As Putin squeezes gas supplies, Germany is falling back on coal. The last coal pits around Bexbach, Germany, closed a decade ago, leaving the power plant puffing plumes of pollutants as a relic of a dying regional industry. But now plant equipment is being repaired, contractors have come out of retirement, and manager Michael Lux is faced with a novel prospect: expanding the head count, write The Washington Post’s Loveday Morris and Vanessa Guinan-Bank.
The push is part of a pan-European dash to ditch Russian natural gas and escape President Vladimir Putin’s energy chokehold. While the war in Ukraine has simultaneously turbocharged the European Union’s race to renewables, fossil fuels still provide the quickest fix.
Hassan reported from London, Fahim from Istanbul and Nichols from Seoul.
