“A burden for the climate”
The Moorburg coal power plant in Hamburg wastes the energy equivalent of 36 tonnes of hard coal per hour during normal operation because environmental organisations and citizen initiatives prevent it from using waste heat for district heating, Olaf Preuß writes in Die Welt, calling this “a waste and a pointless burden on the climate.” The article says at times Moorburg provides three quarters of the electricity consumed in Germany’s second largest city. Operated by state-owned Swedish energy company Vattenfall, it was also intended to provide district heating but activists prevented construction of a necessary pipeline. Hamburg policy, meanwhile, changed in favour of decentralised heating plants that are yet to be constructed, Preuß explains.
Read the article in German here.
See the CLEW article Moorburg power plant – Last of a dying breed, or the future of coal in Germany? for more information.