Free Republic

A country on the forefront of the green transition will put several mothballed coal-fired power plants back online ahead of the upcoming winter, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. Germany, which has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to enact the green energy transition, will reactivate several coal-fired units in order to meet peak demand and keep the lights on this winter, Bloomberg reported. The country has experienced elevated and inconsistent energy prices since Russia invaded Ukraine, impacting both German customers and companies. The German government opted to go ahead with its plans to phase out its last nuclear reactors in April,...

A wind farm is being dismantled in western Germany to make way for an expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in a “paradoxical” situation highlighting the current prioritization of energy security over clean energy in Europe’s biggest economy. The dismantling of at least one wind turbine at the wind farm close to the German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy giant RWE, has already started. RWE says that lignite, or brown coal, has been mined from the Garzweiler coalfields for over 100 years. RWE also said at the end of September that three of its lignite-fired coal units that...

Germany's largest power producer RWE said on Tuesday it is bringing forward its coal phase-out by eight years and is ready to end lignite-based electricity generation in 2030 as part of a deal reached with the government. However, faced with a Europe-wide energy crisis after Russia slashed gas deliveries following its invasion of Ukraine, RWE said it would temporarily boost its use of power plants fuelled by heavily polluting lignite, or brown coal. "In the current crisis, we are contributing to security of supply in Germany by temporarily increasing the use of our lignite-fired power plants, and are thus also...

Germany could embrace wood for heat if Russia further cuts gas flows, Deutsche Bank says. The bank said in a note that it expects German demand for gas to fall 10% below 2021 levels. ... German households could turn to wood as a heating source this winter as gas supplies remain tight while Russia restricts flows to Europe, Deutsche Bank .. expects gas consumption in Germany to be 10% below 2021 levels thanks to private households saving and high gas prices. It also noted that coal and lignite could emerge as replacements for natural gas in the industrial power sector....

Today I am risking being too glib, but my excuse is aspiring to meet the Einstein standard, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” It’s not hard to see that as rough as economic conditions are now, they are set to get worse. And it’s not hard to see that despite the considerable blowback from the sanctions against Russia, the West is not going to relent. Here’s a simple baseline forecast. Russia wins in Ukraine. The West may try to define it somehow as not a victory, but it’s hard to see how Russia does not take the...

The European Court of Justice slapped Poland with a €500,000 ($586,000) daily fine on Monday in response to the country’s refusal to shut down the Turow open-cast lignite mine near the Czech border. The Czech Republic took the case to court over complaints that the mine is causing cross-border environmental hazards, especially as it concerns air and water quality. In May, the EU’s top court told Poland to shut down the mine, though Poland has refused to comply. In June, Prague asked the EU’s top court to fine Poland €5 million ($5.9 million) per day for failing to halt production...

Saudi Arabia’s [Prince] Turki al Faisal addressing Bill Clinton at Clinton Global Initiative shindig, September 25, 2012: “Muslims will never forget your deliverance of Bosnia-Herzogovenia and Kosovo, and near-deliverance, within 100 meters, of Palestine from occupation.” There by a smiling Chelsea’s side, in a room full of people who warmly approve of the term Israeli “occupation”: her sellout Jewish husband.

It might sound like one of the environmental group’s protest stunts, but Greenpeace insists it really does want to buy up a series of German brown coal mines and plants offered for sale by Swedish power company Vattenfall. […] Vattenfall had previously said it planned to sell its German lignite plants to make a shift toward renewable energy and reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. Greenpeace said it wants to buy the lignite plants to make sure further production does not take place. …

Workers in Conroe hauled a colossal, 63.4-metric ton dragline excavator — essentially, a giant shovel — overnight Tuesday to a coal mine near Austin. The 130-mile trip to Elgin was the maiden voyage in the U.S. for South African equipment maker VR Steel, which four months ago outsourced the fabrication of its first U.S. excavator to Conroe-based manufacturers C&C Metals and Mackanan. The midnight ride took seven hours: Crew members on escort trucks lifted power lines and moved traffic lights to clear the way for the excavator, which sat 18 feet high on the back of a semi-trailer. After a...

The old lignite skull ANOTHER MYSTERY SKULL... THIS TIME AN ANCIENT EUROPEAN WHICH, SAY FRANCOIS DE SARRE AND MICHEL GRANGER, COULD CHALLENGE THE OFFICIAL VIEW OF HUMAN ORIGINS. 0fficially, the origin of the first true Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) dates back 2.5 million years. Before this time lived other hominids whose bones cannot be confused with those of Homo's lineage. Against this background, we have the 2oo-year old enigma of an 'impossibly' ancient humanoid skull from the mining town of Freiberg, in Saxony, Germany, which, if verified, could be more than 10 million years old - far older than...