Coal news and updates

Germany is aiming for a green start to 2021 by shutting down a coal-fired power plant and slapping a CO2 price on transport, but critics say the efforts aren’t enough to combat climate change.

 

The measures are the result of hard-fought compromises thrashed out by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition government, and are key to Germany’s transition away from polluting fossil fuels towards renewable energy.

 

From January 1, 2021 the government will charge 25 euros ($30) per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions released by the transport and heating sectors.

 

The pricetag was raised from the government’s initially proposed 10 euros per tonne — a number widely slammed as too low by Germany’s Green party, environmentalists and scientists.

 

The price will increase to 55 euros by 2025, and will be decided at auction from 2026.

 

Germans will feel the difference at the pump with diesel and petrol set to become more expensive, while heating buildings will also cost more.

 

The government expects to raise 56.2 billion euros from companies buying the new carbon certificates or “pollution rights” over the next four years.

 

Also on Friday, the 300-megawatt Niederaussem D unit power plant near Cologne, running on lignite (brown coal), becomes the first to close down as part of Germany’s phaseout of coal by 2038.

 

Energy giant RWE, which has operated the plant since it was built in 1968, said decommissioning the facility — as required by Germany’s 2020 coal exit law — was “a difficult step” that would lead to some 300 job losses.

 

Under the same legislation, several power plants fuelled by black or hard coal are going offline from January, taking a combined capacity of 4.7 gigawatts off the market.

 

Source : https://www.macaubusiness.com