“The mining curse haunts lignite towns”
energytransition.org
The misery of fossil utilities means lignite mines and power plants no longer ensure regional prosperity, writes Jeffrey Michel in a blog post for energytransition.de. The situation in eastern German lignite mining region Lusatia is particularly dramatic after Swedish utility Vattenfall sold lignite mines and the associated power plants, because towns had to return taxes to the Swedish utility. “Retroactive payments of well over 100 million euros have been reported by local newspapers. The total trade taxes returned to Vattenfall are likely much greater,” according to Michel.
Read the blog post in English here.
For background, read the CLEW factsheets When will Germany finally ditch coal? and Coal in Germany.
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