Motorcycle trip – energy tour through Germany

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Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany

10 pictures

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

1/10
Germany in the energy transition: lignite versus alternative sources. We want to experience the state of affairs up close on a tour.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

2/10
A landscape like that of Stob-Teuchern is an abomination for many citizens.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

3/10
In the Gonnatal they want electricity, but not wind turbines.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

4/10
Rosy from E-Fun-Park Pottenstein keeps the rain out.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

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Enjoy the route between the Thuringian Forest and the Rhon.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

6/10
Brandis-Waldpolenz is one of the largest photovoltaic systems in the world with 700,000 solar modules.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

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The Holenbrunn biomass cogeneration plant processes, among other things, 35,000 tons of wood annually.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

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The unspoilt lake landscape near Welzow has its own charm. Quad off-road tours are available nearby.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

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Knapp-Muhle in Linda near Neustadt an der Orla with “Liebeskammer.

Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany
Klaus Daams

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Fossil from lignite mining, the overburden conveyor bridge F60 in the visitor mine near Lichterfeld.

to travel

Motorcycle trip – energy tour through Germany

Motorcycle trip – energy tour through Germany
wish & reality

Germany in the energy transition: lignite versus alternative sources. We want to experience the state of affairs up close on a tour. With a focus on future technology. So to solar fields and wind parks and the green Lausitzring.


Klaus H. Daams

02/14/2020

Why not take a motorcycle tour with a hot topic as a leitmotif? Everyone’s talking hot when it comes to the energy transition. We’ll just go there and see how far the country is in this regard. But then please with an electric motorcycle in proper style, right? No, because we don’t have time for hours of loading each day and therefore grudgingly have to choose another way: One Kawasaki Versys 300 is after all green and with its small two-cylinder combustion engine only sips very modestly from fossil fuel. Nevertheless, our first destination is reached quickly: the E-Fun-Park Pottenstein. Wet from the continuous rain, Rainer and I splash into the leisure facility. The water is on the 300-meter go-kart track, on which 17 go-karts and 25 Segways whiz around when the weather is good. They are powered by green electricity from the in-house photovoltaic system. It’s a shame: no chance of whisper-quiet fun with the electric runabouts due to aquaplaning. There is still fun – with service staff Rosy, who poses as a grid girl so that the photo shoot does not fall into the water. thanks for that.

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wish & reality

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Franconian Switzerland and the Fichtel Mountains

What everyone knows: electricity comes from the socket. But how do you get there? Through the brownies? Or Amazon? “No direct current line through our home”, a large banner at Schnabelwaid announces the protest of the citizens against the planned 380 kV line and 70 meter high masts. Especially since the electricity would then only be “passing through” and regenerative energy generation could rather be organized on a decentralized basis. Or you would lay underground cables, which would make the juice for the tumble dryer and other amenities more expensive. A dilemma. It’s comparatively easy, we just have to choose one of the countless stretches through the winding labyrinth of Franconian Switzerland and the Fichtelgebirge to get to the Holenbrunn biomass cogeneration plant with an attached pellet plant. Well, pompous palaces and defiant castles surely inspire more visitors than such a functional facility. It doesn’t warm romantic hearts, but the rest of the body is pleasant. With around 35,000 tons of pellets per year, produced from unused wood from tree tops and branches of renewable forests. How it works is kindly demonstrated by Deputy Operations Manager Frank Seibold during a spontaneous tour.


Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany


Klaus Daams

A landscape like that of Stob-Teuchern is an abomination for many citizens.

The “Knapp-Muhle” in Linda near Neustadt an der Orla, the only gallery Dutch mill in Thuringia, dates back to the time of the stagecoach. “We lived on the mill for 30 years, held concerts and cabaret there,” says 73-year-old Brunhilde Knapp, who bought the mill as a ruin together with her husband Hans, who has since passed away, in 1981 and restored it to perfection and made it functional again. Motto: The mill doesn’t turn from yesterday’s wind. You can spend the night in the cozy upper room, in the rentable “wind love chamber”. If the rattle stork arrives nine months later, the money is even given back.

One of the most powerful wind turbines in the world

Our next two stations stand for the fact that wheels do not stand still in history: While a narrow-gauge Weisseritztalbahn locomotive steams off from Freital-Hainsberg to Kipsdorf in the Eastern Ore Mountains, 80 kilometers further in Klettwitz you are working on the ultra-modern system of the Lausitzring on tomorrow’s mobility technologies, autonomous and networked driving. Incidentally, one of the most powerful wind turbines in the world, 200 meters high and 7.5 megawatts or 10,200 horsepower, right next to the racetrack for power supply. Thanks to the grace of the journalistic mission, we are allowed to do a few laps outside of the official dates, first through the high-speed oval with the two banked curves, then on the “normal” race. Rainer: “I had 140 on the wall, so you have to have the courage to stay up there and let the gas stand still.” Constant grin on the racetrack, where the Versys, past the three-winged giant asparagus, has to turn properly and shows that even small engines are fun.


Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany


Klaus Daams

Fossil from lignite mining, the overburden conveyor bridge F60 in the visitor mine near Lichterfeld.

From the race track, once ennobled with the attribute “green” for its climate-neutral energy supply, to a fossil from open-cast lignite mining, the F60 overburden conveyor bridge in the visitor mine near Lichterfeld. The steel frame is 500 meters long, also known as the “lying Eiffel Tower” because of its construction. The colossus was shut down in June 1992 – and is now experiencing a second spring as a visitor magnet. Children of the Ruhr area know that. And fans of the band Kraftklub may know that the gigantic F60 area was the setting for the music video “Dein Lied” with the ambiguous intro: “We have drifted apart. It hurts, but that’s how it is. “

Rows of wind turbines like Mercedes stars

“In which direction should we continue?” Asks a passerby during an orientation break in Neupetershain, at the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Ernst-Thalmann-Strasse. Vis-à-vis the town hall, on the facade in large letters UNITY-MAKES-STRONG. Yes, it keeps sending the gray matter on journeys in new directions, like a tour through the We-are-the-People federal states. At Hoyerswerda on the horizon rows of wind turbines like Mercedes stars, elsewhere rows of orphaned houses and dying villages. The metamorphosis from one of the last still active open-cast mines in Lausitz to a lake landscape suitable for recreational use is raised at Welzow; Those who register at the local visitor center can rummage through bizarre lunar landscapes on a quad bike or off-road vehicle.


Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany


Klaus Daams

Brandis-Waldpolenz is one of the largest photovoltaic systems in the world with 700,000 solar modules.

The surfaces in the Brandis-Waldpolenz energy park, where the sun shines on around 700,000 solar modules, one of the largest photovoltaic systems in the world, are significantly cleaner. Blue-eyed, we walk into the office building and ask about visits for visitors. Building block amazement: one is not prepared for that. Okay, the travel guide notice is four years old, so a lot has changed in such a young industry. But the Versys is an enduro and offers at least a glimpse of the modules when riding in a species-appropriate standing position. Enduro riders love a whole network of lonely dirt roads. Nowhere a house that stands in the way of dusty fun. No wonder, and even more relevant for this story, because 84 wind turbines are currently plowing here with a total installed output of 182 megawatts. As a result, Shock ranks fourth among the largest German onshore wind farms.

Through the Thuringian Forest into the Rhon

Final stage. Through the Thuringian Forest into the Rhon. Just beautiful. But not just ending rhymes. Perhaps a discovery for the next time is the “Zur Tautenburg” inn in the picturesque, remote 300-soul nest of the same name with castle ruins and fallow deer enclosure. Idyllic and somehow typical, the Hoppelstrasse through the Gonnatal, where you treat yourself to electricity, but to others the infrastructure: “No wind turbines in the Gonnatal”. We definitely don’t want to miss out on the twisty, bang-out route from Grafenroda – Gehlberg – Schmucke – Oberhof. Oh, how is it, to avoid “beautiful”, anything but stupid. Continue on the L 3247, which is often misunderstood as the “Renne”, on the Rennsteig down to the Sterngrund and to Zella-Mehlis. The 300 engine turns really high, but larger-displacement machines thunder past and embarrassingly crack the decibel barrier when flying low.


Motorcycle trip - energy tour through Germany


Klaus Daams

Enjoyment of the route between the Thuringian Forest and the Rhon.

The path between Stepfershausen and Helmershausen is particularly nice and curvy, an enviable home route for a mechanic in overalls who jumps into the evening with his sprightly MZ ETZ 251. A little too early for us. In Ehrenberg-Seiferts, the hotel “krenzers rhon” promises to recharge the batteries more than twice as fast. With regional delicacies from the Rhon biosphere reserve or even during a night in a shepherd’s wagon on the orchard meadow, where you can dream of the future and the “wind of change” instead of the lignite digger while counting sheep or digesting.

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