Germany sticks to 2030 coal exit target amid energy worries

Berlin, June 21 (BNA) The German government said it remains committed to its goal of phasing out coal as an energy source by 2030, despite growing concerns about cutting off Russian gas supplies.

Russia’s Gazprom announced last week that it would sharply reduce supplies via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany for what it said were technical reasons. The German government said the move appeared to be politically motivated, the Associated Press reported.

On Sunday, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Germany would try to offset the move by allowing more burning of coal, a more polluting fossil fuel. Habeck, a Green Party member, said the move was “bitter” but “necessary” to reduce gas use.

In neighboring Holland, the government has announced that it plans to shut down the Netherlands’ largest natural gas field in 2023 or 2024, but will also allow coal-fired power plants to operate at full capacity again in order to conserve the gas that will be burned to produce it. Electricity.

The government has phased out the use of coal for power generation by allowing only coal-fired power plants to operate at a maximum of 35% of their capacity in recent years as it aims to transition to sustainable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The risks of doing nothing are very high,” said Climate and Energy Minister Rob Getten, who also appealed to businesses and homeowners to do all they can now to rein in their gas use to prevent winter shortages.

In recent years, the Netherlands has sharply reduced the amount of gas it pumps from the gas field in the northern province of Groningen because thousands of homes have been damaged by earthquakes caused by the extraction.

German Chancellor Olaf Schulz’s three-party government committed to completing a “perfectly” phase-out of coal by 2030 in its coalition agreement late last year.

Asked on Monday how skeptical that is now, a Habik Ministry spokesman said, “Coal exit in 2030 does not fluctuate at all.”

“It is more important than ever that this happens in 2030 – that is our view,” spokesman Stefan Gabriel Hof told reporters in Berlin.

MI