Maybe this article will stimulate some conversation:) Please...

Maybe this article will stimulate some conversation

Please note that this article discusses Lignite (brown coal) and not hard coal.


German plea to Sweden over threat to coal mines.

Pilita Clark in London, David Crouch in Gothenburg and Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin

Vapor rises from the cooling towers of the Schwarze Pumpe lignite powered power plant, operated by Vattenfall AB, in Spremberg, Germany, on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014.

Across the continent's mining belt, from Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic, utilities such as Vattenfall AB, CEZ AS and PGE SA are expanding open-pit mines that produce lignite.

Germany has made a dramatic appeal to Sweden to help it out of an energy dilemma that threatens Europe’s biggest economy as it shifts away from nuclear power and fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Sigmar **riel, Germany’s vice-chancellor, warned Sweden’s new prime minister Stefan Löfven last month that there would be “serious consequences” for electricity supplies and jobs if Sweden’s state-owned utility Vattenfall ditched plans to expand two coal mines in the northeast of Germany. The intervention is a clear sign of the challenges Germany faces as it grapples with an ambitious switch to renewable energy – the so-called Energiewende.
Under the policy, Germany aims to derive 80 per cent of its electricity from clean sources by 2050. As part of that, it is closing down all of its nuclear power stations by 2022. But it is making up the energy shortfall caused by the nuclear phase-out by generating power from coal – the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Last year, German electricity production from lignite or brown coal, a particularly polluting form of the fuel, reached its highest level since 1990. Germany’s heavy reliance on coal has left it struggling to meet its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile high levies on bills to pay for renewable power mean that household energy prices are among the highest in Europe.

Angela Merkel’s cabinet is due to meet next week to discuss mothballing some coal-fired power stations as a means of helping the country reach its carbon goals. But Berlin’s lobbying of Stockholm underlines a view held by some in the German government that coal-fired generation is vital to the security of the country’s power supply. In a letter written last month to Mr Löfven and seen by the Financial Times, Mr **riel said Vattenfall’s continued investment in two lignite mines in Brandenburg and Saxony that supply coal to nearby power plants “would be important to me personally” and added “I would be grateful if you could use your influence to make that happen.”

Mr **riel, who is also Germany’s economy minister, fired off the letter after Mr Löfven’s centre-left coalition government won a September election in which the climate change impact of Vattenfall’s German coal operations was a big issue. But the intervention did not stop Vattenfall. Magnus Hall, its new chief executive, announced on October 30 that the utility would look at selling off its lignite mining and generation assets in Germany. “We have a clear strategy to reduce our CO2 exposure and to transform our business into a more renewable-based portfolio,” Mr Hall said in a statement.

Mr Löfven told the FT on Sunday that he had explained to Mr **riel in a phone call that Vattenfall’s board acted independently of the government. “I also told Sigmar that we have a policy that we don’t want to harm Germany, so it is up to the board to handle this situation in the best way,” he said. He added that Vattenfall’s board had decided to look into selling the German lignite mines and power plants and that “this is in line with government policy that we need Vattenfall to be a leading actor in renewables and clean energy”. “But this decision was not from the government,” Mr Löfven said. “We are not telling Vattenfall to do something; they made their own decision. But it is in line with our policy, and we will keep that policy.”

Separately, Vattenfall has also filed a lawsuit against Germany seeking €4.7bn in compensation over Berlin’s decision to close the country’s fleet of nuclear power stations. A spokeswoman for the German economics ministry said Mr **riel’s letter concerned Vattenfall’s responsibility to preserve jobs and a secure and affordable energy supply in Germany, “which has arisen from the profitable operation of this business in the past”. Mr **riel described the situation in more graphic terms in his letter to Mr Löfven. A failure to expand the two mines “would entail serious consequences for power generation and employment in the region”, including the closure of two new power plants 20 years earlier than currently planned, and the loss of up to 16,000 jobs in a “structurally weak region of Germany”, Mr **riel said.

Germany still believed its plan to phase out nuclear energy by 2022 was a “necessary step”, he told Mr Löfven. “However, we also strongly believe that we cannot simultaneously quit nuclear energy and coal-based power generation.” “Dear Stefan, Germany will indeed phase out fossil power generation as well – but at a gentler speed that can somehow be managed in terms of its consequences.” Vattenfall declined to comment except to say the decision to look at the ownership structure of its German lignite operations was taken by the company’s board.