German coal mines thrive amid clean energy push

WASHINGTON POST

ROHNE, Germany — Underneath the marshy ground here is a huge deposit of cheap brown coal — manna for a nearby power plant that is among the biggest emitters of global warming gases in Europe. The presence of the fuel may mean that this village and its 680 residents have to go, moved out by the unceasing demand for dirty fossil fuels.

In recent years, Germany has made a large push into clean, renewable energy, and it is among the world’s leading suppliers of wind and solar power. But like many European countries and the United States, it remains hooked on coal, its biggest source of energy.

That reliance is projected to grow in coming years. Utilities are seeking to build two dozen power plants to be fueled by lignite, the crumbly brown coal that lies just beneath the surface in much of eastern Germany and that has been strip mined for generations.

Under new regulations proposed by the European Union, Germany will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020. At the same time, the German government has decided to phase out nuclear power, which does not pollute the atmosphere and accounts for a quarter of the country’s electricity supply.

Many skeptics doubt Germany can simultaneously replace nuclear power and cut emissions. As a result, economists predict that Europe’s largest economy will continue to mine and burn as much coal as ever in future decades, regardless of the environmental drawbacks.

“Without brown coal, Germany will not be able to meet its needs for electricity,” said Detlev Daehnert, head of mining planning for Vattenfall, the Swedish energy conglomerate that owns the Nochten coal mine and Boxberg power plant near here.

The likelihood that Germany will become more dependent on coal has environmentalists in a sour mood. They have launched intensive campaigns to derail construction of new, coal-fired power plants, which they call “climate killers.” They’ve also started a massive petition drive to limit strip mining in eastern Germany, a mainstay of the area economy for nearly a century.

Rene Schuster, an organizer for the Green League of Germany, said the group wants to see the country phase out use of brown coal by 2050. To do so, he acknowledged, would require a major boost in the use of renewable energies: solar, wind, biomass and hydropower. It would also mean a big cut in overall energy consumption, not easy in a country with a factory-based economy and drivers who love to speed on autobahns in gas-guzzling Mercedes and BMWs.

But he said it was important for Germany — the world’s largest exporter of goods — to set an example for poorer countries, such as China, where coal consumption is on the rise.

“In Germany, we have good — or at least better — chances than other parts of the world to become independent from brown coal,” said Schuster, who monitors the coal industry in the eastern German states of Saxony and Brandenburg.