Bikes 'n' Blades

or how Germany solved the foreign oil problem

Gas is over $6 a gallon in Germany, so that nation produces more renewable wind energy than any other nation, and everyone rides a bike. Germans so admire wind power they site them next to national monuments. Click image to enlarge.

A Photo Essay By Walter & Patricia Brooks

We have just returned from a week's drive through the former East Germany in that nation's areas called Thuringer and Franconia about half way between Berlin and Munich.

This area has escaped progress for the 45 of the last 60 years  because it was a Communist country until 1989, and thus the towns are much more picturesque, quaint and old German than the rest.

This nation has committed itself at great cost towards preserving its historic sites, and Germany is as homogeneous as any country on earth.

So how are they facing rising petroleum prices?

Gas is about $6 a gallon

Germany has no oil reserves of its own, and faced America's present dilemma decades ago when it began a nationwide program of creating renewable wind farms and today's leads the world in its production. A standard sized automobile will cost about 66 Euros or $80 for a fill-up. Yet Germans love fast cars - think Mercedes, BMW and Audi - and the highways have no speed limits.

But unlike Cape Cod, where our political leaders are attempting to block a wind farm in front of "landmarks" like Nobska Lighthouse and the Kennedy Compound, Germany installs their wind farms wherever the winds blows, even when it blows in front of that nation's equivalent to the Statue of Liberty.

And of course, by switching the country towards renewable wind energy and bicycles and away from fossil fuel, Germany solved a large hunk of its polutuion problems as well. And they still fly along the autoban at 150+ k.p.h.

A windscape of unsurpassed beauty

On our second day we visited Wartburg Castle in Eisenach. This magnificent, massive and imposing fortification is nearly a thousand years old, and the site where 500 German students from every corner of that nation gathered in 1817 for the Wartburgfest, the first middle-class democratic public meeting in Germany to urge unifiction.  In 1521 Martin Luther was given refuge here when he was excommunicated by the Pope and the Emperor condemned him to death.

Yet from the castle's parapets you look out on two separate wind farms.

Bike & blades to the rescue, a renewable pollution solution

We haven't seen that many bikes in an urban setting since visiting China twenty-five years ago.  It is staggering to see so many obviously professional people pedaling to work and play through cobblestoned city streets on these different looking German bikes.  Perhaps as pervasive are the wind farms which dot the landscape over farms, villages and monuments,  saving Germany the cost of millions of barrels of foreign oil.  Here are just a few examples of both. Click on the photos to see them full size.

Walter and Patricia Brooks are the founders of Best Read Guides, eCape.com and this online newspaper.  They started these companies in 1988 after extensive careers in the newspaper business beginning at The Village Voice and New York Post and culminating at MPG Communications and The Cape Codder before launching their own companies. They live in East Harwich overlooking Pleasant Bay. Pat is a native Cape Codder and Walter is a Connecticut Yankee. They have lived on the cape since 1965. They have two sons, two grand children and two cats, Todd, Jay, Will, Marina, Rama and Shiva. You can access their recent travel stories here.