American Dream

Germany plans C02-free power plant
By Tim Mansel
BBC News

The search for a coal-fired power station that does not give off any carbon dioxide has taken a step forward with the announcement of plans to build such a plant in Germany.

Vattenfall, a Swedish company, which owns mines and power stations in Germany, plans to start construction next year.

"We believe coal has a future," says Markus Sauthoff, who is leading the project.

"But this is linked to the carbon-dioxide trading system."

"It's likely that there will be quite ambitious emission reduction targets in the future, and that the price of CO2 trading certificates will be quite high, as a kind of penalty for the use of fossil fuels in power plants," he says.

"So we need to try to reduce our CO2 emissions."

Pilot project

Mr Sauthoff admits that "carbon-dioxide free" is something of a misnomer.

Burning coal inevitably produces carbon dioxide. The idea is to capture the carbon dioxide before it is released into the atmosphere and then store it in a safe place.

The technology now being developed by Vattenfall is designed primarily for use with lignite, or brown coal, which is one of eastern Germany's primary mineral resources.