In the independent blog “Nachdenkseiten,” economist and former assistant economics minister of Germany Heiner Flassbeck looks at the future painted by green radicals who claim that by 2040, Germany could do well with renewables, which by then would have an 80% share in the national energy mix.
Flassbeck writes that the problem is already now—and will be the same in 2040—that wind and solar energy will not be available in sufficient quantities around the clock, which generates a huge gap of power supply. And that gap has to be filled by compensating imports of power from other countries. November 16, 2040, might be the same as Nov. 16, 2021, when at noon about 80 gigawatts of power were lacking, and that is the total capacity of 40 big nuclear power plants—if they existed. If there is no nuclear, coal, or gas, 80 gigawatts of lacking power cannot be imported from anywhere in Europe. The power gap will even be larger in 2040, when Germany will need 100 gigawatts daily—20 gigawatts more than is ever used today.