How advantage signaling killed a ferry and wasted thousands and thousands – who agrees with that?

Original report by Eugyppius

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your popcorn, because the green energy saga from Schleswig-Holstein has it all: incompetence, pointless virtue signaling and an environmentally friendly ferry that apparently doubles as a wind sail. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well.

Here's the tragicomedy: Once upon a time, in the quiet German countryside, there lived a diesel-powered ferry, the Missunde II. For two decades, this workhorse reliably transported over 120,000 cars and 50,000 bicycles every year across the Schlei – a body of water barely 100 meters wide. Not exactly the English Channel. But unfortunately, in the eyes of the virtuous bureaucrats, the Missunde II had a fatal flaw: it was powered by diesel. And we all know that diesel is the villain in our modern environmental morality game.

There was nothing wrong with the Missunde II except that it ran on diesel, which as we know is an evil fuel destined to destroy the world; and that their diesel engines made noise, as diesel engines do. Therefore, a few years ago, officials at the State Office for Coastal Protection decided to replace the old and reliable Missunde II with a newer, quieter and much more environmentally friendly solar-powered ferry called Missunde III. Her decision was completely typical. The Office for Coastal Protection reports to the Environment Ministry of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, and the Environment Ministry is in the hands of an extremely bald man named Tobias Goldschmidt, who likes to talk about how he wants to make Schleswig-Holstein climate neutral – one ferry at a time.

The CO2-neutral Missunde III cost 3.3 million euros and was finally delivered in January 2024 after several delays. Unlike its dirty, noisy predecessor, the Missunde III features a magnificent roof to support its valuable solar panels:
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/how-schleswig-holstein-sold-their

Enter the green bureaucrats

The geniuses in the Schleswig-Holstein Coastal Protection Office, which reports to the large Ministry of the Environment, decided to replace the “dirty” diesel ferry with a solar-powered marvel of modern eco-technology, the Missunde III. Because who could resist a shiny new boat with solar panels on the roof, especially when it promises to save the planet, one ferry ride at a time? The costs? Only 3.3 million euros. No big deal if you're spending other people's money.

According to planners, Missunde III would usher in a new era of clean transportation across the bay. No more diesel fumes or engine noise polluting the idyllic coastal landscape. Just the gentle hum of solar-powered motors quietly moving cars and bikes from side to side.

At least that's what they thought.

Reality hits home: solar panels don't like wind

Reality has a funny way of upending even the best-laid plans, especially when those plans are designed more for PR than practicality. It turned out that the Missunde III's solar panels were about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. The ferry's stylish solar roof looked like a giant sail in view of Schleswig-Holstein's notoriously strong coastal winds. Instead of gliding effortlessly over the Schlei, the Missunde III struggled. Its engines could not withstand the wind resistance and the crossing took twice as long as its diesel-powered predecessor. Additionally, the solar ferry's increased weight put too much strain on its guide cables, preventing it from even docking properly. It turns out that when you let ideology guide your projects, you often end up in the ditch – or in this case, floating in the river.

So the solar-powered Missunde III sat in the harbor while people argued about how much environmental damage they should be allowed to inflict on the bay in order to make it steerable. The cars that would normally have taken the ferry across the Schlei had to take long detours to the next bridge, 30 kilometers away. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, and sometimes you have to increase carbon emissions while you wait for someone to get your zero-emissions ferry up and running.

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Environmentalists are stuck in an environmental gridlock

Now here comes the part where the absurdity really increases. To fix the Missunde III's docking problems, authorities decided they needed to herd additional dolphins (sea dolphins, not the mammals) into the bed of the Tench. But the Schlei is a protected nature reserve, which meant that installing the dolphins required soil surveys and permits, and all that bureaucratic chatter took time. Instead of reducing CO2 emissions, the environmentalist initiative behind the Missunde III managed to increase them, as cars were forced to take a 30-kilometer detour while the ferry sat out of service in port.

The return of the outlaw Diesel

After months of costly detours, disgruntled local officials demanded that the old, trusty Missunde II be returned to service. But there was a catch: the ferry had already been sold for the impressive sum of 17,000 euros – a small price for a ship that had reliably served the community for decades. And wouldn't you know it: making the Missunde II seaworthy again would require extensive renovation work costing 1.8 million euros.

The authorities quietly sold the outdated and embarrassing Missunde II for 17,000 euros to a stupid person who didn't understand that diesel ferries are not the future. The buyer perhaps regretted his purchase, as he left the poor boat moored in Maasholm near the Schlei, where it began to deteriorate in the elements. This is the necessary, if cruel, fate of technologically undeveloped and environmentally harmful watercraft.

But wait, it gets better. After realizing that their solar-powered dream boat was a lemon, the same environmental bureaucrats who originally sold the Missunde II crawled back to the buyer and bought it back for 100,000 euros – almost six times what they sold it for . Let that sink in. In the name of protecting the environment, they wasted millions on a solar-powered ferry that doesn't work, then had to spend a fortune getting the reliable old diesel ferry back up and running.

Lessons not learned

As of September 2024, the Missunde III is still not operational. Engineers are trying to equip it with additional bow thrusters to better cope with the winds, but it is unclear if and when it will ever enter regular service. The old Missunde II is now back on the water and transporting cars and bicycles across the Schlei, just as it was before this absurd experiment with green energy began.

The Missunde II has received a new license to operate until 2028 because no one believes that the sophisticated, super-quiet Missunde III will be up to the simple task of carrying cars over 100 meters of water in the near future.

And what did Schleswig-Holstein gain for its 3.3 million euros (plus another hundred thousand, plus almost 2 million for repairs and for buying back the diesel ferry)? A beautiful roof with solar panels that would be better suited to a garden shed, a wind sail disguised as a ferry and a reminder that virtuous environmentalism often just results in a waste of money and time.

The moral of the story

This fiasco is a perfect example of what happens when ideology trumps common sense. The green energy fanatics in government are so blinded by their obsession with reducing carbon emissions that they can't see the forest for the trees – or in this case, the ferry for the sails. It's not about actually solving problems or making things work better; It's about feeling good and showing the world your “green” credentials, no matter how many millions of euros they flush down the toilet in the process.

Now it is September and Missunde III is no closer to ferrying automobiles across the Schlei than it was in March. Among other things, the engineers decided that she needed to be equipped with additional bow thrusters to withstand the strong currents. So the Coastal Protection Agency eventually limped back to the not-so-weak buyer, who bought the Missunde II for 17,000 euros, and made a deal to buy it back from him for 100,000 euros. The Missunde II has received a new license to operate until 2028 because no one believes that the sophisticated, super-quiet Missunde III will be up to the simple task of carrying cars over 100 meters of water in the near future.

The Missunde III debacle should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who believes that the Green New Deal or net zero policies will usher in some kind of environmental utopia. In most cases, these projects are little more than expensive exercises in virtue that do more harm than good. If this is the future of green energy, then God help us all.

HT/Fabius Maximus

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