Germany, Carbon, Coal and the Nuclear Moratorium

Plenty of environmental activists like to point to Germany with pride as a nation that's observed a strict moratorium against building new nuclear generating capacity. But as a piece in today's New York Times demonstrates, foreclosing the possibility of new nuclear build has its own costs:

In the shadow of two hulking boilers, which spew 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year into the air, the Swedish owners of this coal-fired power station recently broke ground on what is to be the world's first carbon-free plant fueled by coal. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, presided over the ceremony.

The power plant in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany, operated by Vattenfall. The company is building a carbon-free plant, but only as a demonstration model. Germany plans eight new coal-fired power plants over the next five years.

"We accept the problem of climate change," said Reinhardt Hassa, a senior executive at Vattenfall, which operates the plant. "If we want a future for coal, we have to adopt new technologies. It is not enough just to make incremental improvements."

But the new plant, which will be just a demonstration model, pales next to the eight coal-fired power stations Germany plans to build for commercial use between from now to 2011 --— none of them carbon-free.

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