German plans to cut carbon emissions withrenewable energy are ambitious, but they are also risky.
North Friesland’s wind boom is part of Germany’s Energiewende (energy transformation), aplan to shift from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewables. It was dreamed up in the 1980s,became policy in 2000 and sped up after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011. That ledAngela Merkel, the chancellor, to scrap her extension of nuclear power (rather than phasing itout by 2022, as previous governments had planned). She ordered the immediate closure ofseven reactors. Germany reaffirmed its clean-energy goals—greenhouse-gas emissions are tobe cut from 1990 levels by 40% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050—but it must now meet those targets without nuclear power.