At the end of January, the Commission on Growth, Structural Change and Employment, aka, the Coal Commission, finally released its 336-page report. Filled with economic observations and recommendations, it sets an end date of 2038 for Germany to close its last coal-fired power plant. L. Michael Buchsbaum reveals the most important facts of the report. Agreed to by a 31-member team comprised of environmentalists, union leaders, state ministers and representatives of power companies like RWE, though weak on concrete determinations like which plants and mines should be shut and when, the report instead provides a range of goals and deadlines for how many gigawatts of generating capacity should be curtailed. But regarding the still occupied Hambach Forest, site of on-going protests and a symbol of the public’s desire for an immediate coal shutdown, the report only says preserving it “would be desirable.” Under the terms of the plan, by 2022 today’s total coal-fired output would be reduced from over 42 gigawatts to 30 gigawatts, split evenly between domestically-mined brown coal and imported hard coal. The … Continue reading Germany’s Coal Commission proposes a nebulous 20-year coal-exit pathway