Reuters Renewable energy has created a “gold rush” atmosphere in Germany's depressed north-east, giving the country's poorhouse good jobs and great promise. The natural resources attracting investors and industry are of a simple variety: wind, sunshine, agricultural products and farm waste such as liquid manure. The rush to tap green resources in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state is reminiscent of the frenzies that came with gold or oil discoveries in past centuries. The buzz can be felt in towns and sparkling new factories across the Baltic shore state. “Renewable energy has become extremely valuable for our state,” said its premier, Erwin Selling, in an interview with Reuters. “It's just a great opportunity —producing renewable energy and creating manufacturing jobs. “From an industrial point of view we'd been one of Germany's weaker areas. But the country is abandoning nuclear power. That will work only if there's a corresponding — and substantial —increase in renewables. It'll be one of Germany's most important sectors in the future. We want to be up there leading the way.” The federal government did an about-face on nuclear power after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan, set off by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Germany shut eight nuclear plants and will close the other nine by 2022. Germany is a world leader in renewable energy and wants an even larger share of the $211 billion global market. A fifth of its electricity comes from renewables, up from 6 percent in 2000, and it aims to boost this to 35 percent in 2020. There are some clouds on the horizon. State-mandated incentives, which fuelled a private investment boom, have been cut, squeezing margins in sectors such as solar energy. There have also been delays in expanding and upgrading the national grid of high-voltage transmission lines from sparsely populated coastal regions such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to areas where the power is needed in the west and south. The federal government is working to remove infrastructure bottlenecks, but if the grid is not expanded soon it could cause problems later when more off-shore wind power goes on line. Renewables — especially wind energy —are injecting new optimism into Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, reflected in a word that often comes up in conversations with business and political leaders: “Reindustrialisierung” (re-industrialization). In a state with a sea-faring heritage, there are now more jobs in renewable energy than in shipyards: 6,000 jobs at 704 firms, expected to nearly quadruple to 22,000 by 2020. Companies are building, designing, maintaining and operating wind turbines and photovoltaic and biomass plants — for which farmers are growing crops and harvesting animal waste. There are more than 1,200 wind turbines on land, and a new push into off-shore wind energy in the Baltic will further fuel that growth. __
