Political leaders have given into wind power opponents have put climate protection goals at risk. When power is one of the greenest types of energy there is so why has it run aground in germany. A turn highway in your part stuck in northeastern germany where plans to build a wind farm along the motorway have been met with resistance from almost all the local villagers. Except for should be losing. The plan for expanding wind power is to put up 7 yes 7 Wind Turbines in fashion which belongs to that some of your today will be voting for the Building Contractors or just its a lot. Cast in hope. Has been the mayor of philos a for 17 years and has spent years campaigning for climate protection. Villages scheduled to vote on the 7 Wind Turbines this evening. However a flyer suddenly surfaces calling on residents to protest against the plan. Not so fionnuala after all these years so many years of debate so many this happens today when we hear they has been through 7 committees anyone could have attended nobody did it and now this flying so were very curious about what will happen tonight. On 3 hours later the wind opponents take up their positions. Because of all folks at all those you know. Just outside the meeting hall we meet the leader of the fight club blocked citizens and should have. Been treated loot prefers a different source of energy all. Right if you miss the 1st i dont want to use that nasty word nuclear but there has been a lot of progress in that area. Not Nuclear Fission and fusion is one thats good to know how would you feel about a Nuclear Fusion plant here. Unfortunately were not that far yet technically we have to see getting acceptance theres always a problem evolution the no one wants to have their in their backyard whether its wind power or nuclear who wants to have that in the end weve all been programmed to want an easy to care for space thats just how it is. People where should electricity come from from coal that supposed to be eliminated by 2038 i doubt it. So we should keep the coal plants open longer id say so what about climate change. Is c o 2 pollution the only thing ruining the climate i dont think so it wouldnt. Question be. Guinns at 7 pm people have just been protesting outside. The tension in the room was palpable. After an hour long discussion theyve all had of everyone in favor please raise your hand. Those against. Now you know abstaining. 21 and 2 abstentions. But those against wind power wont be giving up a well organized minority can often determine the outcome even though surveys indicate as many as 80 percent of germans are in favor of more wind power. Turbines already dot the landscape. Martin of albany yourself is the head of a department at the ulysses Research Center near often. For several years he and a team of 20 scientists have been looking into how germany can achieve its. Energy transition and reach its climate targets in 2050 as cost effectively as possible. Even when power is the central backbone of the Energy Transition if its to be implemented economically in addition to wind energy on land and it c wind is also the central element in relation to photovoltaics. The usual researchers use High Performance computers to calculate how to bring about an affordable Energy Transition. About half of todays Energy Requirements could be saved by switching to electric cars and innovating Heating Systems and making cuts to industrial consumption. The rest of the Energy Demand has to be met mainly by c o 2 neutral electricity. This electricity is generated by offshore wind farms biomass generator plants solar cells and above all land based Wind Turbines. To achieve this is cost effectively as possible Wind Turbines will have to supply more than half of Green Electricity in 2050 for which germany would need around twice as many wind farms. The scientists calculations show less energy comes from wind farms the climate targets will not be met germanys Energy Transition will become. Significantly more expensive. The build rate of new Wind Turbines has been decreasing for years meaning their proportion of Energy Produced hasnt grown quickly enough to reach climate targets for gigawatts will have to be added each year. This year will hardly increase over last years output. And more turbines may be taken off the grid than added in 2021. 1 of the reasons for the collapse in wind power expansion can be seen in westphalia and northwestern germany. Are working on a project of great relevance to the Energy Transition. They want to have fewer turbines producing more wind power by repairing the turbines. This entails replacing 11 old ones with a new more powerful turbines. The should enable them to deliver 3 and a half times as much electricity as before. 3 years after applying they finally receive the permit in summer of 21000. 00 i went over. There are hundreds of conditions in the permit. One of these says that we are only allowed to operate during complete darkness between the 1st of march and the 31st of october but. Thats absurd that would mean losing 40 percent of our annual yield on down times like that dont only obstruct Energy Transition they could also make it extremely expensive. Ever more conditions and listen approval procedures and the frequent legal disputes are making expansion difficult. The daytime shut down aims to protect local wildlife. The red kite is a common bird in the region and yet the bird population here on the part of bourne plateau has been. Stable for years in spite of the Wind Turbines. 4 months later. When farm operator like but is trying to solve the problem. Hes hoping the dutch team and this special bird can extend the new wind farms operating time. Here we have a female Peregrine Falcon a female is a bit bigger about 50 grams now well do a test to see if the wind turbine will stop running when we get close with them over there for as i say even so that wind turbine should stop if you get close in the near correct this wed like to see. Thats for sure. The robo bird is normally used at airports to scare away birds that could to sort of air traffic. Here its being used to test whether cameras on the tower pick it up slow down the turbine. Boys i dont know well see if it stops its relatively close no its not but im not. An accredited expert is also watching the experiment. Its turning slower right. Yes definitely. Dusty whats important here is that birds can detect slow movement and avoid it. So we have to fall below a certain speed that birds can still recognize. Through to true high country west of us does this work we currently evaluating the initial data so far it looks promising of course we still have to wait for the final analysis what you think of this it looks promising. Following a safe landing the test is a value weighted in your harness like Months Office i i love it or any. Other data from the camera system is also being analyzed for a year and a half the camera has scanned the sky for real birds of prey now its time to find out whether the winter bind has switched off each time. You have on our aim is to ensure that we can operate the turbines in the wind farm with the strict conditions economically by running them continuously and only switching them off when theyre actually birds close by. The new technology could help solve the conservation and Window Energy conundrum you see this green the danger the turbines posed to birds is one of the most common reasons why people are against the. Conservation versus wind power. How do experts like to see it. Hes the chairman of one of the most important Nature Conservation associations in europe with the acronym b you in. His organization supported a project in the region where a dike was moved a few 100 meters away from the river this created new habitat also for endangered species. Oh my god i think theres a sea eagle over there i basically land on a note in its wing span is never to meet up to 230 or to 14 i think its enormous. And they breed on the other side of. 31 the number of bird couples breeding here is almost tripled in addition its become an important place for wild geese and cranes to roost. Nearby be you andy has an important visitor and Conference Center in the castle benson. We want to find out would be un disposition on wind power is. The problem is there for the big problems for come from industrial agriculture on fields and meadows its often a struggle to find sufficient food because of it for example the red carpet which can no longer find my saw field stops industrial farming is a much bigger problem than all the wind power plants. So when power of Nature Conservation go together like cunt they can go together if you put the wind farms on suitable cancer you selected sites and you ensure that the conflicts are minimized even further in future for example through shutdown Warning Systems charge of on a large midst. So when power and Wildlife Preservation can coexist. The number of red breeding pairs has increased in germany since 1904 and this during a period when power was being massively expanded. Nevertheless citizens initiatives often use the red as a reason to oppose Wind Turbines which they describe as bird shredders. For many the preservation of the landscape is actually whats at stake. Here in the midst a lot region there are more than 300 active Wind Turbines. These were put up without lengthy approval or Legal Proceedings some of them are only a few 100 metres away from houses such as here in the village and when kitchen which is part of the stein for district. Residents here can participate directly in socalled citizen wind farms. For mayor for huntsmen of him it was important that locals were included in the planning process from the beginning. Of this on us through whats living with the wind turbine like really actually been doing that for a while now is mark that i actually like the view i like the spinning roaches now and then listen i know is that had. And how the wind is generally and i like living with them. Here in this time for district theres an agreement that wind farms shouldnt be for Financial Investors but for the local people invest ones eyes on some of the i can participate in the financing or. If there are problems i know other people to whom i have to go and say that something isnt working. The. Citizen financial participation Contact People you can actually meet. Additional business tax revenue for the district. Do such measures increase the acceptance of wind farms we went to the weekly market noise and kitchen to ask. What do you think of the winter but here just now i like them they dont bother me. What about subsonic noise like a frog in my life you know in commercial and i dont. I think wind power is very good in that i live in st annoyed we look out on the whole spread yes of course you can hear them so so when you can hear them does it bother you that. Theres a Nuclear Power station in lng and so i find the Wind Turbines better and they belong to the regions and. Also in the minster line to region the municipality of shipping and friday afternoon in the local supermarket car park we ask what people think of the many Wind Turbines in the region as well there are also some we really didnt bother me on the contrary. I dont really mind them ok so not too loud not know then whats the atmosphere like in the village that if you know it doesnt bother the people who live close by not that ive heard of that they think of a nice week of. The result after 2 hours we spoke to 31. 00 people and got 31. 00 positive comments we were amazed by the unanimity. In the nearby shipping up. When far the closest turbine is only 600 metres from the edge of town. Theres an extraordinary meeting of the wind farm shareholders managing director hina cornet explains the project yeah a hot topic is the federal governments planned distance regulations in the future the federal states should be able to prescribe a minimum distance of 1000 meters from residential buildings. Its a 1000 metre radius you see here the site would be gone the site and location it would be got. Sick. That will mean the end of shipping a banks 30 year history with its use of wind energy. That shift is finding above all the acceptances there we have not had any problems with residents and now all of a sudden everything is being ruined. Its incredible. Is that the politicians realise or even recognise what theyre destroying must be that they have a couple. The plan distance regulation is actually aimed at increasing the publics acceptance of Wind Turbines but even in the shine forth district which is fully behind when power it will probably lead to a drop in wind power generation. The federal Environment Agency says it would also make expansion throughout germany more difficult. Berlin january 2020. Germanys Financial Daily 100 splot holds an Energy Summit like many in his party the c. D. U. Energy minister peter supports the controversial 1000 meter option but even though the deal seems bound to go through he says he can see the oppositions point even if youve got a field where you can put a wind up youll find it all very cozy because the lease brings in money and if you have a house that looks sounds over the field you usually feel it affects us but if youre inclined to join citizens initiatives even so the. Small but well organized citizens initiatives can make a big impact. But the broad public support for wind energy still plays a little role in this calculations zips equal to 70 percent of our primary energy needs are important and anyone who says we should change this in the future dont some say where the land is to come from and how the expansion should be carried out dogs will be hard on where we are in order to gas today coal and Nuclear Fuel Rods and we will import Green Hydrogen in the future would you them. Import Green Hydrogen and. Thats what the federal governments response to the sluggish expansion of wind power is. It means the bio gas solar and wind power plants that meet the majority of germanys Energy Requirements in the future will be located outside the country. Theyll be located in countries that currently produce oil for example such as on the arabian peninsula. Here solar and wind power plants are expected to provide a lot of Green Electricity which will then flow into socalled electrolysis plants that extract energy rich hydrogen gas from the water. This Green Hydrogen would then have to be transported to germany by ship in large quantities. This is the thing for the better doesnt it make more sense to take the added value from the Energy System transformation within this country to continue to import large quantities of energy to import. Once again germany is a relatively small and densely populated country and therefore as in the past we will have to import large blocks of Energy Required to import about clean and Climate Friendly to put it differently. That would spell the end of any low cost Energy Transition made in germany. Or back at the Research Center and unishe matching of all been years shows us and electrolysis plan for Green Hydrogen. This technology is crucial to the Energy Revolution because it means solar and wind power can be stored as an energy rich gas and transported to germany for acquired. However after converting the original green energy the Energy Conservation rate is only 10 percent not the 70 percent the politicians are touting. And their style of to be blunt weve calculated this ourselves in models and its nonsense to say we have to import all the hydrogen wherever its from in other words without wind energy as the backbone of the Energy Transformation the Energy Transformation will not work it makes no sense to say that we want to expand wind power and will import everything instead because it wouldnt be economical in the long term. Using their computer models the units researchers have calculated the costs for the different forms of energy. The result. In the year 2015 when power made in germany could already cost as little as 3. 04 per kilowatt hour. And produce solar power from about 6. 06. Imported Green Hydrogen would cost 0. 12 per kilowatt hour thats up to 4 times as much. When it arrives the Green Hydrogen will have to be transported from some german port. Not like the Solar Wind Power already on the german power grid. Relying mainly