People are becoming “prosumers,” increasingly making their own energy as well as consuming it. As citizens, they have a right to do so. we should not even be asking what big companies need to do. We should ask what citizens and society need

A new study finds that Germany has physical space for roughly 50 percent more onshore wind capacity than the country would need for 100 percent green electricity.

This month, I have focused on the pushback against renewable energy growth in Spain and Italy along with the UK. Now, it seems that Denmark is teetering as well.

For political reasons, the UK seems poised to phase out policy support for wind and solar at a lower level. Based on DECC’s figures (PDF), wind (offshore and onshore) and solar together made up just under 12 percent of power supply in 2014. Solar came in at just above one percent; wind power just above 10.

Denmark (40 percent wind power and counting) and Germany (20 percent wind + PV and counting) are the exceptions. They share a grassroots movement of community renewable energy projects. Without that democratic participation, utilities see no business case for high shares of renewables.

Gates says current technologies are too expensive. Someone should tell him that solar power now costs less than nine cents in Germany, less than six cents in Dubai. It is expected to reach 4-6 cents by 2025 and 2-4 cents by 2050 in a conservative estimate (PDF) – but only if we keep building. Wind power ranges from as little as five cents in Germany to less than three cents in the US.

There is no doubt that the protest was illegal. But so were many of the nuclear protests. The first one in Wyhl (1974) immediately brought together some 25,000 people, and as many as 80,000 came together later in Brokdorf, where protests resembled a Civil War at times. Likewise, in 2010 120,000 people joined hands between the Brunsbüttel and Krümmel nuclear plants in a peaceful protest against Chancellor Merkel’s plans to extend nuclear reactor commissions.