Before the Söder-Habeck meeting, Bavaria's top conservationist demands: "We need 10,000 wind turbines"

Created: 01/19/2022Updated: 01/19/2022 13:12

By: Dominik Göttler, Stefan Sessler, Dirk Walter, Georg Anastasiadis

A wind farm in Bavaria: Due to the 10-hour rule, almost no new turbines are being built in Bavaria at the moment.

© Martin Rügner/Picture Alliance

On Thursday, Prime Minister Markus Söder will speak to Economics Minister Robert Habeck about the future of wind power in Bavaria.

Richard Mergner, head of the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern, explains why the state has to rely on the technology.

The Bund Naturschutz has more members in Bavaria than all parties together - namely 261,000. Richard Mergner, 61, has been chairman of Bavaria's largest and oldest nature and environmental protection association since 2018.

He lives in Hersbruck near Nuremberg.

Markus Söder is a member of the Bund Naturschutz.

He is currently opposed to the abolition of the 10-H rule for wind power.

Are you now offering him honorary membership as Bavaria's top conservationist?

Of course not.

Because it is bad that Prime Minister Markus Söder, whom I have known for years, has turned 180 degrees on wind power.

In 2011, when he was Minister for the Environment, he stood under a large wind turbine and praised wind power.

I have brought you the relevant newspaper articles.

Your newspaper also reported on it.

Can you read what Söder said back then?

I do it with pleasure.

Now after Fukushima something has to change, he said.

I quote: “We want to reduce the procedures for wind turbines, which currently take ten months, to three months.

This should be possible by lowering the hurdles for construction in the ministry. ”In addition, Söder continued, the current distance rule for wind turbines will be changed.

"That means noise reports are only necessary if the wind turbine is less than 800 meters from the nearest residential building."

Wind energy in Bavaria: So far there are 1272 wind turbines

Today's Söder actually sounds different.

But isn't it also part of the truth that it is local nature conservation organizations that often mobilize against new wind turbines?

No, that is not true in this exaggeration.

We as the Federation of Nature Conservation do not complain about any wind turbines.

We've never done that in Bavaria.

We recently advertised wind power plants in four referendums in the districts of Ebersberg, Pfaffenhofen, Neustadt an der Aisch and in Regensburg.

However, the Bund Naturschutz says: We don't need wind power randomly everywhere, but wind power with a plan.

More than ten years ago, we demanded that wind power should be possible on two percent of the area of ​​the Free State.

10H is an absolute blockade policy of the opponents of wind power, which the state government under Prime Minister Horst Seehofer has unfortunately adopted.

We were the country where wind power and photovoltaics had a future.

1272 wind turbines have been installed in Bavaria so far.

© MM

What has happened since then?

The CSU completely turned around on the subject in 2014.

Prime Minister Seehofer said to his people at the time: "I am constantly being pursued by opponents of wind power during the election campaign.

Get these people off my back.

It doesn't matter how.” This is the origin of the 10-H rule.

Seehofer has worked with the federal government to ensure that Bavaria is granted an exception rule.

I have to say self-critically that we didn't think it was possible for Seehofer to get away with it.

We didn't take the initiative seriously enough.

But suddenly we had this rule and at the same time it was said that there was far too little wind in Bavaria anyway.

The CSU made sure that the Bavarian wind power potential was completely slowed down.

Wind power is to become “the pack donkey of the energy transition in Bavaria”

How many wind turbines could Bavaria tolerate?

We currently have around 1200 wind power plants in Bavaria that deliver 2.5 gigawatts of power.

We say that wind power must become the pack donkey of the energy transition in Bavaria in the future.

This is the only way to achieve climate neutrality by 2040 without massive energy imports from other countries.

We have to accept that energy will initially become more expensive.

Richard Mergner on the price of the energy transition 

How many wind turbines does it need?

In our energy concept for Bavaria, which also envisages potential savings, we calculated that 6,000 to 10,000 new wind turbines would be needed, depending on output.

This could increase the output to 32 gigawatts.

That's twelve times what it is today.

That means one wind turbine for every 1,500 inhabitants in Bavaria.

Or just 120 wind turbines per district.

Of course, we are also aware that there are districts where there is not enough wind.

Or where it is not possible because of the protection of the landscape.

In Miesbach, for example, it will be difficult in a large part of the district with wind turbines.

Are all your members really that enthusiastic about wind energy?

I admit that sometimes we have conflicts with some people in the chapters.

But as chairman, I say that we can only preserve our livelihoods and stop the climate crisis if we switch to 100 percent renewable energies.

This is a huge challenge, but also a huge opportunity, especially for Bavaria as an industrial location.

"If you plan carefully, wind turbines are not a problem, but an opportunity"

In Upper Bavaria's municipalities it is often said: Huge wind farms spoil nature and damage tourism.

In many regions of Germany, in the Black Forest or in Franconian Switzerland, there are just as beautiful landscapes as in Upper Bavaria.

Nevertheless, there are wind turbines there.

If you plan carefully and protect scenic highlights, wind turbines are not a problem but an opportunity.

Of course, this is also part of the truth, there will be a change in the landscape.

So far we have gladly pushed all burdens away in Bavaria - the uranium is mined elsewhere.

The oil comes from Azerbaijan, the gas from Kazakhstan.

The coal mines mostly had the others too.

The state government also does not want to dump nuclear waste here.

Richard Mergner is chairman of the Bund Naturschutz Bayern.

© THOMAS PLETTENBERG

Economics Minister Habeck is coming to Bavaria tomorrow for the energy summit.

Söder offers to expand hydropower if Habeck accepts 10H.

A good deal?

This is a poisoned offer from Söder and it has no substance either.

Even the boldest advocates of hydropower say that we can only build one gigawatt in Bavaria.

Hydroelectric power is exhausted from its natural conditions in the Free State.

But of course we welcome the modernization of the existing large systems - for example on the Danube or on the Lech, if the fish upstream and downstream is improved at the same time.

The energy transition will not happen overnight.

We are approaching an energy bottleneck.

Is phasing out nuclear power too soon?

From our point of view, the dangers of nuclear power are so great that we would like to switch off the last remaining nuclear power plants tomorrow.

If you weigh the risks of a GAUS by continuing to blow fossil emissions into the atmosphere for a certain period of time, then I am in favor of focusing more on efficient thermal power stations with gas or hydrogen in the short term, for example.

Exploiting energy-saving potential: "Then we'll need less gas from Russia"

Germany is more dependent than ever on gas from Russia.

Doesn't that matter to a conservationist?

I don't care in any way.

However, we are also in favor of using potential energy savings.

Then we will need less gas from Russia.

Incidentally, if we can eventually supply ourselves completely from renewable sources, we will be completely independent of gas suppliers and no longer have to let our prices be dictated to us.

In the medium term, part of the overall picture is that we accept that energy will initially become more expensive.

That is an economic and business signal that we need.

The wind power situation in the Free State from the point of view of performance: In the south-east there is almost nothing.

© MM

As a high earner, it's easy for you to talk.

What should low-income people do?

Nobody has to be cold.

But we need an increase in the minimum wage as well as social benefits.

A basic range of affordable mobility is also needed.

Collective taxis on call, more on-demand buses, there are many options.

I think that public transport in Germany is too expensive.

We have to make sure that the burdens that can come are dealt with fairly.

Shouldn't conservationists also have to rethink: Less resistance from local groups to local railway lines, because otherwise the traffic turnaround won't work?

We as the Bund Naturschutz are committed to the expansion of railway lines.

We have a clear message that the expansion of public transport even has priority over trees that have to be felled for certain projects if there is no alternative.

The Bund Naturschutz does not have a positive, dominant theme to which it is associated.

Do you regret the dusty image?

no way.

We are a now state-of-the-art ecological general store with hundreds of thousands of members.

But maybe, that's true, we don't get enough publicity with our positive examples.

But you shouldn't forget our moor protection projects, our commitment to lynx and wild cats, and biotope care.

In addition, our activists save hundreds of thousands of amphibians from dying on the streets every year - and have been doing so for many decades.

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The Conservation Union

The Bund Naturschutz in Bayern is organized into 76 district and over 500 local groups.

It is politically independent, has around 6,200 active volunteers and is the state association of the Federal Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND).

It was founded in 1913 under the protectorate of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria.

One of the greatest successes is the fight against the reprocessing plant (WAA) in Wackersdorf.

The resistance lasted for a decade, and the WAA was not built.

A bitter defeat was the futile fight against the expansion of the Danube between Regensburg and Straubing.