German Greens fight coal-fired power station plan

Efforts by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to put Europe at the forefront of cuts to greenhouse gases are being threatened by her own government's plan to build 26 coal-fired power stations.

A €30bn (£20bn) scheme for the construction of 26 new coal-fired power stations by 2020 has been approved by Ms Merkel's grand coalition, as the country moves to abandon nuclear power.

Some of the power stations, which aim to use cheap Polish and South African coal and highly polluting German lignite coal, have already been built and others are at an advanced planning stage. Thirteen of the new stations alone have been earmarked for Germany's most populous state of North Rhine Westphalia.

The project has infuriated environmentalists, who are already angered by Ms Merkel's lobbying to ensure tough new curbs on CO2 emissions are not imposed on European car makers.

Reinhard Loske, a Green Party spokesman, said that if all 13 coal-fired stations went ahead in North Rhine Westphalia then the state would end up with a higher C02 output than the whole of Switzerland. New gas-fired power stations emit 365g of CO2 per kW/hour, hard coal plants produce 750g and lignite-fired plants up to 1,153g.

Germany's Federal Environment Agency insists that new power plants will lead to an overall reduction of the country's current C02 emissions, but only by 14 per cent, much lower than Ms Merkel's 40 per cent target.