Schwarze Pumpe power station (german: Kraftwerk Schwarze Pumpe translated: ''Black Pump Power Station'') is a modern

lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

(brown coal)–fired power station in the "Schwarze Pumpe" (Black Pump) district in

Spremberg Spremberg ( dsb, Grodk) is a municipality near the Saxon city of Hoyerswerda and is in the Spree-Neiße district of Brandenburg, Germany. First mentioned in 1301, the town alone has 14,028 inhabitants, and the municipality, including other villa ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

consisting of 2 × 800 megawatts (MW) units. The current plant came into service in 1997–1998 and was built by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

. The power station was sold by

Vattenfall Vattenfall is a Swedish multinational power company owned by the Swedish State. Beyond Sweden, the company generates power in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The company's name is Swedish for "waterfall", and ...

to the Czech energy group EPH and its financial partner PPF Investments on 30September 2016. The cooling towers are high and have an observation deck on top. The site has been a large-scale industrial site processing lignite since the

DDR DDR or ddr may refer to: *ddr, ISO 639-3 code for the Dhudhuroa language *DDr., title for a double doctorate in Germany *DDR, station code for Dadar railway station, Mumbai, India *' (German Democratic Republic), official name of the former East ...

period, when it was first developed (since 1955). The DDR-era plant used the lignite to produce high temperature lignite coke for

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...

coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

to fire

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

electrical generation,

motor fuel An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

s, and a variety of chemical

feedstock A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...

Carbon capture and storage pilot plant

Construction started on 26 May 2006, in the Schwarze Pumpe industrial area, on the

oxy-fuel combustion process Oxy-fuel combustion is the process of burning a fuel using pure oxygen, or a mixture of oxygen and recirculated flue gas, instead of air. Since the nitrogen component of air is not heated, fuel consumption is reduced, and higher flame temperatures ...

carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it (carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually th ...

pilot plant. With a thermal power of 30 MW, the plant burned coal with pure oxygen (nitrogen-free) gas replacing air in what is known as

oxy-fuel combustion Oxy-fuel combustion is the process of burning a fuel using pure oxygen, or a mixture of oxygen and recirculated flue gas, instead of air. Since the nitrogen component of air is not heated, fuel consumption is reduced, and higher flame temperatures ...

. The idea was that the resulting carbon dioxide would be compressed and liquefied. It would then be put into geologic formations and stored so as not to contribute to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. The aim of the plant wasn't to produce electricity but to produce steam which would then be used by nearby industry. Vattenfall stopped carbon capture R&D at the plant in 2014 because they found that "its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable". The facility was meant to serve as a prototype for larger power plants. Back in 2005 environmentalists criticized the facility. In their opinion a greater impact on the reduction of global warming could have been obtained for the same money through investments in renewable energies and efficient power production and use.

Criticisms

On 13–15 May 2016, 3,500–4,000

environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists advoc ...

s blocked the open-pit coal mine and the Schwarze Pumpe power station to limit climate change. This protest was known as Ende Gelände 2016. On 14May 201
Vattenfall
reported that environmental campaigners tried to force the power plant to shut down by occupying the coal transport railway tracks into the plant. 120 people were arrested. 2,000 climate activists occupied different areas of the nearby mine Welzow-Süd and the rails of the coal transport trains in order to stop the fuel supply to the power plant Schwarze Pumpe and thereby enforce a stop of plant operation.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Energy, Germany Coal-fired power stations in Germany Vattenfall Economy of Brandenburg Buildings and structures in Spree-Neiße Spremberg Energetický a průmyslový holding