No later than 2038 should be used to generate electricity in Germany, no more coal. Replacement jobs here. 40 billion Euro should cost. The Finance Minister is waving already. New dispute threatens?
For nearly a week, the final report of the coal Commission for Germany’s phasing out of coal-fired generation old. This Thursday evening, the 336-page report has been handed over officially to the Chancellor. Angela Merkel and her government must decide what you will do with the recommendations and Instructions of the Commission, and whether and how you believe the roadmap for the Coal phase-out in laws.
After the end of the coal industry, also the mining of brown coal is a discontinued model. Still it exists in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Eastern German States of Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Currently, nearly a quarter of the electricity in Germany is produced from brown coal. It is expected the stone charcoal kilns, it is even more than a third. However, it is relatively much climate-damaging CO2. With a view on the climate balance sheet is no longer portable, so the Federal government.
The exit should quickly start
Starting in 2022, the first lignite – and coal-fired power plants are to go with a capacity of 12.5 gigawatts from the grid. By 2035, but no later than 2038, the last coal-fired power plant is to be switched off. Nearly 21,000 people work in the mining industry and in power plants. This includes tens of thousands whose jobs depend indirectly on the brown coal. Especially in Eastern Germany.
11 million tons of brown coal will be encouraged in the lignite in the Lausitz
What was in the old Federal Republic, hard coal, brown was in the GDR coal. Alone in the Lausitz region of 80,000 people in mining were employed. Today there are 8.000. You don’t want to lose their jobs, especially as the Lausitz today is what is called structurally weak.
A time plan should
Appreciable economic power has not the Region. “People expect security of planning that people expect that you are serious and perceived to be, and that they do not suffer from a second structural break, as you have it, 25 years ago, is experiencing,” warned Oliver Wittke, parliamentary state Secretary in the Federal Ministry of economic Affairs in the Bundestag. The results of the coal Commission were debated on Thursday.
“Blackout in the Lausitz region” – Protest at the meeting of LEAG in Cottbus
Also in the case of a meeting of the energy giant LEAG the recommendations of the Commission were an issue. “Now is the time to come quickly in the corridors, in order to realize the agreed-on things,” said Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) in Cottbus. You need a clear plan from the Federal government, also called the Saxon Prime Minister, Michael Kretschmer on the operating Assembly.
40 billion for the economic reboot
The “agreed upon things”, are meant to be primarily financial assistance. 40 billion euros, spread over 20 years, plus EUR 150 million of emergency aid, the Commission estimated that the affected mining can set up regions economically. Chancellor Merkel promised to may to present a roadmap on how the structural change in the Region. Have committed to the Federal government, she said at the Handover of the report of the coal Commission. It comes to investment in infrastructure, investment incentives for enterprises, and the relocation of the Federal authorities.
The Minister presidents of the four coal-provinces are the have heard. You require a law in order to speed up the planning. She spoke with Merkel at a dinner. “The proposal must be implemented as presented”, claimed the Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff before the Meeting: “A Untie at one point that it would jeopardize the hard-won compromise.”
From the brown coal open cast mine, only rust is in many places, large-scale equipment remained
For the Federal it is expensive, that much is clear. Too expensive, say critics from business and politics. The objections come even from within the ranks of the government parties. The economic wing of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, warns of a “Pyrrhic, climate policy symbol policy” and is thus in line with the opposition party, the FDP.
Planned economy instead of market economy
The Free Democrats speak of a “plan of economic mistake” that will cost the taxpayer up to € 80 billion. “The way it should be indirect control via the market and price, but the direct intervention in economic freedom,” criticized the FDP-Chef Christian Lindner on Thursday in the Bundestag.
The coal Commission found, the solution is too expensive and the climate is ineffective. Instead of focusing unilaterally on the energy carrier coal will be needed in the area of climate protection of internationally coordinated solutions. The FDP group therefore relies on a reinforced European emissions trading scheme. “We need to give the CO2 a price, and it is there, save where it is convenient,” says Lindner.
Criticized the coal exit: FDP-Chef Christian Lindner
Who should pay for the exit?
Also, the economy warns of high costs and has, in the first line itself. A rising electricity price would be too much for many companies, the President of the German chamber of industry and Commerce day (DIHK), Eric Schweitzer, to consider. “It comes to an overall social goal. Therefore, the company must also pay the costs, and Substantially over-tax”, calls for Schweitzer in a newspaper interview.
This bill can understand the German Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, but only to a limited extent. Extra money he is not ready. The estimated 40 billion euros should be provided from the current budgets of the Federal ministries. “In the house we have intended to keep high level of investment funds, which are, for example, in the budgets of the transport -, economic -, science – or the Ministry of construction,” said Scholz to the Handelsblatt.
Still, the chimneys smoke in the brown coal-fired power plants in Jänschwalde in the Lausitz region
A statement is not received by Saxony-Anhalt Minister-President Haseloff. The money was urgently needed, so Haseloff: “where the Federal government takes the money for the demanded by the policy, is secondary.” Angela Merkel tried to smooth the waters. Coal’s exit is “a huge task”. The Federal government will examine the associated costs very carefully. There is a “total social responsibility”. This wool descendants of the government.