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.

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?

  • A2PKXG@feddit.deEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    It’s about density. Renewables Are great, but not on terms of value add per square foot. The coal under the wind mill is worth orders of magnitude more than the windmill.

    And, it’s not as bad as it sounds. In general, the number of windmills keeps increasing.

    • UlrikHD@programming.dev
      5·
      1 year ago

      If you care about energy density, nuclear is the best solution, not coal. I guess Germans don’t care though

        • mineapple@feddit.de
          1·
          1 year ago

          It was meant to be replaced by renewables but our minister of economics dumped the whole solar and wind turbine industry. Additionally his party made up bullshit rules about a minimum distance for turbines to households, which was apparently 10x of the reasonable distance and which made it very hard to find spots in densely populated Germany. And to this day, the federations with a renewable energy surplus have to pay more for electricity than those who give a shit about renewables. -it is discussed to be changed now but idk

      • A2PKXG@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        I didn’t say density is the paramount parameter. Also, once you optimize one drawback, it generally gets less important.

        I just wanted to put the image into context, and show that it isn’t a big step backwards, just sideways perhaps. Or in other words, a sigle wind farm isn’t relevant, the sum is