
Germany closes its last hard-coal mine - Tomte
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/germany-closes-last-coal-mine-despite-decades-of-supplies-needed
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blattimwind
German coal has been _heavily_ subsidized for more than half a century. No one
really knows how much money exactly went in there, but it's assumed something
like 200-350 billion euros
([http://www.foes.de/pdf/Kohlesubventionen_1950_2008.pdf](http://www.foes.de/pdf/Kohlesubventionen_1950_2008.pdf)).

~~~
petermcneeley
From the article: "Wind, solar and other renewable sources, which account for
55 percent of German electricity capacity, are even more subsidized than coal
mining, adding about 25 billion euros to power bills last year."

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CalRobert
How much did they save the health service compared to coal though? Air
pollution kills.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How much did they save the health service compared to coal though? Air
> pollution kills.

Killing people can be a net savings for health services. The dead consume no
services.

~~~
rurp
But unhealthy and dying people DO consume a lot of health services. Not to
mention the fact that unhealthy levels of pollution can lower the quality of
life for a great many citizens, something most people think that governments
should care about.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But unhealthy and dying people DO consume a lot of health services.

Yeah, sure, and I'm not saying something that kills people early always saves
health system money. Just that it can (a lot of analysis of cigarette smoking
have showed that reducing smoking in many countries has a net public cost,
considering the aggregate of health and public pension payments, and I think
in some cases that was true of health costs alone.

> Not to mention the fact that unhealthy levels of pollution can lower the
> quality of life for a great many citizens, something most people think that
> governments should care about.

Sure, quality of life is another important concern aside from health costs.
I'm definitely not saying deadly pollution is a net good, even if it might
save public health costs.

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rdl
From what I've read, the German green energy policy has caused: * Really
expensive per-KW/h power * Shutting down nuclear and natural gas (some) *
Reliance on coal due to peaking/load/etc. issues with renewable * Importing
coal (high cost to transport, including energy cost) * Dependence on Russia

It's good that they pushed solar and wind tech forward, but Germany just
doesn't seem like a good place to deploy solar. Natural gas power is the
cleanest fossil fuel and probably the best short term option (although without
LNG it's still exposed to Russia), with renewables and Europe-wide grid ties
in the longer term. Natural gas also has a 20-40 year lifespan for plants, so
replacing coal with gas now and then replacing gas with even better renewables
down the line seems like a good strategy.

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makomk
Last hard-coal mine. As far as I know, they're still mining lignite/brown coal
in vast open-cast mines swallowing up the German countryside.

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AWildC182
I was curious about this so I opened google earth, panned over to Germany and
zoomed in on a random brown patch on the satellite imagery. The environmental
devastation is absolutely awe inspiring. They have mines around the country
but particularly south of Berlin, the earth is scarred with dozens of massive
active and refilled mines. That group of mines also continues into Czechia and
a number of refilled mines can be seen on the Polish border as well.

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starik36
Link?

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powercf
This is Germany:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@50.5951409,8.7342041,743343m/da...](https://www.google.com/maps/@50.5951409,8.7342041,743343m/data=!3m1!1e3)

Disable labels and look at the beige patches on right center (south of
Berlin). The vast majority seem to be open mines, presumably coal.

~~~
choward
Reminds me of looking at West Virginia and Kentucky.
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/GPy6u](https://maps.app.goo.gl/GPy6u)

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mrcnkoba
The article doesn't mention it, but Germany still heavily relies on brown coal
and opens up a new open pit coal mine.

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matt4077
That’s a strangely editorializing headline. Kinda like “Apple to no longer
mine Lithium”. Germany will (and has been) buy coal on the market. It’s easily
transported by ship (unlike LNG, and, to some extend, oil), and there are lots
of producers in many countries, making dependency a non-issue.

Also: this isn’t really about environmental concerns. Those just weren’t part
of the story when this was decided in the 90s, at least not in terms of global
warming. Acid rain, and the local trouble with large cities built on top of
the mines grappling with more and more geological disturbances were a concern,
but the real reasons were simply economics: German coal had become too
expensive (around two decades ago). Shutting down it’s heavily-subsidized
mining is also consistent with the stated goals of reducing CO_2, because
buying on the world market will (slightly) raise prices.

There’s also the minor inaccuracy that Germany will continue mining lignite
for a few years, although I guess that’s an acceptable simplification within
the constraints of a headline.

The winding down of the coal industry is actually somewhat of a model for such
processes. This used to be a hugely influential industry, both in economic
powers, as well as cultural. Growing up in the 90s, I remember strikes,
protests, and other events around the mining industry and its original boom
towns featuring in the news about every second day.

To find compromises that did not satisfy any stakeholders, but succeeded in
keeping the peace and, at long last, lead to an environmentally responsible
energy strategy was quite a feat.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> this isn’t really about environmental concerns. Those just weren’t part of
> the story when this was decided in the 90s, at least not in terms of global
> warming.

Civilization, released in 1991, features global warming whenever the amount of
pollution in the world exceeds a threshold. (There's no distinction between
one kind of pollution and another, so a common way to produce that much
pollution would be detonating nuclear weapons, but coal is definitely
implicated too.)

The 90s are when people worried about global warming. According to Google
Books Ngram Search, "climate change" overtook "global warming" in 1994,
crippling its steep upward trend.

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PhasmaFelis
It's fascinating how (at least in the US) support for coal mining has become a
conservative position: you now have people who claim to be staunchly against
welfare payments demanding taxpayer money to prop up increasingly unnecessary
jobs.

It's the Protestant work ethic, I guess: work is inherently virtuous and
deserving of reward even if it serves no purpose, and not working deserves
punishment even if there's nothing useful for you to do.

~~~
swebs
Eh, it's more of a central Pennsylvania and West Virginia thing than a
conservative thing. Those regions are peppered with towns that were propped up
by coal mining, then had the rug pulled out from under them when the industry
changed. It's similar to Detroit and the auto industry, or Pittsburgh and the
steel industry. If you could bring everything back and revitalize your town,
wouldn't you want to make that choice?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Absolutely, and I would actually like to see more of my tax dollars spent to
assist struggling people and communities in general.

What confuses me is that many of the people calling for the government to help
unemployed coal miners are the same people who sneer and spit if you say the
government should help unemployed people in general.

~~~
yostrovs
They're actually different people in most cases. It's just that you probably
lump everyone together that is far from you on the political spectrum. Don't
worry, most people do the same as you, and in the process nuance is lost and
stupid decisions are made.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
What I posted is literally the position of the President of the United States
and a good portion of the Republican Congress. Maybe those people don't
actually represent their constituents' views (which is a different problem)
but they are absolutely a force in modern American politics.

What you describe does happen, and I won't pretend that I don't do it too,
despite my best efforts. But don't imagine that there aren't powerful
legislators working from the position of "coal good, welfare bad".

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rurban
This does not mean that they closed all coal mines, only a part of it, the
good ones, hard coal. Still active are the dirty ones, the huge lignite (brown
coal) surface mines at Garzweiler (NRW) and the Lausitz (near the polish
border) Nochten, Reichwalde, Welzow-Süd and Jänschwalde.

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nurettin
I wonder if they also shut down the huge strip mine in situated in Jülich. I
watched 20m tall excavators work the place for years.

~~~
smhg
That's a lignite ('browncoal') mine. There are more of those still active in
Germany.

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helipaddi
Which is a shame IMHO

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Haga
As with many seemingly 'redundant' things in Germany this coal mine was mainly
used to support mining equipment developers.

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exabrial
> the government pulled the plug on 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in annual
> subsidies

I know the politics of countries outside the US are quite different, but I'm a
huge fan of things like this statement. I truly think the best place for that
money is to never leave the taxpayer's pocket.

~~~
jswizzy
Hayek would agree. It's better to let resources be used efficiently than to
create artificial demand via subsidies.

~~~
pgeorgi
Having worked in the odd megacorp (and those tend to run the show), "efficient
use of resources" isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when it comes to
the private sector.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Let say you're correct, then it's all the more reason __not__ to over-
subsidize something. It's one thing for a gov to toss some money at something
to encourage R&D, the growth of a technology and/or market, etc. That makes at
least some sense in some cases.

The problem is these "temporary" gov programs never end. And then eventually
they live long past their prime.

Furthermore, as the become the new normal they tend to create unintended
consequence. For example, farm subsidies for corn drove down the price of high
fructose corn syrup. That made the sweetener ubiquitous.

Similar can be said for home loans and student loans. Once these programs take
on a life of their own, the market becomes distorted and eventually bad -
unforeseen - things happen.

~~~
anonacct37
In my state (Utah). The government is attempting to roll back solar subsidies
because "that industry should stand on it's own two feet". Conveniently
neglecting to mention the massive tax breaks to fossil fuels.

I wish everyone competed in a free market (for the most part), but the energy
market is not that.

~~~
paulddraper
This comment is conveniently forgetting that Utah taxes gas. In fact, one of
the ballot items was the increase this tax.

~~~
NorthOf33rd
And your comment conveniently omits that ballot item was a non-binding opinion
question on using a gas tax increase to fund education and public roads. And
that it was defeated. And that a tax != a subsidy.

~~~
chiefalchemist
A tax != a aubsidy. But tax can be, and oftwn is, a means to make taxed-
thing-X less appealing.

For example, you can make electric cars more appealing by increaing the tax on
gas.

Where things get ugly is when the incentives are in conflict. Again, oil is
subsidized and then taxed. Big Oil wins. Gov wins. Consumers - who pay the
subsidy and the tax - lose.

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WhompingWindows
So Germany removes 1.1 billion in subsidies, and out of the woodwork
containing all the libertarian anti-government spending hawks comes the pro-
coal job loss lamentation.

Can the political right please choose: either dump govt handouts across the
board for energy or dump the exclusive love of fossil fuel jobs? Meanwhile,
renewable energy makes 5-10X more employment opportunities and we hear no
complaints about these jobs being affected by government cutbacks by anyone on
the right.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Can you decide if you want subsidies or not first?

From the article: "Wind, solar and other renewable sources, which account for
55 percent of German electricity capacity, are even more subsidized than coal
mining, adding about 25 billion euros to power bills last year."

~~~
Quanttek
Crazy thought here: You can like subsidies for certain industries (e.g.
renewable energy subsidies that are supposed to aid a restructuring of the
power supply market towards reducing emissions, are time-limited, and
decentralized) while disliking subsidies for other industries (e.g. coal
mining: a legacy, toxic industry with few people still employed in it)

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dev_dull
The article completely disregards an important benefit of keeping mines open:
national security. Germany has basically said it will forfeit its coal
technology and rely instead on the US and Russia.

In the US I want to see these industries kept alive even with skeleton crews.
A few billion in subsidies (tax breaks) is a pittance compared to allowing a
local fuel source to atrophy.

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programmarchy
The military needs steel needs coal. This does appear to be a signal that
Germany is letting down its guard.

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jupp0r
I think most machinery in the military runs on gas nowadays.

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programmarchy
Coal is an input to steel production.

~~~
jupp0r
Coal _can_ be used for steel production. There are also electric arc furnaces,
being used for around 25% of steel produced globally [1]. Also, only 12% of
coal production is used to make steel [2].

[1] [https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel-
produced](https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal/how-steel-produced)

[2] [https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-
steel...](https://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-steel-
without-coal)

~~~
dev_dull
It’s not about heating the furnaces. Coking coal is an _ingredient_ in steel
production with iron.

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cv100
Good step. Now reduce the size of the civil service by 50%.

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matt4077
I don’t think such superficial cynicism is ever helpful.

~~~
wkramer
Especially with the upcoming birthday honors, Sir Arnold.

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gaius
Never mind, plenty of cheap ex-Soviet nuclear power is still available from
their neighbors... and Russian natural gas... and Middle Eastern oil... they
surely don’t need energy independence! /s

