Thursday, December 02, 2021
Between hope and skepticism
How will the coal phase-out be achieved by 2030?
The traffic light coalition has big plans for the energy transition. While there is at least a formal optimistic mood in companies in the West, there is enormous skepticism from Lusatia. The central question, however, will be whether politics can initiate the necessary upheavals.
Helmut Badtke moved from the Ruhr area to Lusatia 30 years ago, and a look at his old home gives him at least some confidence. The coal pot was once dirty and broken, now there are blooming landscapes, the mayor of Jänschwalde knows. “That can also happen here in our area in Lusatia.” For the time being, however, Badtke sees the future rather bleak. “We live from coal, not from green dreams,” says the mayor.
The plans of the future federal government for a turbo-energy turnaround and an early phase-out of coal – “ideally” by 2030 instead of 2038 – will probably affect almost everyone in Germany, whether as electricity customers or residents of electricity lines and wind turbines. Consumer advocates also have many questions, especially about the financial burden. “If the coal phase-out should incur additional costs, for example higher electricity prices, both industry and private households have to be financially relieved,” warned the head of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, Klaus Müller, as a precautionary measure. The plans of the Ampel coalition are causing unrest, especially in the coal regions themselves. Many feel taken by surprise, not only in the Lausitz area in Brandenburg and Saxony, where gigantic excavators have been plowing through the landscape for decades and extracting millions of tons of lignite. 2030 instead of 2038? How does that work? Where do new jobs come from so quickly? And where does the electricity come from?
The traffic light coalition has a different perspective: The earlier coal phase-out is intended to secure the German climate targets. The decision has been taken to reduce greenhouse gases by 65 percent by 2030 compared to 1990. “Without an almost complete phase-out of coal by 2030, the emission targets will not be achievable,” says Jan Peter Schemmel, spokesman for the management at the Öko-Institut in Berlin. The coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP makes this a part of the program. He is counting on the fact that coal-based power generation will become increasingly unprofitable. It is planned to keep the CO2 price in the EU emissions trading stable above 60 euros per ton, if necessary with national measures. This would give “a clear economic incentive to shut down coal-fired power plants,” says Schemmel.
45 percent share of green electricity in 2020
At the same time, renewable energies such as wind and sun must be expanded much more quickly if coal is to be phased out earlier. The traffic light assumes higher electricity consumption by 2030 – driven, for example, by more electric cars and electric heat pumps in buildings. And of this growing amount, 80 percent should come from renewable energies by 2030 – instead of the previously planned target of 65 percent. According to industry information, a green electricity share of around 45 percent was achieved in 2020.
Thousands of new wind turbines are needed, among other things, but expansion on land is particularly slow: too little space, long planning processes, many lawsuits, conflicts with species and nature conservation. The future coalition wants to use up to two percent of the country’s area for wind power, much more than before. At the end of 2020, just 0.7 to 0.85 percent of the area nationwide was legally designated for wind energy, according to a report by a federal-state committee from October. According to some country reports, planning processes currently take at least five, but sometimes even twelve years. The traffic light wants speed and uses a lever: Renewable energies should be in the “public interest”. The future climate protection minister, Robert Habeck, sees this as a way of tipping the large minimum distances between wind turbines and residential buildings that apply in Bavaria, for example, as he told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”.
Habeck has to deliver quickly. As early as the first half of 2022, the traffic light wants to initiate all necessary measures together with the federal states and municipalities to accelerate the expansion of green electricity. This includes making the addition of wind turbines attractive to citizens and municipalities, including with financial incentives. That is important, says Schemmel. “But let’s not kid ourselves: The expansion of renewables with the now assumed higher electricity demand by 2030 will be a Herculean task.”
Some large coal-fired power companies now seem to be rising to the challenge. Interesting for them: In addition to renewables, the traffic light also wants gas-fired power plants that could later run on hydrogen in a climate-friendly way. These could be built at previous power plant locations or existing systems could be converted to gas. The lignite opencast mine operator RWE believes a faster coal phase-out is possible. Prerequisites are “a massive and accelerated expansion of renewable energies, networks and storage” as well as “a massive expansion of gas power plants”, announced the group. RWE intends to build at least 2000 megawatts of gas-fired power plant capacity by 2030. The energy company EnBW in the south-west calls the coal phase-out by 2030 “correct and feasible”, also under the condition that alternatives are expanded more quickly. EnBW is examining whether three important coal-fired power plants can be converted to natural gas and later to climate-neutral gases.
The power generator Uniper only wants to fire the Datteln IV power plant with hard coal in 2030. Even Steag, once the largest coal-fired power producer in Germany, sees “no problem” in the faster exit from coal, according to a spokesman. From autumn 2022, only the Walsum 10 hard coal-fired power plant in Duisburg will be on the market. A conversion to natural gas or biomass is being examined. In the west, the winding up of coal seems to be in sight.
8,000 jobs in Lusatia threatened
At the East German mining and power plant operator Leag, however, the plans of the future federal government are met with protest. It was not until 2019 that the coal commission, with the help of Lusatia, had laboriously agreed on a coal phase-out by 2038 – and now this. “For me it is an absolutely incredible thing,” says Leag works council Lars Katzmarek. “I am shocked that the compromise that has been made is being trashed like that.” The 29-year-old began training as a mechatronics technician in 2008. He later graduated as an electrical engineer and now works in IT at the Schwarze Pump industrial park.
The coal phase-out in 2030 is simply not feasible, says Katzmarek. He does not believe in the turbo expansion of wind power and also does not believe that the necessary networks will be created. 7,000 kilometers of high-voltage lines are already planned for the energy transition, but only 150 kilometers are actually being built each year. New gas-fired power plants at coal sites also took a long time. “That is a step in the right direction, but not the solution,” said Katzmarek. In his opinion, this solution should not only secure the power supply, but also well-paid jobs for Lusatia. According to his calculations, 7500 to 8000 jobs there depend directly on coal and another 16,000 indirectly. It is nice that a new railway works with 1200 jobs is being built in Cottbus, but far too few. The change takes more time.
Falling wages, emigration, desertification – Katzmarek also sees the region as black. In his rap song “Our Perspective” he ventures on Youtube: “Damn it, give us a future, give us a perspective, give us a hold. Please, please, please show your heart, don’t be as bitterly cold as always . “