Environmental organizations, coal compromise threaten : on the Brink

environmental groups insist on quick power-plant shutdowns and threaten otherwise to support the coal-compromise. The Federal government and the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, to agree as quickly as possible with RWE to take three gigawatts of the oldest in the RWE lignite blocks by the network. The heads of Greenpeace, the FEDERAL government and the German nature conservation ring requested on Monday. The three organizations were also represented in the coal Commission. On Wednesday, the NRW Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) wants to make a government Declaration of a government statement on the Coal phase-out - it is expected that he expresses to the shutdown plans.

it is questionable whether really all up to 2022 sequences for the power plant blocks are to go in the area of the Rhenish station from the network. In writing this is not fixed in the final report of the coal Commission. The history should be the following: In the crucial last Negotiation of the coal Commission of the state of the that RWE had offered in addition to the so-called reference development of the shutdown of 2.4 gigawatts, according to participants, was circles. It would have to be 600 megawatts more to save the seven villages around the opencast mines Garzweiler, hambach forest. Then, RWE could also include one of the two days of the Garzweiler and Hambach to build all, or both out. In this Situation, NRW Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart (FDP) have said then a total of three gigawatts.

North Rhine-Westphalia and RWE do not want to carry the whole load

For the environmental associations, this commitment was the reason to swallow the bitter pill of a late Coal phase-out in the year 2038, it was said, mutatis mutandis, in the event of environmental associations in Berlin. "It can't be that NRW is backing out", - said Greenpeace Executive Director Martin Kaiser and demanded an Intervention from Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).

However, a spokesman from RWE, which operates the Bank of the Rhine plants, said: "the fact That the NGOs give the impression today that RWE is expected to shoulder until 2023, the entire load in the area of brown coal alone, is not covered by the Commission report and, therefore, very surprising. Because there is no differentiation according to the regions has been made. We had already repeatedly pointed out that the above-mentioned closures of brown coal capacity, in our view, cannot be provided exclusively in the Rhine area.“

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Also Pinkwart had already announced last Thursday that NRW could not shoulder the burden alone. The black Peter would thus be the Eastern countries, which had, however, made in the coal Commission is very clear that you could not be more in accordance with the industrial disruption since the turn of time, the first, the brown coal-fired power plants shut down. It is the price that the coal Commission has only set out late and then imprecise the recovery of old capacity.

compensations still need to be negotiated

In the Background of the dispute could, however, be the also to clarification of the question of financial compensation for the owners of the plants. Because with the power plant operators, there will be negotiations about compensation for the shutdowns. 600 million euros per Gigawatt was an order of magnitude, the made first the round. So much for the safety willingness to mothball power plants. But in the meantime, the prices are on the rise. Per Gigawatt is switched off, the power plant capacity is expected to cost around 1.2 billion euros, said an RWE spokesperson, and that is because now days build in its entirety are affected.

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The environmental organizations don't want to anyway, with less than three gigawatts of shutdowns satisfied. "The minimum compromise would no longer apply," said the Emperor. Thus, the hard-won compromise would be considered, in spite of completing your final recommendation politically obsolete. More than to carry the Protest on the street, would remain the environmental associations.