What are the main difference between coal mining in Pakistan and in Germany?
Answers
Explanation:
The future use of coal is at the centre of Germany's political debate on the energy transition and its efforts to mitigate climate change after the country has seen a stagnation in greenhouse gas emissions despite growing use of renewable sources. At the moment Germany is still the biggest producer of brown coal but closed down its last hard coal mines in 2018. If the government follows up on the proposal of its multi-stakeholder coal commission, the last coal plants and lignite mines could close in 2038. This factsheet compiles background information on the lignite and hard coal industry in Germany.
Power generation from coal has long served German industry, and despite Germany’s reputation as an ecological role model, the cheap, carbon-intensive fossil fuel is still an important pillar of the country’s power supply. Hard coal and lignite have a share of 35.3 percent in German power production (compared to 35.2% from renewables, 11.7% from nuclear and 12.8% from natural gas in 2018). Altogether, the energy sector is responsible for a large share of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions (37 percent).
A phase-out of coal power is at the heart of debates on how Germany can reach its climate targets, particularly after the Ministry for Environment warned in autumn 2017 that the country was falling short of its 2020 emissions reduction target by a wide margin. In February 2019 a multi-stakeholder coal exit commission set up by the energy ministry suggested a pathway to a phase-out of the fossil fuel by 2038. The proposal now has to be written into laws which have to be passed by parliament.Status of hard coal mining
The post-war economic boom in Germany (Wirtschaftswunder) was fuelled by hard coal mined in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Saarland, which powered the industries of West Germany. But hard coal has since lost its competitive edge. As of December 2018, Germany doesn’t have any domestic hard coal mining left. Instead, coal is imported from Russia (35%), the United States (18%), Australia (13%) and Columbia (11%), followed by Poland, Canada and South Africa (2017 data).
Of the 83 billion tonnes of hard coal still in the ground in Germany, 36 million tonnes are considered mineable, but their extremely deep and complicated geological location makes mining too costly to compete on the world market. The average cost for mining one tonne of hard coal in Germany is 180 euros; the price for imported hard coal was between 86 and 96 euros per tonne in 2017.
Because of this hard coal mining has been subsidised by the state since the 1960s. The sector has received 337 billion euros between 1970 and 2016, according to Green Budget Germany (FÖS).
In 2007, the federal government together with the state governments of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland agreed with mining company RAG and trade union IG BCE to phase-out hard coal mining subsidies in Germany by 2018. The RAG foundation was established to ensure that subsidies will be discontinued in a socially acceptable manner and to cover the costs for "perpetual mine management" and restoration of mines.
The last two remaining hard coal mines in North Rhine-Westphalia closed down in 2018.
According to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), there were 9,640 people employed in hard coal mining (2015).