Ecologists slam CO2 output of four power plants

25 November 2005

AACHEN, GERMANY – An ecology group released research Friday showing that just four huge lignite-burning power stations in Germany are to blame for 2 per cent of all Europe’s carbon dioxide output.

The study, released by Greenpeace and carried out by Freiburg- based Oeko-Institut, studied how much carbon dioxide, the gas seen as a major cause of global warming, comes from burning lignite, the lowest grade of coal.

Lignite that is strip-mined in the west of Germany is fed into four huge plants owned by utility RWE in a triangle between the cities of Aachen, Dusseldorf and Cologne.

Greenpeace said the study showed that this region created more CO2, 85 million tons annually, than any other place in Europe.

Oeko-Institut said six lignite-burning electricity plants in the south of Poland emitted a total of 65 million tons annually.

Three plants owned by Swedisch company Vattenfall near the Lausitz opencast coalfield in eastern Germany were emitting 51 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Karsten Smid, a Greenpeace expert on climate change, charged in Aachen that a new RWE plant in the west at Neurath would drastically increase German emissions.

Environmentalist groups have regularly criticized the burning of lignite, which is used almost exclusively as fuel for steam-electric power generation. Lignite, or brown coal, causes more pollution than higher grades of coal.

DPA

Subject: German news