Clean Technica | Lenz Blog | By: Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz | September 17th, 2017:
Today I learned that the German Ruhr region needs to find a budget of around 220 million Euro a year to deal with the environmental consequences of 150 years of coal mining. Around two thirds of that sum is needed for pumping pit water.
Turns out you can’t just take out the coal and forget about your mines. Instead, you need to pump out pit water for eternity (Ewigkeitsaufgabe). If they stopped doing that, flooding or contamination of ground water would be the result.
Who pays for these pumping efforts?
As explained in this recent article at Wirtschaftswoche, the coal miners are. Ten years ago a foundation (stiftung) was started with funds from coal miners. It looks like they will be able to cover these costs for the next couple of decades with these funds.
To read full article – please click here.
