Why Germany Is Rapidly Digging Europe's Largest Hole

this is the biggest haul in europe it's located here in germany close to cologne or as they say in germany curtin what's in this hole is what's interesting though as you'll find the most polluting call type here lignite or brown coal and that's because this hole is a giant lignite mine and the strangest thing about it is not only what's in it but the fact that it's rapidly growing which might not sound strange to you at first as that is exactly what you'd expect a mine to do i mean digging large holes to find and excavate a resource like coal is what mining is so why is this strange well in this instance the coal mine shouldn't be growing in size in fact it should probably not even be open and the reason for that is pretty simple see germany is a country very keen on becoming carbon neutral just like most of the world and that's a view that obviously doesn't align with their continuous expansion of these coal mining operations the rest of europe is cursing down the coal mines whilst germany is expanding theirs and that's pretty concerning but i gotta say what concerns me more is the fact that they are literally destroying and tearing down cities as well as giant natural areas in order to expand this mine simply to get their hands on this very specific call type and it turns out this giant coal mine isn't even alone because right next to it you'll find two sister minds that have also grown in size over the past few decades if you look at satellite images of these mines you can clearly see how they've eaten up cities and large natural areas year after year and the people who live here are being thrown out of their family homes homes they've owned for generations they simply don't have a say in germany's lost for lignite so why is germany so interested in this and willing to go to such lengths in order to get it i mean why is it so special well this is where the story takes an unexpected turn as this call is special for all the wrong reasons you see every year this mind delivers 30 to 35 million tons of lignite it turns out there are quite a few core types and lignite is the worst out of all of them it's not one of the worst it's the worst the reason is that brown coal is the cold type with the lowest energy per ton essentially meaning germany needs to mine and burn a lot more of this coal in comparison to every other coal type to get a similar output making it the most polluting coal type by far it's honestly remarkable that a korean country like germany chooses to mine and use the worst possible call type why not at the very least mine a better type of coal well it's because they don't really have any other options and also because it's cheap see the process is pretty straightforward you simply find a city with an ignite under it tear it down completely dig up the coal and then you send that coal via railways to power plants that will then burn it to make heat and electricity for german households it's cheap reliable and ethically produced well okay maybe the last part wasn't true but if you don't really care about your citizens homes or the climate this is a solid option but as you could probably guess it does have its downsides for example germany is by far the country that emits the most carbon dioxide in all of europe and i'm sure germany is also the most populous country in europe which certainly contributes to this place on the leaderboards but it mostly has to do with coal in fact coal is used to generate 20 of germany's energy which is 10 times higher than that of its neighbor france and this is part of the reason why climate was such a big topic in the german election this year though the politicians in germany had already decided when the end of call should be and previously that was in 2038 which was hilariously far into the future in comparison to every other european nation but as of a few days ago they've changed that to 2030 and comparing that to francis 2022 goal or even italy's 2024 goal you'll see that it's slightly unambitious to say the least if you ask the rest of the european nations at least since they obviously have way more ambitious climate calls what might be even worse though i know it's hard to believe but licolite has mercury and sulfur in it which could create acid rain and that's not something you want trust me i haven't tried it but if the words acid and rain are in the same sentence there's cause for concern and personally i'd say that's a pretty good reason not to mind lignite but hey maybe it's not that bad after all i mean how many lignite power plants could germany really be responsible for well if you look at the companies that emitted the most carbon dioxide in the european union in 2018 you'll see ryanair here in the top 10 along with a power plant in poland one in bulgaria and then the remaining seven companies on this list just so happen to be brown coal power plants in germany and that's a telling sign that something is wrong and oh boy is it going wrong for germany because this year the government was forced to update its climate law after germany's highest court ruled that it fell so short of the climate goals it essentially endangered the fundamental rights and freedoms of the country's youth yeah it's insane but the funny thing is and trust me this isn't a joke the company behind all this mining in west germany thinks it's necessary and to their defense if you look at the chart from before it does look like he's got a point because if germany decided to just cut off coal as an energy source tomorrow they need to find 20 of their total energy needs from somewhere else and that's easier said than done because renewable energy sources like wind turbines and solar panels can't be installed overnight but there is an alternative energy source that is easily scalable as well as carbon neutral an energy source that germany has actually used before but for some reason decided against three decades ago as some of you could have probably guessed this is where nuclear comes into the picture germany has been phasing out nuclear over the past 30 years and is on course to completely remove it from their energy mix by 2022 but why have they done this i mean their french neighbors are literally generating more than 70 of their energy from nuclear and they are ramping up that share not decreasing it furthermore it's only 10 years ago that nuclear power made up almost a quarter of the electricity generated in germany which just so happens to be around the same amount that is now being generated by coal odd right well not really because as the mining company is saying once you remove an energy source you need to replace it with something else typically though you'd swap out non-renewable energy sources to renewable ones but i guess green germany and this mining company didn't really like that approach but hey i do understand some of the incentive here because for the better part of the last three decades nuclear energy has been a contentious issue with environmental campaigners fighting for its removal from the nation's energy mix which is kind of ironic because when they got instead is arguably worse but they are now fighting a new battle but anyway in 2011 when the fukushima nuclear meltdown happened german councillor angela merkel had to either trust nuclear and keep it or start phasing it out it's now obvious what she chose and it was definitely a hard decision to make but considering the families that have had to leave their homes and the natural landscapes that have been completely destroyed because of that decision was it the right one i'd leave that for you to decide but it's fair to say if germany doesn't find a solution to their energy generation problem they're eventually going to turn their country into a giant hole thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one and by the way if you haven't subscribed yet why not just do it if you're at this point of the video i probably imagine you liked it so yeah please subscribe

Channel: OBF

Views: 1,714,720

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Id: sc1F0xVHsCY

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 29 2021