Green | September 09, 2008 | 12 comments

Carbon capture coal plant opens in Germany amid reservations

source: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3628912,00.html

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JanforGore
Energy giant Vattenfall has launched an emissions-free coal-fired test plant near Berlin using a technology touted as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against global warming. But critics aren't convinced.

Swedish energy utility Vattenfall sees carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a revolutionary answer to global warming which is largely blamed on carbon dioxide released when fossil fuels burn.

"This technology will become more important than offshore wind farms," said Vattenfall boss Lars Josefsson.

"Our project at Schwarze Pumpe puts us at the forefront of this technology in the world," said Tuomo Hatakka, the chief executive of Vattenfall Europe, referring to the the 70-million euro plant in eastern Germany.

Vattenfall, one of Europe's largest energy companies, hopes the project will help provide energy security through plentiful coal supplies while avoiding the CO2 emissions that are blamed for global warming.

Critics aren't convinced

But environmentalists say the technology uses far more energy than existing power generation and warn that there are no secure long-term storage facilities for the gas.

German conservation group BUND on Monday denounced the project as simply a cover allowing Vattenfall to expand its network of conventional coal-fired power stations in Germany.

Some critics say the focus should be on expanding cheaper renewable energy rather than on polluting coal

Thorben Becker of BUND said it was still uncertain if CCS worked on a large scale. CCS power stations would obtain 10 per cent less power from the coal than conventional plants did, and it was not clear if there were enough suitable sites to dump the CO2.

"Instead of concentrating on far cheaper renewable energy, Vattenfall is locking itself in for decades to converting climate-damaging brown coal into electricity," he said.
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And reservations that are well warranted. Pumping carbon into the porous rock as a liquid does nothing to dissipate it and may well effect groundwater supplies. Not enough is really known of the effects of continual pumping of CO2 into the ground. And what of the mercury and other toxic gases that are produced by burning and generating coal? And what of how it is extracted? How can any company claim CCS is "emissions free" when it takes emissions to strip the land for the coal in the first place? Not even to mention the environmental devastation coal mining leaves behind.

Also, what happens when you run out of room or places to pump it? Are we now to carbonize every square inch of our land because we are too lazy to actually work to not emit it at all? Whether you spew it into the air or pump it into the ground you are not cutting emissions you are hiding them. This is simply a slight of hand way for coal companies to continue emitting the same CO2 emissions by looking as though they have gone green. It is a way for them to continue the status quo with a new package and the same old ways.

I actually thought Germany was more advanced than this. I thought they would be one of the countries actually leading the way on doing the only thing we really can do to be sure that emissions are cut... actually cut them. Hiding them is not cutting them, it is just one more way humans will find as a short cut to make it easier for themselves (or what they think is easier) rather than looking to the other options right under their noses that do not require so much energy and environmental destruction.

There is no such thing as "clean coal."
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12 comments // Carbon capture coal plant opens in Germany amid reservations

  • GreenhouseNeutralFoundation
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • The question is, what are 'we' waiting for? I'm certainly not waiting for any president who actually is part of their system to do anything. The only candidates running for president in this country who tell the truth about 'clean'coal' can't win because it isn't set up for anyone else to win but one of the corporate moneyed parties. So in either event we will have one that has done nothing but be a billboard for 'clean coal' on the campaign trail out of one side of their face while saying we need to reduce emissions ( and by 2050 which will be too late) out of the other. They obviously don't understand that there are intelligent people out here who see their playing.

      We will not have 100% renewable energy in 10 years in this country with status quo politicians. It will be the WE who will have to cause that break with fossil fuels with action, voices, and constant vigilance, and also with putting it above politics. And this is now not a matter of what we want, this is a matter of what we must do to save the climate balance of this planet... so I don't look to politicians to understand the moral imperative of this, and if we look to politics only for the action, we are simply dooming ourselves. People in Texas stood up to the coal companies and stopped coal plants from being built. People in Appalachia are standing up in their communities to bring wind power. States are standing up to make changes. All without the Federal AHats who only blow smoke up our butts for votes.That is where we will make progress, not waiting for any 'savior' in a silk suit with a slick tongue who speaks one way to one lobby and the other way to us.

    • 3 years ago
  • RudyRudell
    • 0
      RudyRudell  

    • Ok, I honestly know that nuclear power is not the best solution, not the number one, when it comes to environmental safety a block of actively radioactive uranium is pretty high up there on the danger danger list, but stories like this about coal err me towards nuclear power bring the lesser of those two evils. don't take this response the wrong way, I fully support solar, and algae based biofuel as the way to go (photosynthesis in every step ftw!), but in the short term nuclear power seems to be our best ally in crushing coal.
      the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
      holds very true here.

    • 3 years ago
  • fiat_lux088
  • JanforGore
  • darkhorsejim
    • 0
      darkhorsejim  

    • Let me see if I've got this straight, a coal-fired power plant is burning coal to produce energy along with the accompanying CO2. I'm still not getting the clean coal part after you burn it & there are no adverse effects on the environment. How fucking stupid do these sleazy companies think we are when sustainable isn't part of your energy philosophy now.

    • 3 years ago
  • stephenthomson
    • 0
      stephenthomson  

    • they're waiting for the next president, presumably.
      They'd been waiting for the tax credit extension on solar energy but because our retarded oil-thirsty government insists on continuing its subsidies of fossil fuels instead of renewable energy, solar isn't seeing the light of day.

      we will live to regret it.

    • 3 years ago
  • bubl_415
    • 0
      bubl_415  

    • I agree with this too. There is no clean coal and how long can we continue to sweep pollutants under the rug, before there are major repercussions?
      Expand renewable energy! What they we waiting for?

    • 3 years ago
  • stephenthomson
  • MeganMcKenzie
  • Stradius
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