In the animated film "the twelve tasks of Asterix" from 1976, one of the tasks the little Gaul has to accomplish is obtaining a government permit. He must go to a sizable office called The Place That Sends You Mad to accomplish this. The head of the German Wind Energy Association, Wolfram Axthelm, recently compared modern Germany's frustrating bureaucracy to Asterix's task in an open letter. One specific annoyance was the 150 or so permits required by Autobahn GmbH, a state-owned company that manages Germany's renowned motorways, for the transportation of large wind turbine parts, such blades. A backlog of almost 20,000 applications has grown due to complicated regulations regarding load dimensions, flawed software, ongoing road construction, and a shortage of staff to handle complaints. In spite of the fact that it is only a short 100 km (62 miles) by truck from the port of Bremen to a location in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, one company recently discovered that the trip took five times as long due to road limitations.
Every nation has inept government officials. Germany, though, has a remarkable penchant for self-destructing. For instance, there are strategic as well as financial costs associated with the conflict between autobahns and windmills. The sudden stoppage of Russian fuel supplies last year left the nation searching for power, ideally local and renewable. The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, claims that in order for Germany to meet its emission-reduction goals, three to four new wind turbines must be built every day. Currently, there are little more than one each day.