Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Asparagus - German Style

We are in the month of December, there has been snow on the ground for two days.

Yet, on the hillside just over a mile away, big, fat stalks of asparagus continue to grow skywards.

They are not the kind that grows in the sandy soil in the flatlands just on the other side of the mountains. Not the off-white, bland, overpriced previously rich people's food, nowadays promoted as a delicacy for the masses by the regional farmers and the chamber of commerce.

Our stalks are grey metal and concrete structures rising 500 feet or more out of the forest soil.

These are representatives of the latest generation of windmills, meant to become the mainstay alternative energy producers for a greener, more sustainable Germany.

When talking about wind farms, the term asparagus is almost always negative, very rarely is it used to express affection. While many Germans have embraced alterative means of energy production to the envy of many other countries, large numbers of Germans are concerned about effects on wildlife or health effects of wind farms or simply do not like them.

Our mountains are one the regions where windfarms grow, driven by this relentness German way of "doing the right thing". And then there is the money. Towns get a percentage of the revenue generated by a windfarm, and many small towns need all the extra income they can get.

Recently, the newest figures released by the county showed that the county we live in now produces more wind and solar electricity than it consumes.

We export electricty.

Mind you, not yet on a scale that would bring windfalls - pardon the pun - in the form of annuities like in Alaska or that would ever justify calling us the Kuwait of German electricity production.



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