Here’s our comment. In case you need to shorten, the section in brackets could be omitted. If you have space I could provide a graph to support the arguments.

Our opinion is very clear: If the proli­fe­ra­tion of new turbi­nes finally came to a halt, this would be a blessing in three respects – for nature, for humans, and the economy!

Already, with instal­led capacity around 52 Gigawatt (some 30,000 turbi­nes), the produc­tion data clearly show that benefits of wind power are heavily oversold, while the damage becomes ever more manifes­ted. Physics are merci­less: When there’s no wind, there’s no wind power – no matter how many turbi­nes are added. To make up for the weather-depen­dence, an equally-sized back-up capacity needs to be maintai­ned and finan­ced. When there is lots of wind, the turbi­nes generate excess power, which has to be dispo­sed of to keep the grid stable. Current data conti­nues to support the long-held theory: fluctua­tions do not balance out but rather add up.

Already, they are far overta­xing the electri­city grid. On Easter Monday, for example, we dumped abroad electri­city with a subsidy value of €115 million against a dispo­sal fee of €17 million. The total econo­mic loss of €132 million on that day alone does not yet include the losses of conven­tio­nal power plant opera­tors, who have to feed in their electri­city at negative prices to prevent a grid collapse. As a conse­quence of these follies, electri­city prices have been skyro­cke­ting, while landscapes and natural reser­ves have been sacri­fi­ced at unfore­seen scale and speed to create room for the wind indus­try to flourish.

[Concepts such as power-to-gas do not reduce but exacer­bate the problem. If one really wanted to bridge the dark lulls (i.e. times of neither wind nor sun) with power plants fired with methane gas, the produc­tion capaci­ties to cover the physi­cally insur­moun­ta­ble storage losses would have to be doubled, requi­ring 200,000 wind turbi­nes for Germany alone for a relia­ble electri­city supply. This balance does not even include the electri­city consump­tion of electri­fied trans­port. You can mix wind power, biomass, and solar energy as you like, the consump­tion of land and resour­ces is verti­gi­nous when you consider that in our densely popula­ted country only about 12% of the land outside a 1000m zone around the villa­ges is available. Every spot of nature will have to be sacri­fi­ced. All human habitats will turn into indus­trial zones. The country will become next to inhabitable.] 

No wonder, the Wall Street Journal label­led Germany’s the world’s dumbest energy policy. To the extent that this craze comes to a halt, Vernunft­kraft – the confe­de­ra­tion of more than 900 local resis­tance groups – will happily breathe a sigh of relief.