas and oil.”<\/p>\n
‘Windmills of shame’<\/p>\n
Not everyone shares his enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
The project is located in a stronghold region of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose climate-sceptic leaders have decried the smaller “windmills of shame” that already dot the Schipkau area and much of Germany.<\/p>\n
The loss of coal mining jobs has only fuelled local support for the AfD, which won nearly half the vote there in last year’s parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n
Birgit Bessin, an AfD member of the regional parliament, said that turbines had effects on the local wildlife and suggested that nuclear energy would be a better alternative for emission-free power.<\/p>\n
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“When there are such fundamental impacts on residents, they should be consulted,” she said, citing opposition from hunters and a local airfield.<\/p>\n
The AfD also points to microplastics given off by wind turbines, although scientific studies have found no impact on human health.<\/p>\n
‘Get the public on board’<\/p>\n
While the AfD is adamantly opposed to wind power, Germany’s year-old government under conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has also been less enthusiastic about renewables than the previous ruling coalition that included the Greens party.<\/p>\n
Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has promised a wave of new gas power plants to compensate for renewables’ intermittency, arguing this will help bring down German energy costs, among the highest in the world.<\/p>\n
The German economy has been flatlining for years, in part because of soaring energy prices in the wake of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the US-Israeli conflict with Iran that started in late February.<\/p>\n
Outside the fences guarding the Schipkau site, local citizens sometimes come to have a look, some voicing anger about the project, Gicon staff said.<\/p>\n
Klaus Prietzel, Schipkau’s independent mayor, has floated the idea of the town taking over the turbine in the future to lower residents’ energy bills.<\/p>\n
Local authorities already share some of the gains from the existing windfarm, paying each resident \u20ac80 a year, usually just before Christmas.<\/p>\n
“Our idea was that every citizen living in the municipality of Schipkau who can see the wind turbines should also benefit from them,” said the mayor.<\/p>\n
The AfD’s Bessin dismissed such payments as “bribery”, but Mr Prietzel argued they are a useful.<\/p>\n
“Around four million euros have already been paid out as part of a so-called acceptance-promoting measure,” he said. “You have to get the public on board.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wind turbine billed as the world’s tallest is rising in eastern Germany, winning praise as a beacon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-461479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}