Vattenfall‘s coal-fired power stations endamage Sweden‘s prestige

19th november, 2009

The forecasts of the scientists on climate change have been aggravated several times and now force the industrial nations to act. The Swedish government has initiated exemplary developments at home, but is squandering the effects by activities of state-owned enterprise Vattenfall abroad. In Germany, Vattenfall is the most climate-damaging supplier of electricity whose coal-fired power stations alone emit as much CO2 as the whole of Sweden. Vattenfall’s strategy is not sustainable if the company doesn’t withdraw from the use of nuclear power and coal.

Vattenfall – a climate offender

Allegedly, Vattenfall wants to reduce its CO2 emissions until 2030. But referring to 1990, there is included the collapse of East German economy after the German unification that Vattenfall now wants to sell as its own climate protection. Ambitious climate protection targets look different. The shutting down of those brown coal power stations with a very low efficiency of less than 40 percent by itself could halve the emissions of the company. If Vattenfall and Sweden are serious about climate protection the company has to withdraw from electricity generation from brown coal.

Vattenfall doesn’t accept German environmental regulations

In April 2009, Sweden‘s state-owned company sued the Federal Republic of Germany at the World Bank arbitration board for investment conflicts because of the environmental regulations for the coal-fired power station under construction in Hamburg-Moorburg. The company claims damages to the amount of 1.4 billion Euros. The foundation is that the German authorities approved the construction of this new coal-fired power station on strict conditions only, concerning water-right, amongst others. With this action Vattenfall tries to annul German environmental legislation that is based on EU standards by an international court that doesn’t consider environmental questions. Can the head of the Swedish government as the current President of the Council of the European Union tolerate that a Swedish state-owned company doesn’t submit to European law?

Vattenfall wants to wash dirty coal

So far, Vattenfall wants to reduce its emissions mainly by capturing and subsurface storing of CO2 (CCS technology). But CCS would be late for climate protection. According to IPCC calculations global CO2 emission must reach its peak in the year 2015 at the latest and then drop considerably. A general large-scale use of CCS would be possible around 2030 only, if ever. To date, CCS is merely in the research stage. Nobody knows today if the technology ever will be safe because the final storage of CO2 involves incalculable risks. Instead of continuing to rely on climate damaging coal electricity Vattenfall should seriously address the development of renewable energies.

Vattenfall as a final storage operator

The companies see the whole of Northern Germany as a potential final storage for their climate poison. Vattenfall is planning to explore the region of Eastern Brandenburg, above all, for possible storage facilities. Mighty citizens’ initiatives were founded against this – nobody wants to store Vattenfall’s CO2 below one’s home for thousands of years. As a result, German politicians didn’t dare to pass a law on CO2 injecting before general federal elections in September. An expert report of the German Federal Environment Agency describes CCS as not sustainable: “CCS does not reduce production of CO2, but in fact produces – because of the energy expenditure for capturing, transport and storage – considerably more CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity,” the experts observe. The pilot plant Vattenfall wants to build in Jänschwalde until 2015 according to their own declarations shall capture 75 percent of the carbon dioxide and at the same time produce electricity with a maximum efficiency of 28 percent – this corresponds to the state of the art of conventional power stations of the 1950s. Given that, the jump to 42 % efficiency in the year 2020 claimed by Vattenfall is hardly believable. Moreover the subsurface could not be used for really climate-friendly energy generation such as geothermal energy if it was wasted as a CO2 dump for inefficient power.

Displacement by Vattenfall

Within the next 20 years Vattenfall wants to resettle about 3,700 persons for its German brown coal open-cast pits. If they refuse they are threatened by expropriation. Villages grown over centuries would be destroyed. Behind the back of the public, Vattenfall also acquired the purchase option for all coal fields in the Lausitz region. Thus the survival of more than 50 other communities depends on the grace of Vattenfall’s managing board. If Vattenfall took the citizens’ will seriously the company would respect the desire of the affected persons who want to stay in their places and not unashamedly make advantage of German mining law with its undemocratic roots reaching back to the 19th century. Vattenfall has to dispense with the purchase options on coal fields not approved today, bindingly and without compensation!

Vattenfall destroys landscape and villages in Poland

Vattenfall (until now) holds a nearly 20 % participation in the polish energy company Enea that also wants to dig away some villages for brown coal – immediately adjacent to the German open-cast pits. The border towns of Guben and Forst fear to get in to an island situation between German and Polish Vattenfall pits. If Vattenfall is serious about modern power supply the company has to push the development of renewable energies instead of continuing to rely on coal.

Adhering to cumbersome coal-fired power stations Vattenfall hinders the development of the renewable energies. We demand from Swedish policy to give its state-owned company more rigorous guidelines and to prohibit the destruction of landscapes and settlements in other countries as well as acceleration of climate change. If Vattenfall and Sweden take climate protection seriously the Swedish state must no longer allow that the state-owned company makes its profit at environment’s charges.

Hubert Weiger
BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany)

Roland Hipp
Campaign manager GREENPEACE Germany

Klaus Schlüter
President GRÜNE LIGA e.V.

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