#energycrisis #coal #fossilfuels #climatechange
*This episode was originally published on December 9, 2022*
Episode 4: The comeback of coal in Germany?
After weaning itself off gas from Russia, Germany is firing up old coal plants to ensure energy supply over winter. But coal happens to be the largest single source of carbon emissions, contributing to further global heating.
In episode four of DW’s special series about the energy crisis, what does this coal comeback mean for Germany’s coal phaseout and climate targets? And how are coal mining communities preparing for the future?
Interviewees featured in this episode:
Sascha Solbach, SPD mayor of Bedburg
Holger Leuveld, resident of Holzweiler and anti-coal campaigner
Norman Stamm and Andre Wendt, RWE employees in Niederaussem
On the Green Fence is produced by DW studios in Bonn, Germany.
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Website – https://www.dw.com/en/on-the-green-fence/program-49760682
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
03:44 The werewolf of Bedburg
05:37 What does it mean to grow up in coal country?
07:35 The history of coal in Germany
09:04 Villages displaced by lignite mining
11:19 Kristie visits an anti-coal activist in Holzweiler
14:25 Fears about fine dust pollution from mining
16:50 Lützerath, a town slated for demolition
19:11 On the edge of a coal pit
21:20 A region dependent on coal
25:14 Climate activists at loggerheads with the coal industry
27:20 Kristie talks to a Lützerath protester
30:29 New energy opportunities for the region
35:23 What does a coal phaseout mean for RWE workers?
36:56 Confrontations with activists
40:03 Coal region is looking to the future
42:54 Debrief on the Bedburg werewolf trail
51:52 Neil and Kristie’s postmortem in studio
57:02 Sign off and closing credits
On the green Fence green welcome back to on the green fence DW’s environment podcast and this week we’re focusing on Germany’s coal industry my name is Neil King and I’m Christy platson joining Neil once again from the business desk now if you’re just joining us Christy and I we set out
On a road trip as the cold weather was starting to set in here in Germany and we wanted to find out how the country was preparing for a winter without energy from Russia now due to Russia’s war in Ukraine gas is no longer flowing to Germany from there and there were
Major concerns that Germany could fall back on dirty fossil fuels to plug this big gap and it’s a fair enough concern as it turns out we’ve known for a long time that coal is a climate killer it’s the dirtiest most carbon intensive of all fossil fuels according to the
International energy agency coal is both the largest source of electricity generation in the world and the largest single source of CO2 emissions so for these exact reasons Germany had been in the process of phasing out its coal industry starting officially in 2019 uh but now faced with the prospect of an
Energy shortage this winter Germany’s federal government led by the social Democrats and the green party moved to bring a dozen Coal Fired power plants back on the grid and extend the lifespan of several that were meant to close down now 30% of Germany’s electricity was produced by burning coal in 2021 that’s
Before the war and that’s down from over 50% in the ’90s but still it is rather significant uh onethird of that was from hard coal that’s the black kind that Father Christmas or Santa Claus brings uh and the other rest was lignite or brown coal which is softer and crumbler
Speaking of Santa Neil Christmas is coming what are you what are you hoping for under the tree this year actually I or yeah Cole maybe a whiskey I don’t I need it after this trip not really into presents to be honest it’s just about the kids so my wife and I we don’t
Really do you have presents for the kids already yeah yeah well sort sort of they always have a long list so yeah we have to okay so you’re well so but they still believe in Father Christmas so okay all right well so do I so anyway so the
Chaos in Germany’s energy sector has meant a lot of uphe for the country’s coal industry Germany wants to be carbon neutral by 2045 so to do that the country needs to phase out coal completely by 2038 that’s the goal now there’s this weird circumstance where Germany is suddenly wanting to burn more
Coal in the short term uh to deal with this energy crisis but there’s the carbon emissions targets to keep in mind so that means they need to cut back elsewhere so now plans are in the works to move the end of the coal phase out in North rywest faia that’s Germany’s most
Popular state and home to a major mining area in Germany and they’re planning to move it up by 8 years to 2030 so to bring it forward so for this episode we set out into the rhoses caller that’s basically a major lignite mining region in the Rin land to find out how they’re
Going to pull this off right because they’re basically ramping up production at the same time that they’re trying to wind it down right yeah pretty much and and critics of this new early phase out plan they say it’s misleading that you know even with the end date moved up the
Overall amount of coal burned will be the same or even more than before and uh that this will practically obliterate our climate targets right well in any case we drove over to bedburg that’s a town of around 20 5,000 people in the heart of the coal region about half of
The local population there is connected to the coal industry in one way or another and we had an appointment to speak with their mayor who’s been overseeing massive transformation in the area since 2014 and uh by the by bedb is a town that’s used to Transformations God you know what I’m
Getting at right yeah I’m afraid I Do so bed work 11k now there is another story Christy I haven’t uh really gone too deep on this yet but um bedburg is of course a very dangerous place particularly for young maidens right oh do I want to know not that young anymore so go ahead tell
Me there is uh the uh the legend of or the story of The Werewolf of bedburg uh something from I think it’s from the 17th century it was a Spate of killings very Savage killings and in the end I believe also somebody was execu for it I
Forgotten his name now um but he was dubbed The Werewolf of bedburg because um these killings were so Savage and they thought it was just you know some Beast doing it there is a trail here in bedburg still there I haven’t seen it but I’ve I’ve seen a documentary on it
And it looked very interesting so we can follow in the steps of uh the Werewolf of bedburg where he stalked are you more worried about the energy crisis or about the werewolf that’s a good question Chris I can’t sleep when there’s a full moon oh just saying something you
Haven’t told me okay worry it was a couple weeks ago you’re fine it’s good though we’re just doing the road trip in the Daytime so then we arrived at the bedburg town hall for a meeting with Zasha zorbach he’s 42 years old and a member of the social Democrats that’s the same party as that of Chancellor Olaf Schultz and also the party that’s traditionally been quite close to blue color workers here in Germany also in
The coal Industry you’re from the region right you’re rooted here you grew up here this is coal country what does it mean to grow up in a place like this what does Co country mean for you um it’s 150 years a tradition of um yeah making energy um solving problems for the industry um
And uh creating jobs and wealth this was the past and then uh in 2015 the city of bbor decided uh to be the most um renewable City uh in the heart of the brown coal or of the liite mining area and um so we choose uh um part um that
Goes in two different ways so on the one hand and um we want to uh solve the the whole tradition of lar mining here in the re region because uh 50% of the families in bbor uh live in the um liite mining uh or work in the liite mining
Industry so half of the families uh are very heavily um yeah dependent on uh that we make the uh change process right and on the other hand um I wanted to uh show the people here in the region that the the green deal that the um path of
The renewable energy is a huge chance for our city to redevelop um to create um something new to create a new impact uh in a time where uh everyone is searching for a way um that is for us maybe a bit easier to um uh to to go [Applause] Before we start talking about the future though just a little bit of History here on coal um now coal has been mined in Germany for nearly 900 years but like in England it really came into its own in the 19th century with industrialization by 1900 Germany was a
Chief producer of coal along with the US and Britain it was this access to Coal that helped fuel the the industrialization of Germany an expansion that contributed to both world wars as it helped Germany build up its military coal miner labor unions also emerged during the 20th century laying a
Foundation for the strong workers unions Germany still has today but starting around mid century the use of coal started declining significantly as oil natural gas nuclear power and eventually Renewables took over but coal is still quite a significant source of heat and electricity in Germany today China India
And the US are the world’s top consumer of coal Germany is number 10 globally just ahead of Australia so during this energy crunch the argument keeps coming up that coal is homegrown that means energy Independence for Germany but lignite mining has also had severe consequences for the people in the
Landscape here in Germany because it’s all underground it has to be dug up and if your house happens to be sitting on a nice juicy pile of coal you might be out of luck otherwise the what’s the biggest negative aspect is the change of soil here uh that the area has totally
Changed over the last 60 years because the liite mine uh isn’t just running on one place but it’s moving it’s always moving it moves every day so um there were Villages that are gone nowadays um people were struggling with their identities because they were moved
Forced to move this is not easy for for people um we had that in our family um my wife was forced to move out in 1996 I think it was and just nowadays my uh mother-in-law cannot pass by on this um place that they lived till 1996 because
It is too hard for her to swallow uh she she uh cannot deal with It Since the end of World War II around 300 towns in East and West Germany have been demolished for lignite mining purposes and more than 120,000 people have been resettled usually what happens is that the government grants an energy company the rights to buy and mine the land and
If there are people living there they’re bought out and moved elsewhere feelings on this have been mixed some people like it because they moved into nicer more modern houses but others are understandably reluctant to leave their homes and there’s been a considerable amount of resistance over the years as
Well so even today in 2022 German Villages are still being torn down so that lignite coal beneath them can be dug up and burned we’re going to come back to the mayor but for this episode I also went out and I had to look at such
A village yeah you left me alone this time didn’t you yeah sorry about that Neil couldn’t join me on this one it was actually my fault yeah well no no one’s blaming anyone here but you did set me up with our source I’ll give you that H
GA leld is a local of Holtz via that’s a small town just 2 and2 km from the gots viila to col pit now hogga agreed to show me the pit and a nearby Village that’s supposed to be torn down so this time without Neil to chauffeur me around
Um because I do not have a driver’s license here in Germany unfortunately um I had to leave early in the morning I took several trains and a bus and arrived outside hogo home just as it was really starting to pour down rain I feel really guilty now that’s okay plon hello yeah yeah
Hello hogga has lived with his family and Holz via for seven years he has a nice apartment there he says the cost of living is good that’s presumably because of the giant cpit that’s just a stone throwaway now Holz Pho was actually also supposed to be dug up um that had been
The plan for about 20 years uh but then a coalition of greens and social Democrats in the state government chose to slow the expansion of the Gods while a two pit and that meant that Holtz and its 1,500 inhabitants were able to stay but the nearby Village of lutat was not
So lucky due to the Pit’s expansion today lerat sits quite literally on the edge of it so despite the rain hogot took me out to have a look at it we took a walk through some Farmers fields and on the way he told me what it’s like living in Coal
Country do you feel a presence of the coal industry living here yes definitely it was from the beginning because we could see the big hole there and it’s quite huge you will see and um that was an small influence the influence increased uh during the last months because they have destroyed U
Streets that makes it more difficult and uh even though they decided that some Farms um that some Farms will stay here and will not be destroyed um we still know that another uh street we will see later will be destroyed also and so we are at the
End on a small island two areas there is the hole directly next to uh our city directly means with a with a difference about 400 meters yeah okay so pretty close yeah that is really close especially when you think about the discussions um for wind energy you U at
Least need to have 1.5 kilm distance from next house at least now we are reaching the the end of The Village mhm and this street you see over there mhm um this street probably will be destroyed okay Well Neil how do you think you’d feel if you were living next to a c pit terrible yeah doesn’t sound appealing does it no I mean uh yeah who would want to live next to a c pit I don’t know I guess if you’re working in the pit maybe a short
Commute what if you had a cheap rent nah nah not worth it I mean not with family not with kids definitely not kid’s tumbling and oh we lost another one anyway I mean we were talking before about how polluting coal is when you burn it but it’s also an issue when you
Mine it actually so the the fine as they say here the particulate matter it’s like a type of very fine dust it gets in the air it gets in the lungs um from the mining um and this was something that hogo was really concerned about two years ago there was um a child
Doctor with um with an instrument uh measuring find dust uh pollution and next to the big hole and it was uh four times higher than the most busiest Street in Cologne City wow yeah I worry about that because uh quite new research uh has realized that finless pollution
Is a a major influence Factor significant influence factor for uh cancer lung cancer especially for those who are not smoking and um so of course uh I worry yeah you’re living here with your family right so yeah and especially also with my small uh child she’s six uh she’s in the
Development phase and uh we know that even especially young uh kids um will might suffer uh from the circumstances so did you get to lutat yes yes we did well I guess is it is this the town or is it through this gate this one right yeah it’s all this right we’re already
In it yeah cuz what we’re seeing here is I mean the same types of buildings that were are in your town here like the red brick buildings but we’ve got banners um says burn patri you not Cole we have rainbow painted on uh on one wall here um an antifa flag lots of
Messages painted on the buildings and you said the people here there are people protesters camping here they don’t want to be photographed yeah so we can go on where where should we go now how close are we to the pit now over there over there um where those
15 M from here yeah uh what are we going this way okay cuz you still I still can’t see it that’s crazy to me I know we’re close but yeah so I should clarify at this point that lat is not exactly like a real bustling Town anymore there about a
Dozen buildings or so a mix of brick homes farmhouses uh but until recently there was only really one true inhabitant still there a farmer named eot Hoy comp he and two tenants had sued to stop the Energy company rwe from taking over the property and digging up
The coal beneath it but this spring the courts ruled in favor of rwe and said that the town could be demolished so eot he moved out a couple months ago but over the last couple years that this has been such a controversy the space has attracted a lot of protesters and
They’ve moved in and are living in the buildings but also in tents and such so you hear a lot of people saying no one really lives in lutat it’s just a symbol for the climate movement and in the even though especially in this area I’m not really sure about the numbers but I’ve
Heard that it’s 40,000 tons per year just only from one manufactory over there 40,000 tons of um co22 Caron yeah carbon carbon dioxide now hogo said he wanted to fact check that figure and he actually got back to me later saying it’s actually closer to 28,000 according to a study by the
University of Colorado Boulder that’s tons of CO2 produced by the nearby coal firing plant Nita aam in 2018 that made that plant the seventh most polluting plant in the world that year what do you think of that yeah I mean it’s it’s crazy in a way if you also think of
Germany I believe Germany has the second largest um uh coal plant also in Europe um so um yeah you always have like Germany these you know boasting these green credentials you know they’re taking the lead and trying to know uh phase out uh um fossil fuels Etc but um
They still play a huge role but anyway back to lutat back to your field trip right so we were getting ever closer to the pit and as we did we could see protest signs pretty much everywhere that you looked you could see them on the buildings on the fences lining the
Road on the road signs themselves I there were dozens of rain soaked stuff animals tied to post it was really disturbing sad image actually um and then we could finally see it and it was still raining all the time right pretty much yeah oh we can see it now yeah wow it’s
Like sudden part part okay part part of well I see a giant hole so this is part of the giant hole wow this is um giving a Grand Canyon yeah uh energy except a bit more manmade I’m surprised there’s not more security or like I mean is that the edge
Right there yeah so I could just you could just walked up there’s no gate or anything it said there’s no some informal sign here it just says stop keep 10 MERS back but I mean the the tape has been ripped to the ground yeah we’re seeing about several dozen
Windmills in the in the distance there and they look tiny compared to the hole here I’m going to climb up on this a little bit to get I don’t know if I can get up this wood mud here just so I can see a little better I’m out good
Thanks okay so you can see a big I guess this is dirt all the sand the lighter stuff and then we probably then the black stuff’s coal obviously right yeah yeah um and there’s a turbine here churning up the coal it stopped raining finally it’s uh 24/7 24/7
Yeah okay that means there’s people working here 247 I mean it’s interesting cuz you can see right next to the pit you know there’s just a green lawn um people have like I guess these are protesters squatters I don’t know set up their little tents there’s chairs this is
Quite looks like a campground and then right exactly next to it one of these giant I this I feel like I’m looking at a Star Wars uh scene or something right like this huge machine in this big pit you can really hear a lot of frustration
From a local like hogga about how the coal phase out is being handled and a lot of concern that the energy crisis is going to lead to more coal being burned but Neil I’ve left you sitting with the mayor long enough now at this point I thought we should maybe check back with
Him and see what his take is on it yeah thanks I was getting kind of Lon I thought so um when I run for mayor the first time in 2014 um I went with some friends to um to hambar to the H lnight mine and I said it’s uh totally ambivalent for me
I look into this Hall and I see the past I see the future I see jobs I see the Lost of jobs I see old economy um I think it’s a chance for new economy when they gone so everything here in the region depends on where is this industry
Going and um um yes it’s U if you look in our um here into the the nature there are eight to 60 km big holes five up to 500 M deep there are pictures how this area will look like in 80 years uh when they’re filled up with water but 80
Years is something you cannot sell to anyone you cannot imagine uh how this area will really look in 80 years it’s like a Future Vision on the on the one side but this scares people because the the the time between in 80 years and now there’s a lot of things to
Do and we don’t know if our plans will work out so um I think um some of the people um are a bit scared of the future and some of uh the people are very hungry here on this new future because I think they see there’s a good perspective uh for us
Once the industry left but on the other hand uh we would be glad if the industry stays for for uh for kind of maybe 10 or 15 years here in this region so that we have time to uh change um the whole region um of course now this year A lot
Has happened right we’re in a different situation right now and uh Cole is making a bit of a comeback isn’t it um I mean how do you feel about that it’s almost like goal posts are being shifted for you again and coal plants starting up again or you know uh units that have
Been down or reiring or can you please give us a an estimate or just an assessment of what the situation is right now for you when the process started for our region three years ago or four years ago this was uh one of the things that we as the um municipals here
In the region um said from right from the start um think about it Mite mining is totally different to normal coal mining to normal coal power plants to gas power plants because Germany owns the raw material and so we have the the whole process here in based in the
Region no long distance uh to go and I think this is um as we now see very useful uh in times uh where our um used structures don’t work anymore and heavily depended on um other states and this this is not the the total solution
For us liite mining is not liite is not the total solution it’s uh it’s a climate killer but um I think in this uh transformation process is it’s very very um it was very underrated um and now we see um if you look outside uh that it helps us
Actually um the core power plants at the moment are running on full capacity for weeks now so he says it himself it’s a climate killer but the government seems to believe it’s a necessary evil for the sake of the energy grid and for the sake of stability in the region but this
Stance has really angered climate activists and that’s also why these people have occupied larat it’s why they occupied the Haka Forest a few years ago so even before the energy crisis had people taking a second look at coal there was already a lot of bad blood between the coal industry who wanted to
Handle it their way and the people saying we need to stop burning fossil fuels now over the last years when the when these climate activists came to this region the region was standing together on the one hand saying don’t come here we we know what uh there is to
Do the region uh came to terms with it and then all the climate activists came and not everyone of them was nice when they came here so they came here into this city um they not all of them behaved that good what did they do oh producing chaos um running where they
Want to um taking with them what they want to um like uh kind of an anarchy situation and if they come 5,000 people um and they begin to March it’s uh for for people that are living here is quite scary for the workers in the mining you you sit
There uh on this excavator and and suddenly hundreds of people run right in front of you and uh try to get you out of your excavator people were a bit scared they didn’t understand why or their own role um wasn’t wasn’t clear Anymore so after hearing this from the mayor and also what we heard from hogga about being careful not to photograph the protesters and such I was obviously super curious to meet some of them I mean I could see them for example I could see a guy sitting up in the window
Smoking a cigarette there were people walking around now Hogan and I had started making our way back from the pit but then I decided to turn back I am just thinking organizationally I think I might want to go try to speak to some of the protest pretty quickly I found
Someone willing to speak to me but while we were talking I suddenly felt the presence of someone looming over us and they just kept standing there so I finished up the interview and then this happened I thought you going to tease the werewolf there for a second sound
Sounded menacing yeah almost hi uh I’m from the Press group we didn’t know you were oh I’m sorry I didn’t know there was a press group yeah on the website there was just like press I’m so sorry actually my name’s christe hi Al so as
You can maybe tell I was a bit nervous just with everything I’d already heard at that point uh but the Press officer of the protest which I should say is organized by a group called ala Blen which basically means Save The Villages or keep the villages agreed to take me
Around lerat and to do an interview hi so yeah I’m Alma I have been involved in the climate Justice movement for over 10 years and L is just one of those places where you always need more people and it’s also a very very important space Not only as a symbol but also simply
That it’s a very practical place of climate Justice because there is so much uh C below lerat and behind that if lerat goes then the 1.5° commitment of Germany to the parus agreement goes as well now um you’re giving me a tour around here the it’s pretty interesting looking Place we’ve
Just walked into talk to me about what we’re seeing right here um so we just walked into one of the meadows of literat behind the tree lines beyond the tree lines you have the cold mine that is several hundred meters deep and what I’m seeing right now is a lot of like
Tree houses in the trees obviously but also a lot of wooden structures on the ground and uh that people have been building for over two years as a way for them to make uh the occupation more sustainable because people are living here and they are very normal people who
Need also a tiny bit of warmth and uh a good space to live together well Neil you’re an environment journalist what’s your take on climate activism today I mean I’m in two minds about it um you know on the one hand as a journalist um I’m quite wary of
Activism or also lobbyism in any shape and form and I think the two can be quite similar so I think as a journalist we do have the responsibility to try and you know remain as objective as we can um but on the other hand yeah I mean I think they’re they’re very very
Necessary uh you know I guess so I wonder whether Germany would we have the cold phase out at all if you know without activists I strongly believe that we need to change on the other hand I strongly believe that you cannot forget the the people in the the regions that had have
To um be part of this change uh so you need to give people a little bit of time to uh refocus but that’s what the climate movement is saying right that we haven’t got the time yeah if I listen to greata tumberg she’s very young and uh
She is um I think in a positive way naive like the youth youth has to be naive in some things to to get a clear picture but you have to on the other hand you have to uh consider that there um if you talk about sustainability to sustainability uh you have to
See social politics you have to see um economies you you have you have to bring it in a Balance so this the the huge chance to diversify for our region uh and now we’re working on uh hydrogen projects which um get national attention and uh new companies uh contact us that I think would never had us on their radar and now they talk to us because they see
This is a region that became uh kind of a new development re region in the last two or three years with a lot of projects a lot of good project projects a lot of high-tech projects um lot of science um but I think most of the
Projects um uh deal just here in bedor with our energy DNA and and uh so we have a lot of workers that now begin to look uh around and say oh there’s a a nice um maybe a good startup or maybe a good company that once used to work for rwe uh creating
Um yeah Special products uh that they need in in the the mine or in the power plant and uh maybe they’re now focusing on hydrogen um H2 uh something like that and when you talk about renewable energy you have to um to show everyone you have to touch them by their
Ego you have to to show everyone that that uh the person has a benefit from this change process otherwise it w’t work out so christe we spoke with a politician with activists with locals but I think there’s somebody we’ve forgotten oh yeah definitely we knew
That we had to talk to people who were working in mining for this episode but it really it really wasn’t easy to find someone ironically you know rwe wouldn’t talk to us they wouldn’t even let us record ourselves at their Exhibition Center said would you believe it and uh
We kind of bullied the mayor’s secretary who was very nice yeah she was lovely uh she tried she tried I mean she to ask her friends and family um and you know that didn’t work out so um we thought about going back to bedor and just lurking around a pub actually it’s just
A basic night for now well yeah maybe before I had kids not anymore but in the end Christie I mean you pulled it up for us right I tried yeah my name is nor my name is Norm I’m 44 years old I also live here in Nita AUM and I’m an
Electric engineer by profession Andre my name is Andre van I’m 41 years old also employed by rwe I’m a town counselor here in Nita AUM and also a trade unionist yeah that’s right after talking with Alma I tramped back through the field I called a cab to drive me half an
Hour to Nita aam that’s part of the town of Bim and home to that super polluting Nita awesome coal plant we were talking about earlier number seven in the world and yeah it’s a pretty crazy site it’s this massive plant on the horizon of this tiny little town completely
Overpowering it as you come up to it first you see these massive clouds of vapor billowing out of cooling towers um and then you see this huge plant on the horizon of this tiny little town this is not a typical site uh for most people to have right next
Door it belongs to the landscape here everyone who lives in the region knows what the power plant does and it’s just a part of the place we are hardly affected by it the clouds may look impressive but I don’t think it’s a bad thing not at all
No when I was a child and we came back from holidays with my parents and we were driving along the motorway I would see the clouds of the power station in the distance and back then we knew as children that we were almost home so from today’s perspective the
Future for people in the coal industry in the reinland looks pretty uncertain it’s not totally clear what jobs they’ll be doing by 2030 but that wasn’t always the case if you look back 20 years or even much further coal is part of the local history it has been rooted in the
Communities here for decades it was clear that these were secure jobs wellp paid jobs and that of course was a key factor to start working in the coal industry and now employees like Andre and norm and rwe in general are trying to come to terms with what an early
Phase out means for them and for Germany the the phase out in 2038 was already very ambitious because many questions remain unanswered for instance how will the power supply be ensured we become painfully aware of just how dependent we are on Russian gas gas and electricity prices have shot up now France also
Needs Electric from us and the grids are not yet in place from north to south the region here or the city of beheim have a gigantic task ahead of them to compensate for these job losses we’re in close contact with the companies like rwe new industrial areas are to be
Developed but space is scarce here and the companies have to settle here first we have many ideas that we’re now trying to tackle and implement but it will take quite some time it has now been agreed that power plants are to be built here that’s also very ambitious we’re talking
About 7 years until they have to be built and the hydrogen is ready to be used let’s see where the jobs will be in the end where they’ll be created yes regenerative energies create new jobs but on this scale as we have them here at the moment it will be really
Difficult so there are a few instruments but in the end they don’t work for all employees in the end we’ll see whether everyone will taken care rwe employees working in the pits like gods and H have also had repeated confrontations with protesters like the ones at lutat along with occupying
Spaces protesters have damaged mining property and hurled abuse at workers these guys told me they also know someone who had the screws loosened on the tire of their vehicle they call these people they’re activists for me personally they’re terrorists not all of them I know this
And I’ve often driven past them as an rwe employee while they were staging peaceful protests they have their opinion we have ours that’s legitimate but that has changed in the last year and now there are people here who no longer carry out the protest but are really autonomous radicals who don’t
Care if lives are lost and that’s completely unacceptable I think that the Press also have to show that we need coal right now or we’ll have problems this winter they live in tree houses I personally find it an exciting experiment to really live there so autonomously not to be
Dependent on the water supply or the electricity supply of a country but if you look at Germany as a whole I see a very small proportion who think they have to determine how all the other 99% in Germany should live if you compare us with other countries economically
Germany is a very strong country with a lot of different Industries and if we want to maintain our prosperity here in Germany we need our industry be it the glass industry the paper industry or the automotive industry and these are all sectors that are also energy intensive
And if this energy crisis here in Germany continues with the high gas and electricity prices the industry will migrate to countries where energy costs are significantly lower and that will inevitably have an impact on our prosperity here in Germany and the question is is everybody aware of this or
Not how does one feel sometimes you really do feel bad about what you’re doing even though it’s actually a social mandate the social mandate for Germany is to ensure a cheap secure and stable electricity Supply that is our social mandate we don’t do it for fun and if
You are then let’s say repeatedly portrayed as the bad guy by individual groups and sometimes threatened then that does something to you Personally yeah I mean just think about it this must be a really confusing time for people in this industry I mean they’ve done what they were told to do right but with what we know about Co today we see that whole operation in a very very negative line night and now
They’re expected to swoop back in save the day and at the same time that you know is making a lot of the people even angrier right yeah right I mean it was my impression after talking to them also after talking to the mayor that the
Region really in a lot of ways had come to peace with the coal phase out and now the energy crisis has created this really big upheaval there um but no one that we spoke to really seemed to think that coal would be making a serious comeback long term yeah that was my
Impression too and uh I mean it’s an area with a very long history but it’s very much looking forward to the future yeah when we in the end we will have lakes here and these are relatively large lakes which can be used by people for water sports or local Recreation
Just as it is already happening in her and the surrounding area in a much smaller way but that’s how it will be or at least that’s the plan and are people looking forward to that it is way too far away it will take at least 40 years and I don’t think by then
We’ll see any of that in the finished State well I hope so I was hoping to become a lifeguard I think so his plan is to to live for longer until I can swim in the lake The minor sees himself as someone that serves for the public and in the last three or four years they look like that they are the problem that’s killing the climate something like that and this is a a very hard situation for for a lot of
Workers who who did that for 20 30 40 years and they were proud of their work um because they were part of a positive um story of growing industry growing wealth growing and then for the last three four five years uh they are were on the wrong side of the discussion and
Now they’re on the good side again and uh this is something uh that uh a lot of people discuss here uh also in the city of bedor they say so what who are we are we the goods are we the evil so who are we now depends on on what what people
Want to see and we have to um we have to see if that uh the last five six years uh was weren’t the start of a of a new way of discussion here in this region in a region that had found their peace with this situation Mr Zach thank you very
Much for your time and perhaps just one final question on your town we heard there’s a werewolf here what we heard that there’s a werewolf here in bed has been has been has been yeah the Werewolf of uh of of bedor uh hasn’t been seen for a while but we strongly believe he’s
Still here there a trail right yes it’s a nice trail that you can go by uh by bike or um that you can walk on and uh you will uh learn about the past of the Werewolf of bedb even Donald Trump knows it what makes mention it once and uh uh
We totally hated [Laughter] It Neil’s got Google Maps out Neil’s got he’s got Neil’s got a splitting headache in Google maps and he’s taking us to the werewolf vond werewolf hiking path this the right direction yeah getting nervous about the wolf well I mean this kind of setting he’s got nothing on
Me enough uh I can react here I mean you know it’s just out uh I don’t know the countryside you know if you’re on your own then it’s a bit Yeah here you can scream for help is that what you’re saying well no I I can I can hide behind
You right yeah yeah yeah exactly the the man they executed is the werewolf however many hundreds of years ago said it was because of a m iCal belt that he would put on that would turn him into a werewolf and um they never found
That belt so did you see Mr oil box belt I wasn’t looking oh I forgot to look too we um must maybe had it strategically hidden okay so it should be starting here we have to go on the left hand side I reckon through that historic Archway there or gate this is
Probably then the old town now we’re coming to so I guess I guess it would have been somewhere close to here also where the historic werewolf man was executed they confessing to several gr gruesome murders after being tortured yeah this is like the fun part of the road trip
We’re doing now right yeah yeah we’re seeing the sights yeah we’re looking into a serial killer basically it’s people like those True Crime podcasts you know maybe maybe we should take it that direction True Crime but like medieval I think that would work yeah I’ll be up for
That so now let’s have a look at this map here I think the documentary I saw there was also like a werewolf sign wolf yeah we have to find the wolf sign see and there’ll be somewhere on lamp posts it’s a little wolf howling at the moon see it’s pointing left see now
Now is it okay yeah now we’re coming into territory right where it could get scary at night little yeah so we’ll just take a what’s our plan actually oh here’s the sign about it 1589 that’s when things got out of hand here uhhm okay so pet and um says it’s the worldwide best
Known werewolf trial for sorcery and and were wolfyy naturally that was the indictment yeah um on Halloween October 31st 1589 that’s Halloween unbelievable yeah okay so brand now I have to find the spots I assume this Trail is uh where they might have found some of the bodies but um I
Hope so otherwise I don’t know what I’m doing here but we’re looking for the belt as well yeah true just in case and I mean while we’re looking you know’s try to bring that that metaphor in again that I was working on in the car about
The transforming of a man into a wolf I think it’s a very fitting metaphor for the town of bedburg now that we’ve spoken to the mayor what do you think Neil well gosh I mean the mayor certainly all the things he outlined it sounded to me like he’s really on not
Only on the pulse but he’s also really pushing for change um he didn’t seem to be too happy with how the coal phas out was commun communicated to um this town and to to to to this area it sounded like you know the powers that be in the
State parliament in doff and also at a federal level in Berlin basically just uh overrode uh everything and just you know said okay this is what’s happening and uh you know live with it instead of Consulting the area here on how to transform and move away from
Coal so um yeah it really seems like they’re trying to make the best of a pretty bad situation which was that they were seems like exclusively dependent on the coal industry here until recently and now it sounds like they’re innovating like crazy yeah yeah absolutely it was 50% right he said it
One way or another over around of the people are sort of tied to the coal industry here or subsidiaries and um and now yeah I mean the wind Park I didn’t realize that he was saying it’s Germany biggest wind Pok um that I’ve got here right on the
Doorstep and if you look at if you look at the pit that we drove by in gsv the way he described it also it does look a bit like as if the turbines are pushing the pits away right it’s almost like the ene vendors happening visually you know that they’re sort
Of out out with the old within you yeah yeah yeah that’s why I was asking him about I was really getting the sense that they want to maintain the identity of this region as an energy producer um and so pulling off that shift is I think really interesting um because it’s one
Thing to have oh right to werewolf sign go to the right thanks good got good eye um yeah it’s one thing when you have all this coal under your feet um with yeah like you said it’s sort of in the blood of the people here yeah I also thought it was really
Interesting just how he outlined um the ambivalent feelings that a lot of the people in the region have because he was saying that you know they’d come to terms with that the phase out is happening and okay um they may not have been too happy about it how it was done
But they they’d sort of come to terms with it and then suddenly Everything Changes again uh the goal posts are shifted all the time with the timing and then there was talking enough bringing it forward to 2030 and it’s like whoa wait a minute that’s years that we lose in
Transforming and now they’re getting other signals again with with coal being in high demand and plants you know firing up again and people who had hoped to go into early retirement links are suddenly um you know forced or giv like golden deals to stay on I had to think
When he said about you know he said people are forced to stay on and then he like well how forced he said well you know the amount of money they were offer I had to think of course it’s like yeah I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse
You know Godfather style right it’s like so who’s God who’s the Godfather here yeah um so it’s like what’s going to happen to these huge pits here in there you know we saw the one just massive open sort of gaping wound in the in the
Earth um and I so I was really struck too and then he went into saying that by moving this timeline up it completely upends all of their timelines for how those pits were going to develop where they’re going to end what happens to them um so sort of whole another topic we
Have to get into but um but it’s basically what’s going to happen to them is is what we can see here right now right yeah we’re walking towards the lake now uh ultimately they will be filled with water yeah it’ll be like a bit of a Lake District
Here see we are at a at a pond I’m not just making this up and uh I mean like I guess maybe um I mean looking at this this is beautiful right yeah this is nice nature can rebound maybe maybe that’s a good thing maybe this place will you’ll come back in 100
Years time and you’ll have to look at old photos of can you imagine these coal mines back then Granddad telling his son about it wonder what people think about Co 100 years from now yeah yeah okay actually I might just while we’re out here seeing that the ratos is
Closed to see a man about a dog I go uh I’ll carry on that’s all right yeah you can be my Lookout give me a fair warning just how I’ll just H good I knew It okay Christie the Moment of Truth we’ve done the energy Series right we we’re done with it we’re did it are we done I go huh we did gas nuclear wind and now coal um I mean if we were to like do a postmortem of this I how was
It for you not I mean not just working with me on this project but also which is obviously amazing yeah thank you thank I can only return the compliment no but uh seriously now the energy cries it seems like such a historic time we’re living in also never forget you know the
Backdrop of the war in Ukraine that’s what really triggered all this to this degree um I mean how was this experience for you reporting on this from Germany and what were your main takeaways from this yeah well I mean once we get out there you know after being in the
Pandemic for two years and a lot of even us journalists were sort of stuck at home and in our offices and then getting out there on the ground talking to people um I really felt that the topic was like yeah super relevant very much on people’s minds people had a lot to
Say which we know from all the material that didn’t make it into um into the these episodes um but yeah I mean it’s the the Tian Venda right this like kind of changing times for Germany and um Energy felt very much sort of at like the center I guess it’s like the the
Power Behind these changes right and we were looking at that firsthand what about you well I think what was very interesting to me was also the question one of the main questions that I had when I went in is just I just assumed okay the energy is going to put the
Climate crisis on the back burner similar to how the pandemic did it and that people are just going to focus more on paying their bills and just getting by and that the CO2 emissions they’re not going really think about that too much anymore but interestingly enough what happened exactly in this period and
It’s happening right now as well is that the climate movement is becoming more radical holding up air traffic at Berlin’s airport for two hours and now these calls in Germany to um bring in stricter penalties for these um Civil Disobedience actions you know when they hold up traffic Etc I mean you’re you
Were also in Berlin quite a lot these past weeks it seems like there’s a lot happening right now in Germany in terms of Civil Disobedience yeah yeah I mean you’re saying you know people have been put in jail and there’s sort of controversy about you know how legal
That actually is or not just in the last few months I think that is definitely absolutely a result of what you’re talking about I think there’s when the energy crisis hit there was this major fear uh that yeah we were going to fall back on you know crude oil on coal and
Um that that really activated a lot of people to just to get out there and and take a stance against that I mean at the same time though you also had policy makers saying like this is a chance for for green energy um you know and I think
I forget who it was but somebody said that you know Russia invading Ukraine in a way has turbocharged the green transition so yeah that’s part of what we’re seeing as well yeah I guess that would be you know the hopeful note to end on that you know
If you want to turn this into something positive POS okay we’ve seen the light that we can’t make ourselves dependent on these kind of regimes autocratic countries but that’s something where also I was disappointed uh you know covering this story these past uh weeks where I just sort of felt Germany hasn’t
Really learned that lesson and why do you say that well because for instance with the gas narrative right who are we looking to we went to Qatar was one of the first countries we went to very controversial now with the World Cup a lot of talk about you know just how
Repressive that country is towards um all sorts of minorities um and yet um they’re good enough for gas and it’s um I don’t know it feels to me like have we learned the lesson from this crisis and I’m not sure we have and I’m I’m also it
Remains to be seen you know just how fast they’re going to ramp up the expansion of Renewables now because they were the first thing they did was to build these LG terminals right right right and they were really fast in pulling that off right I mean that was
Actually should see come going on before the end of the year even and yet it takes years to get a wind turbine right installed where that’s sort of where I sort of feel it it falls down a bit where and that’s where politicians really can make a difference right that
Is their job they can make this legislation easier they can cut the red tape that’s not something you and I can do that that is up to the apparatus right right and um that’s where I sort of wonder whether that is going to come through or not the politicians say they
Will make it simpler let’s hope that does happen on the ground yeah yeah um but having you know talked about all these aspects of the energy crisis there was one story that we touched upon a little bit and we discovered God it’s such a huge story it actually deserves
Its own series and that was that was hydrogen green hydrogen kavas is the word we heard I think I feel like everybody we talk to hydrogen is where yeah and Germany has has big plans for that so I don’t know I mean if if you can you know you know um uh persuade
Yourself to work with me again next year Christie give me a little bit of a break I’ll take a vacation I’ll think about it get your get your tire fixed too yeah get the tire fixed then we can maybe do a series flat in the last episode we
Could do a series on hydrogen together I think that’d be a very very interesting Series yeah yeah yeah I consider it all right is there anything left to say apart from all the people we have to thank who helped us with this series anything there’s so much more to say but
We’ll have to wrap it up here I think yeah so I mean this series it was produced with the help of Natalie Mueller Benjamin wler and Tim shenberg our sound engineer was juren for the entire series thank you very much jur he’s waving to me right now and uh
Yeah that’s about it for us from now um we’ll be returning to sort of a more regular on the green fence schedule uh in the coming week unfortunately without christe who’s going to be going to be going back to the DW business desk she’s had quite a
Few colleagues and her boss asking after she she’s missed a lot there so wish she’s taken up I’ve taken up a lot of her time with this project but yeah Christie um maybe also finally just on a personal level thank you I had a I really had a great time working with you
And it was great fun and it’s yeah just doing this energy series with you it was it was a great experience I hope I hope we can repeat yeah thanks Neil I had a great time too and um yeah to you listeners out there if you want to
Comment have any questions or any suggestions regarding the series you can always drop us a line just send an email to on the green fence at dw.com we also have loads of social Channels with the environment and business desk where you can look up you know videos or articles
Pegged to the energy crisis here in Germany just go to our website dw.com for that as well and uh yeah I think that’s about it time to wrap up now my name is Neil King and I’m Christy flaton take it easy bye Good I’m the green F