BREMERHAVEN — Germany’s energy revolution is the government’s only major project — but the problems keep piling up. The pace of grid expansion is sluggish, and electricity costs for consumers are rising. The environment minister wants to fundamentally alter the way green energy is subsidized, but will it mean putting the brakes on the entire project?

The cornerstones of Germany’s energy turn-around can be admired in a hall in the northern port city of Bremerhaven. Standing on three rust-brown feet apiece, each of these immense, yellow-painted trunks weighs as much as 900 elephants. Soon, special ships will come and sink these steel monsters into the seabed, where they will support the wind turbines that are supposed to supply the country with green electricity.

Before they do, Environment Minister Peter Altmaier will go to Bremerhaven to inspect the work of Weser Wind and Areva Wind, the companies building them. Areva calls these wind-turbine supports ‘tripods.’ Peter Altmeier has a more poetic term, dubbing them ‘cathedrals to industrial culture.’

This last week, there was a strict division of labor at several locations around the country. From Monday to Wednesday, the environment minister went on a whirlwind tour of Germany. Almost everywhere he went, workers wearing […]