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1 Preface
By the time a lump of coal arrives in a European coal-fired power station it has travelled a long way.
2 Hard coal – a dirty business
Coal is the world’s dirtiest source of energy, one of the world’s worst polluters, and a major contributor to the climate catastrophe.
3 Climate justice – why it’s not just about CO2
“We’re all in the same boat, and it’s sinking”, you may have heard climate activists say.
4 Extractivism and neo-colonialism – the pillars of fossil capitalism
Valentina Bekrinova, an indigenous Shor woman who lives in Russia, and Narlis Guzmán Angulo, an Afro-Colombian woman from Colombia, told us their stories for this book (see chapter five). The two women come from different countries and continents, and their struggles...
5 Sites of devastation – where the coal is mined
Most European countries are relying heavily on coal imports to fuel their power stations. The coal travels long distances to be burnt in Europe, generating profits for European companies and cheap electricity for European consumers. As European coal industries have...
5.1 Black snow – coal from Russia
No other country exports more coal to central Europe than Russia. Russia has only recently turned into a hard coal exporter. But the pace at which it has done so is frightening. Within ten years, the country has become the third largest exporter worldwide and...
5.2 Tearing down mountains – coal from the USA
European coal also comes from the USA, where coal is mined in the Appalachian Mountains, in the West, and the Mid-West of the country. One particularly destructive form of coal mining practised in the USA is Mountaintop removal (MTR). MTR involves the blasting away –...
5.3 Draining rivers – coal from Colombia
"I wish that people became more aware of where their coal comes from. And about the consequences”, says Luz Angela Uriana Epiayu, mother of Moisés Daniel, a young child who is seriously ill with lung disease. Statements of this kind are often heard if you talk to the...
5.4 On stolen land – coal from Australia
The Wangan and Jagalingou people are the First Nation of the Country in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland where the Adani company is currently planning a new coal mine, the Carmichael coal mine. The mine is the most controversial mining project in Australia,...
5.5 “Our coal, our energy” – Turkey’s shift to coal
With the hashtag #BiziKömürümüzBizimEnerjimiz (#ourcoalourenergy), the Turkish state has massively pushed (and subsidised) coal-powered electricity generation. Turkey is a net energy importer (importing three quarters of its energy), and its budget deficit and...
5.6 Blast from the past – coal from Europe
In a number of European countries, hard coal extraction continues, at huge costs for local communities and ecosystems. Romania Romania is home to one hard coal mining area and two lignite regions. In 2018, 22.1 percent of electricity was generated by burning coal....
6 Shipping injustice – how the coal travels
Once it leaves the mine – on conveyor belts or trucks – the coal is usually transported to the nearest harbour. Many mines have their own railway lines, or even ports and shipping terminals, not only for exporting coal, but also to transport supplies and machinery to...
7.1 Destination Europe
In most European countries, electricity demand has been stagnating or even declining for decades. Renewables and gas are supplying ever greater proportions of what is consumed, and higher CO2 trading prices (a tax on production of CO2) in Europe have dis-incentivised...
7.2 Dirty ten: Europe’s filthiest power stations
The largest and dirtiest hard coal power station in Europe (in terms of CO2 emissions) is Kozienice, located ten kilometres from the small town with the same name in central Poland. It is run by the Polish company Enea. It ranks third in sulphur dioxide emissions (see...
7.3 Europe’s climate criminals
In addition to CO2 emissions which are used to rank Europe’s dirtiest power stations, coal combustion causes other types of air pollution, such as nitrous oxides and sulphur dioxides. Just four companies – Enea, RWE, PGE, and ENEL – were responsible for 46 percent of...
7.4 The iron grip of coal – hard coal and the steel industry
The role of coal-fired power stations in causing climate change is well-documented and widely understood. What is less well known is that coal is also used in steelworks, releasing large amounts of emissions into the atmosphere and relying on destructive mining...
7.5 Too little, too late – phasing out coal in Europe
Fifteen European governments have developed coal phase-out plans, with Austria, Belgium, and Sweden now coal power free. While phaseouts are welcomed, almost all of them are too slow to avoid catastrophic climate change, and too often part of energy transitions that...
7.6 Datteln 4 – a symbol for Germany’s misguided climate policy
On 30 May 2020, a new hard coal power plant, Datteln 4, was commissioned on the periphery of the West-German Ruhr area, a traditional coal mining area. Located on the Datteln-Ems canal, next to the old coal power station units Datteln 1-3, the power plant is less than...
7.7 Coaland – the Polish coal industry
By Alina Pogoda from the Polish Green Network In Poland, hard coal is exploited in 21 mines, mostly in the Silesia region. In 1990, 388,000 people were employed in the hard coal sector. By 2020, this number had declined to 83,000. The Polish mines have been struggling...
7.8 Engineering the climate crisis – Siemens’ stake in hard coal
Far more companies than just mine operators and energy companies render extracting and burning of hard coal possible and cost-efficient. If we look at European companies involved in this dirty business, it is not only investors, banks, and insurance companies that...
8.1 Where does the money come from?
Providers of capital are key to the planning, permitting, development, and operation of coal mines and the construction of power stations. But it is often very difficult to detect which financiers are supporting the climate-damaging projects of the coal industry. The...
8.2 Insuring climate catastrophe
Insurance companies also play an important role in the financing structure of the value chain around hard coal. In the debate on the climate crisis they are often regarded as ‘saviours’, as they insure against financial losses caused by extreme weather events. But...
8.3 Government support
Many European governments continue to support and subsidise coal mining through a number of different mechanisms. They include subsidies for capacity mechanisms that are meant to guarantee security of energy supply when needed, in return for additional payments to...
8.4 Bettercoal
Bettercoal – founded by RWE, Eon, Vattenfall, Électricité de France, GDF Suez, ENEL, and Dong Energy in 2012 – is an initiative of several European energy companies which has set itself the supposed goal of a responsible global coal supply chain through guidelines for...
9.1 Why technology will never solve the problem
When confronted with critiques of the true cost of coal, the coal industry and their friends in governments often refer to technological advances that allow for emission reductions, compensatory activities (so-called offsets) like tree planting, or investments in...
9.2 Catch me if you can – Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
Big industry tries everything to save their CO2-intensive way of production. One false solution it offers is Carbon Capturing and Storage (CCS). The theory is that at facilities producing a lot of CO2, like fossilfuelled power plants or cement factories, the...
9.3 Hydrogen is hypocrisy
Steel-making is a climate catastrophe in itself: in the process, hard coal is burned and CO2 emitted. In fact, it is one of the most carbon-intensive industries in the world. In addition, most steel is produced for emission-heavy products like cars or the Nord Stream...
9.4 Conversion from coal to gas and biomass
That the coal phase-out is under way in much of Europe – albeit far too slow – should be unequivocally good news for the climate. Sadly, this is not always the case: a growing number of coal plants, rather than being shut down, are being converted to, or replaced...
9.5 Renewable energy: a true alternative?
In our struggles against the coal industry it is easy to cling onto the promises of renewable energy as an easy alternative. Solar, wind, and thermal as ‘clean’ alternatives to dirty coal – these promises are propagated all around us: by NGOs, governments, business...
9.6 Still not loving nuclear
More recently, the nuclear and there is currently no feasible solution for industry has been working hard to sell us nuclear power plants as a green method of energy production and the solution to the climate crisis. Their main argument: nuclear power plants do not...
10.1 Direct action gets the goods
When was the last time you felt you made a difference at the ballot box? Or by writing a letter to your elected representative? In 2003, two million people marched in London against the UK’s involvement in a war in Iraq, and still the government did not listen. Over...
10.2 Smash Coal, smash patriarchy
The impact of climate change is not felt equally by all. In addition to the racist power structures already addressed, women and non-binary people are often more negatively affected than men by coal projects and climate change – and are often not the people making the...
10.3 Divestment campaigning – promises and problems
Divestment – as opposed to investment – means selling stocks, bonds, or investment funds for financial, ethical, or political reasons. Divestment campaigns demand that institutions such as universities, states, or companies stop investing in those companies whose...
10.4 Energy transition from below – fighting fossil fuels locally
In 2017, the citizens of Munich decided that the local coal power plant should be taken off the grid in 2022. From 2020 onwards, this power plant will be operating at reduced capacity, using less than half of the usual amount of coal each year, thanks to the direct...
10.5 David vs Goliath – or why to keep fighting
Businesses do not want to encourage people to fight their projects. They hide activists’ successes behind corporate nonsense and market-based reasoning on how they claim to achieve ‘net-positive’ environmental impacts and contribute to society’s wellbeing. They...
10.6 Victories against coal
Here are a few examples of victories against coal companies, a small window into a much bigger picture: Turkey vs Engie One of the big wins against coal in Turkey is the case of 1,320 MW Ada Coal Plant located in the heavily industrialised İskenderun Bay, situated on...
10.7 Get Involved & Further information
If you are inspired by the huge numbers of people resisting hard coal across the world, there are many different ways to get involved! Do you strive for a just world, solidarity, and an economic system that does not prioritise corporate profits over human and...