Germany Opens Another Coal Power Station
By Paul Homewood
Vattenfall have begun operations at its new coal fired power station in Saxony, Germany this week and the state governor is heralding the plant as important in guaranteeing Saxony’s energy security.
The 675 MW Boxberg R plant will be fuelled with local brown coal from an adjacent eastern German mining area and cost $1.29bn to build.
Saxony state premier Stanislaw Tillich said the brown coal would complement renewables, such as solar and windpower, whose output varies depending on weather patterns, reports Reuters.
"Our domestic brown coal is an important partner for renewable energy because it guarantees security of supply," he said in a statement.
This new plant follows the commissioning in August of an even bigger, 2200MW coal power plant in Neurath, and is the second such power station on the list of 16 due to be built in Germany by 2020.
As the Saxony governor points out, the new plant will not only help to guarantee their energy security, but will have the added benefit of protecting jobs in the local mining areas. Common sense, you would have thought!
In other news :-
- Saudi Arabia has awarded a $3.2bn contract to Hyundai to build a 2640MW coal plant.
- Contracts have been awarded for two turbines at the 320MW coal fired generator in Paco, Panama.
- Kolin Insaat have announced plans to invest $1bn in building a 450MW lignite fired power plant in Turkey’s Aegean region.
- The UAE are to invest $408 million in a 270MW coal fired plant, due for completion in 2015.
- Poland is to go ahead with building a 1800MW coal power plant, after a court lifted a ban, following legal challenges by green groups.
- Alstom will supply two turbines as part of a $128 million deal to equip the 1200MW Dongbu Green coal power station being built in Korea.
- The Japanese government is seeking to relax procedures on environmental impact, in order to make it easier to build more coal power stations.
None of these are being fitted with “Carbon Capture & Sequestration”, which remains a pipedream, but which, nevertheless, must, by law, be fitted to all new UK coal power stations.
Again the UK media seems to remain totally silent about these developments. One wonders why?
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Here’s a thought. Run the “backup” coal plant 100% of the time and disconnect the wobbly solar and windpower junk electricity. Save bundles of oodles of Euros and Deutschmarks!
Would someone please tell Ed Davey….
Environmentalists are like spoilt kids who want it all. When offered a choice they stubbornly demand the lot. Repeated demands are followed by tantrums. Eventually the adults in the World say ‘well if you can’t make your mind up you’re getting nothing.’ Bwaaaaaarrrrrr!
The major thing they won’t admit to is that mankind has to have lots of reliable energy. Without recognising that fact, they’re never going to win any of their goals. Worse, money and public indulgence will be wasted on ventures that don’t aid anyone but greedy subsidy hounds. Without energy, 21st century life changes absolutely and nobody is ready for that.
They like to blame sceptics for lack of action on CO2 because they’re so far removed from reality that they think that evil oil monsters are the main barrier to them and success. They can’t even look in the mirror and ask ‘would I willingly step into a low energy future?’ They might recognise that their super computer would run better and cheaper on reliable old coal but they deny others the same basic needs.
Nice list of ‘reality’.
Paul, could you please list the 16 coal plants? I can only see 6 actual projects under construction. commissioning and would be very interested to know where the other 10 are. Are they pre-financing stage, or actually in constrcution?
The list is here.
There is obviously a mix of projects at different stages, but as of last year:-
2 – already opened
8 – under construction
1 – approved
4 – a/w approval
1 – in planning