Lights go out for German hard coal miners as last pit shuts

Germany’s last hard coal mine in the Ruhr area will officially close on Friday 21 December and with it the era of a “fuel that propelled the nation’s economic and political expansion – for good and bad – over two centuries” will end, writes Tobias Buck in the Financial Times. For the Ruhr region, the end of hard coal mining has been “less traumatic than many had warned”, at least in economic terms since the decision to phase-out the mines in 2007 was taken after the industry had been making losses and had to be heavily subsidised for decades, Buch writes. Shutting down Germany’s still working open pit lignite (brown coal) mines is the next task if the country wants to meet its climate targets for 2030, the author says.