In Germany, Black Power Trumps the Green

Much of Europe may be moving toward renewable energy, but here in the Rhine Valley, where coal has always been king...

Much of Europe may be moving toward renewable energy, but here in the Rhine Valley, where coal has always been king, this small town has become more roadkill on the fossil fuels autobahn.

Three power plants fueled by lignite coal, the granddaddy of the greenhouse gas emitters, belch more than 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere, the highest concentration in Europe. But they will be dwarfed by a massive power plant under construction that will be one of the biggest in the world burning lignite.

To fuel it, an open-pit mine that has scarred the fields outside town with a 31-square-mile hole will be moved west, swallowing up this village and nearby Pesch. Already, their neat cottages sit empty and boarded.

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“It’s a crime against us, and with the climate, it’s a crime against mankind,” said Arnold Pachbier, a 74-year-old retired farmer.

The European Union has adopted some of the most far-reaching carbon emissions standards in the world, and Germany has led the charge on renewable energy. But as oil and gas prices rise and Europe becomes increasingly nervous about Russia’s domination of natural gas supplies, old-world coal is making a comeback.

Plans are on the books to build 40 major coal-fired power stations across Europe in the next five years. Germany plans to build 27 coal-fired stations by 2020. Many of them will be fuelled by lignite, the soft “brown” coal that can emit a ton of carbon dioxide for every ton of fuel burned.

Over the next decade, new, mainly coal power plants in Europe could add 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, according to the US-based Center for Global Development—a 39 percent increase.

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“We look to the Europeans, in a sense, to be taking the lead. And when we get a sense of the potential magnitude of the increases that will come, it’s nothing short of stunning,” said David Wheeler, a senior fellow at the CGD who helped prepare an international database of current and projected new carbon-emission points.

Power companies say the new high-efficiency plants under construction ultimately could reduce overall emissions by burning less coal than their predecessors. That depends, however, on shutting down old, dirty plants as new ones come on line.

Carbon dioxide, though, has always been an unavoidable byproduct of power production using coal, and especially lignite. It is particularly a factor here in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous, where 13 of the proposed coal plants are to be built.

The town of Grevenbroich, near Holz, tends to brush aside its reputation as the carbon emissions capital of Europe by reminding visitors, with signs posted all over town, that it is also Germany’s energy capital. That would be hard to forget given the clouds of steam and gas that billow toward the stratosphere from the three big lignite plants ringing the town.