In germany, by law, a Wind wheel has to be at least 1000 Meters away from a Residential area while a Coal powerplant only has to bee 400m away. you might see a small problem here

A nuclear plant on a mountainous island with limited area for urban development, constant earthquakes, and freaking tsunami's is so insanely different from Germany's situation that I don't get how it was ever even under consideration to phase it out

As a German I can only say: We also don‘t understand wtf our politicians are doing 🤷🏻‍♂️ Most are completely incompetent and don’t bring any experience or expertise to the table. You can be Minister for families and youth in the first year, become minister of defense the next. After that you get voted president of the European Commission even tho you’re not even one of the candidates… it‘s a sad joke.

I live like 10-20 kilometers away from it, and a friend of mine lived in a village right next to it, back then I was visiting him many times by bike, but the whole village, including his home was wiped out in 2016 or 2017, I remember the last months of the village, houses were literally boarded up after most residents left to prevent other people from going inside or stealing, they even tear off a historic church that was there since decades… it’s so strange when I drive by it and just see that big hole, everything is just gone except memory’s. People here say that the hole will be filled up with water at 2050 like all the other mining holes that closed here

Wow! I live in this area of Germany and found this giant hole on the map recently. I had no clue, now I know, thanks to you.

The funny thing is that getting a wind park built in Germany requires you to jump through loads of bureacratic hoops, takes ages and there's a good chance it won't get built in the end because local residents will mobilise against it. But tearing down entire villages to mine brown coal is a-okay (partly thanks to corrupt politicians with ties to the coal industry). Brown coal was not the only alternative after we decided to abandon nuclear power. Sure, we wouldn't have been able to plug the entire hole in our energy mix with renewables right away but we could have a lot more renewable energy and a lot less coal in our mix today if our governments had chosen to properly subsidise and support renewable energy. They didn't and here we are.

The first english youtuber, who doesnt completely fail in pronouncing german words

In the magical fantasyland of Germany, lignite coal and biomass are cleaner then nuclear.

4:20 : Acid rain was a problem in Germany about 30 years ago ... but since a lot of years, the coal power plants have smoke filters which filter a lot of pollution, like e.g. sulfur oxides, out of the smoke. So, yes the coal contains a lot of sulfur, but the large majority of it isn't emitted.

Regarding the acid rain, actually in Germany when they started cutting down the sulfur emissions into the atmosphere, they stopped having acid rain, but they realized that their agricultural lands were not producing as much yield as before. Turns out that the acid rain was contributing to the availability of S and other metal micronutrients in their soils, and from then on, farmers had to start using fertilizers with an increased proportion of S.

So this is basically the difference between taking action and taking action. You can either do something, that is popular and on the surface, looks like something that makes a lot of sense in achieving your goal (in this case, becoming a green country), without second thought and make everything significantly worse, or you can maybe just think for a couple of minutes and conclude if an idea is rubbish. The irony is, that this whole coal mine, was nearly entirely caused by the greens themselves. Even if you want to remove nuclear (I can see quite a lot of logical arguments in that), maybe you should do it, when you've already phased out carbon completely and can be sure, that it will be replaced by renewables, and not lignite...

Mining companies spend A LOT of money to compensate people for their property: They don't "throw" them out of their houses, as you mention. A strip mine like this is quite easy to rehabilitate as well: yes, the landscape is "completely destroyed" but returned to its previous state at the end of the mine's life. Afterwards you wont even know there was a mine.

Interesting video. One thing you didn’t mention in your video and is important for their decisions imo is that Germany has a decades long hot potato game with their nuclear waste, because they can‘t find a good long term solution for its storage place. (That‘s is contested by way too many reasons that find in this comment.)

Just a small correction: French nuclear power plants produce 70% of the electricity and not energy, electricity only represents about 25% of the total energy consumption. French nuclear power plants provide about 18% of the energy in 2019

I mean, nuclear is technically non-renewable, but it has a vast amount of fuel with a low impact, and btw 1% of all nuclear waste is the 20k year isotope, whereas a vast majority aka 70% is level 1 waste and can safely be put in a landfill without issue in a non-populated area, basically Germany fell for the fear mongering rather than the numbers.

There is a highway right next to that giant hole in cologne and driving by it really gives me goosebumps everytime. Seeing this with your own eyes really gives it a whole new perspective. This hole is something that makes me seriously question our way too early exit from the nuclear industry. Stuff like this shouldnt exist in a first world country, we're literally ruining families lives when we break down their homes for something so irresponsible and its horrible.

From what I recall, it were the climate activists whom were against nuclear power in germany, and also the reason why the government there abandon it. Which seems ironic in my mind.

Enter the realm of Game Theory: Setting a time limit on how long a certain ressource will be used gives the mine operators an incentive to get as much as possible as fast as possible out of the ground.

7:40 Well first of all, the familys that had to leave their homes were paid really, really well. The Government paid them nearly 3x the worth of their homes, and they were offered newly build homes just a couple km away. Yeah it probably sucks to leave your home and move, but you get a much newer and bigger home and still live in the same area. 2nd the "totally destroyed" landscapes are destroyed for now, but the coal companie has to rebuild the area they were digging in. You can see their plans for the "holes" on their internet platform: what they will build there is 20x better then what was there before. They are building a freaking sea inside of them and a big nature reserve around it. Yeah we can discuss the hole coal burning thing till 2030, i dont appreciate that either.... but you are ignoring a couple of very important facts in this matter.

Just one point to mention, because it's always misleading. Nuclear power is not emitting CO², but it's not CO² neutral. Building a nuclear power plant as well as mining, transportung and refining the material is actually really CO² intense, not to mention the costs of storing the material after being used...

Me: "What's Lignite?" Germany: "Lignite Balls."

I live right next to the biggest of the holes "Tagebau Hambach". It is an awfully ugly thing but the people in our region seem to be proud of it because it offers so many jobs. The worst thing is, we breathe in the particles that are being blown away by the wind each day. As a result: The statistics of Lung diseases skyrocket. Also everything is just dusty and you have to clean your house once a week or it'll end up looking like some homeless man's shelter...

i lived right next to it! the air is so dirty that wet towels will emit brown soup over time. (i put them over my radiator to humidify my room).

High level nuclear waste is melted down, mixed with glass and ceramics, and stored inside a cask that is considered _INDESTRUCTIBLE_ . They hit one with a full train as a test and outside of scratches on the surface, it was unscathed.

I drove on the motorway few times past this mine. It’s mind boggling how big it is.

As a German, you got one thing slightly wring at the start. German politicians, especially of the CDU mostly don't see carbon emissions asbthat big of a problem. We have a serious lobbying problem in this country and the coal industry loves throwing cash at conservative politicians, so they can keep their business going. They just pretend like they care a lot, which is why they had the 2038 goal set. This appeases the population that cares about climate change a little while also keeping the coal industry as their backer. The only reason why the goal is 2030 now, is that the CDU was voted out and we now have a new more liberal coalition taking power (which you also didn't mention).

Germany is in a bit of a desperate spot as far as natural resouces go. Why do you think they were so hesitant to upset Russia up until only recently? They needed those Russian pipelines to go ahead and so did Russia. Germany just needs to go full renewable energy or something. Their natural resources are limited so they gonna have to reinvent themselves or they gonna struggle in the future if they keep going in this direction.

Germany is not expanding its coal mining operation... almost all coal mines in Germany have closed since 2013. This one is one of the few still operating. The region in East Germany, where I am from, used to house hundreds of coal mines called "Tagebau" (mines where you dig a hole an expand it above ground). It was the backbone of our small industrie. Now there are almost no mines left. Btw the holes are later allowed to fill up with water and are turned into lakes and many are connected by canals so they can be used for tourism. The rest of the area is used for reforestation and a very smal amount of land is used for settlements.

Nomenclature note: a city is a specific type of very large settlement, and should not be used to describe the small villages that the mine has engulfed.

The difference between German and Russian coal mines is basically just: russia has unpopulated areas bigger than Germany, where coal is very common. Germany is just a relatively small nation (at least in comparison to russia).

As far as I know, Germany has closed all Nuclear power plants in 2010, because of natural disaster concerns, like a tsunami or major earthquake. Something that is impossible in Central Europe. Germany's politics rely on satisfying and convincing of the Public. There is not a single thing actually being done, just stuff adjusted so that less people complain.

Meh, the hole someone on Call of Duty claimed to have dug into my mom was deeper.

According to estimates from multiple different organisations, including the German institute for Economic Research, the lignite is not even necessary - Germany could easily go without it. There are enough alternative power plants using gas for instance - which Germany buys from Russia. It is all about money for the right people. The biggest mining companies literally own politicians. THAT is the reason for the mining.

Good video, except it’s a bit misleading to say Germany is replacing nuclear with coal because, well, they aren’t. If you look at a graph of Germany emery production over time by type, you can see coal stays pretty constant, and it is the renewables, mainly solar and wind, that replace the nuclear as well as fill the increasing energy demand over time.

While I appreciate the video, there are some issues I'd like to critisize: 1) The use of industrial site stock footage not from Germany (4:41, 0:59 showing the Illich steel and iron works in Mariupol, Ukraine) 2) The use of footage that has nothing do do with brown coal such as a coke plant (1:44) and blast furnaces (4:41, 0:59) which both do not use brown coal (although there were brown coal coke plants in the GDR) 3) Saying that there is no alternative while Germany still has a lot of black coal and anthracite left north of the Ruhr area. Nevertheless, the last mine closed in 2018 due to cheap coal imports (not because there was nothing left). So in theory, black coal mining could be started again. Of course this has its own problems.

Germany's contribution to the annual global CO2 emissions is 2%. And it has a population of 83 million people. While the United States have a population of 330 million people, so four times the population, and contribute 14% of annual global CO2 emissions. Seven times Germany's percentage. If you want to point a finger at someone, point it at the US.

Although I agree with you on most points I do want to start a discussion about CO2 emission in the EU. In absolute numbers Germany rules surpreme yes, but I calculated the emitted CO2 per resident and came to a complete different conclusion. The biggest CO2 emitter in the EU per resident is the Netherlands(1026 kg/person) followed by Czechia (794 kg/person) and Belgium (765 kg/person) with Germany (722 kg/person) being in the Middle of the 9 biggest CO2 producers. [Source: Statista and Worldometers] Shouldnt this be the more relevant figure to judge a country's ability to reduce its emissions?

Fun fact: Several autobahn sections (A61/A44) were changed over the years to get the coal.

lets hope they make the holes so big they grow together and eventually go down to the center of the planet so we can dump the politicians down there

0:48 No. As a German i can say: The german legislative and the executive is *not* keen on becoming carbon neutral.

5:50 "renewable energy sources can't be installed overnight" - and continues by promoting nuclear power, which takes even longer to install. If Germany decided today to build new nuclear power plants, it would certainly take *at least* until 2030 to finish the first one of them - that's the year when the last coal power plant is supposed to shut down. Just look at the construction time and cost of the new nuclear power plant in England - that's neither cheap nor "installed overnight".

"It is cheap" - well it is made cheap by not holding those using it (large energy companies) responsible for the damage they do, and by offering special treatment by politicians. "There are no other options" - Germany is so far behind in building renewable energy sources, that this is just plain ridiculous. There are no other options with the CDU / CSU in charge of government would be more precise. The major driver behind these coal mines are greed and the fear of losing an industry that provides work for many people. But even the latter is misleading, because this industry has to be shut down anyways, so politicians and business people are just trying to delay that until after their career (it seems to me).

This isn't the first time German leadership doomed their country to stand in solidarity with Japan

So Germany blame Poland for using coal while doing this... hipocrisy

I drove by here. I had no idea what it was! I mean I knew it was a coal mine but didn’t know any of this! Oh yeah shutting down their nuclear power plants not a great idea was it!

Energiewende be like…. Yes I remember they raced to shut down their nuclear power plants and go green. They now emit twice as much CO2 as before and their electricity cost also doubled. Noice.

To everyone wondering: The mining company's name is RWE

1:36 You didn‘t mention the fact that people get paid a lot for it. Even more than 2x the value of their houses. Also, they get new houses not far from there from the government. Of course many people don't want to leave their home because it keeps memories and such. However, they are not just kicked out of their houses like you say. Furthermore, the government obliges the mining companies that the mined areas must be renatured and cultivated accordingly. This has also happened with success. Take a look at the “Cospunder See” for example, which is a former mining area.

"Tear down cities" is somewhat overdramatized. 5 municipals were moved or are in prozess of being moved. One of it being one villa of a single family. Another almost completely destroyed during WWII shorty after bought by the company. The other 3 overall having about 3.500 inhabitants. What is being ment by "endangering the rights and freedom of the countries youth" is just the contribution to climate change - or the lack of contribution by keeping up the cole industry.

You really don't want acid rain. I grew up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in New York State. The amount and thickness of trees that cover the range were adversely affected by acid rain that was a result of pollution from factories in the mid east. We used to have thick foliage in this area when I climbed my first mountain. Today most of these trees look terrible compared to what they were in my childhood. Most of these factories ate now closed but the degradation continues.

In comparison to France the German government even decided to leave atomic energy. That’s why there is a lot more time needed.

Now that they closed down their last Nuclear reactors, this pit will just grow larger

Germany's way out might be France building more nuclear plants and buying electricity from France.

In Fukushima at 1000-10000 more people died because of non radioactive causes, like the tsunami, or simply because of evacuation. It was a very very bad decision from Germany to chose cole, and russian carbohidrates instead of nuclear.

The difference is that when Germany says "We're really going to try our best to do this by 2030", they actually WILL stand a good chance of achieving it by 2030. The Italians claim that they can do the same in the next 20 months? Utter bullshit. They're not even going to try.

Lignite and brown coal are two separate types of coal, lignite being the one with lowest caloric content

Let’s face it, to be a carbon neutral industrial country like Germany you definitely need nuclear power. They are basically cutting their two most reliable power sources within the next 10 years without a proper plan to compensate it. Plus the government wants 15 million electric cars by 2030 which leads to even more electricity needed. So in the long run we will have to import costly nuclear power from France, that’s probably why they are building new plants right now. But what do I know as a normal citizen..

I am surprised I've never heard of this. According to Google Earth, one of those holes is over 10km wide. They show up more visibly from a distance than most cities in the region. That's ridiculous.

Immediate after hearing “this is the biggest hole in Europe” my immature ass goes “nah your mom owns that title”

Why does the hole not fill with polluted rain water? If it is pumped out how much energy does that use and where does the water go?

I live practically next to this hole and its a pretty popular spot here (theres some nice viewpoints) :D. They actually plan to turn it into the largest bathing lake in Europe by 2050 and people really like that idea here.

I think that video makes some things look more weird than they are. Its not like Germany ever decided to shut down its nuclear powerplants and replace them by coal powerplants. Coal powerplants were there much earlier. Nuclear engery has always been very unpopular by wide parts of the German population. Germany has a very dense population so every nuclear accident with a powerplant, but also with the nucelar wasted transportes thorugh the country or temporary stored etc. would impact very many people. Tschernobyl 1986 and Fikushima proofed that accidents in nuclear powerplants do happen. So after Fukushima the Germany goverment decided to step out of nuclear engergy, mainly due to pressure of the population. Steping out off course never meant to switch the nuclear powerplants off immediatlely, there are still some nuclear powerplans running. It was also never planned to replace nuclear energy by coal, it was always planned to replace it by renewables. The german goverment of course also did not decide to dig those big hols you see in that video. The german energy sector is private and it's private companies that mine the coal. Doing so over many decades those holes of course get bigger. The goverment and politics of course gets involved whenever the growth of those holes conflicts with people living in that area. So yes, those holes exist and are part of the german energy policy. But they have surely not been planned as a replacement for nucelar power. Germany also planned to close all coal powerplants, but you cant stop all fossile powerplants at once.

Everything is correct, except the acid rain story. Germany has strict emissions laws and all powerplants have modern filters. Obviously, they are not perfect. While sulfur is retained in those filters, it is an irony that coal powerplants emit far more radioactive substances than our nuclear powerplants.

I by myself never understand, why we shut down nuclear energy, and replace it with Cole, it ist completely senseless!

The scale of those "holes" is mind blowing from those aerial shots O_O

For those who call out activists for pressuring the government to abandon nuclear power: you cannot abandon nuclear and coal power if you also block renewables. That's why Germany has the highest price for electricity and is failing horribly when it comes to sustainable power. Obviously there are some reasons to keep nuclear power plants, but the movement to abandon it has been a movement through the entire society.

Balanced, entertaining presentation, what else could be said but, "Well done and thanks".

Damn I just found this video, this is exactly where I live. I could go visit this hole by foot yet I had no idea what big of an issue it represents.

I Heard, that the Company, who owns the Mine, RWE, does'nt even make Profit, but gets its Money from the Government, and i think you should have talked about the Protests in the Hambach Forest nearby

Interestingly, since the 19th of November this year, the Pego thermoelectric power plant, the last coal-fired power plant in operation in Portugal, has been deactivated. Therefore, Portugal starts to use only renewable energy.

They did something simular event, when gernany dug holes during 1933-1945

As a young German who protested a lot against these coal pits I thank you for the clear standpoint you have taken against this ridiculous practice!

Slightly misleading when you talk about lignite containing mercury and sulfur and that then causing acid rain. Mercury doesn't produce an acid and all coal releases sulfur and mercury, just in varying amounts. Sulfur does produce acid rain though.

"Was it the right decision?" Short answer: No Long answer: Nooooooooooooooo

acid rain is a scaremongering buzz word for any kind of water vapor with acidic content (spoiler alert, pretty much all rain)

So living here in Germany I can tell you that your view on it is pretty shortsighted. We decided against nuclear power plants for a simple reason - like everyone else we have no secure containmend for the waste and the danger shown in the desasters before were alarming. Overall nuclear energy is a great way to reduce your CO2 emissions fast but the longterm problems occuring (waste, contamination of watersources) are not unaccounted for in your video. However there is another problem for politics regarding the removal of coal. Germany has had a huge inpact on the whole region of the so called "Ruhrgebiet" that was determined for coal mining and steel production after cheaper countries like China showed up on the world market. If you would shut down the coal plants and mining sites you would further weaken the region and that would cause social problems and hit the poor people in the region extremly hard. Also the companies running the plants have longterm contracts with the "Grundversorger" which are the goverment institutions poviding heat and electricity for their citizens at a base level. To cancel those contracts prematurely wouild cost the state a lot of money that they are not willing to pay. Overall it is a very complicated process and even if it seems to be pretty unambicious to reach the goal at 2030, it is pretty ambicious if you consider these points. One last info regarding the "poor people" that loose their home. Other as it would be handled in dictatorships all people in this region get new homes and financial repairements. The process of "removing" people for econmomical intrests isnt new and regarding the small size of the villages is pretty much just a sidenote here. I as a german citizen would prefer a faster transition to green energy too, however this has to go hand in hand with job securement and economical stability. Sorry if I upset anyone with my english skills ;-)

Sometimes the worst thing for the environment is to give environmentalists what they want.

This nonsense about France -- in the past France made these claims, but failed to mention they imported a lot of electricity from Germany

A nicely detailed video about the 'downsides' of coal. No mention of how coal burning plants have becoming cleaner and cleaner in the last few decades or how the mine companies are required to reclaim the land again for future use including creating wildlife landscapes and residential use.

I’d recon it’s cause Russia might shut off the gas supply in the chance of a Ukrainian invasion

"They're gonna turn their country into a giant hole" 💀😂

This aged really poorly for Germany in last couple of month, they screwed up big time

Actually standing on a platform at this hole is something else. It is hard to comprehend just HOW friggin huge this mine is. It dwarfes everything.

I remember the uncritical hysteria that led some nations to abandon nuclear, with the foolish result that CO2 emissions and pollution increased. Renewables are too unreliable, so we need to build plants using newer, safer nuclear modalities.

I live quite close to these lignite mines, and have driven past them many times! Interesting to learn more about these mines! Thank you for this video :)

" It's because they don't really have any other options" Yes, they do. Turn back on the nuclear plants. Use that hole to store the waste.

Decades ago when I told my classmates at uni that carbon pollution will kill far more people than nuclear power plant accidents they thought I was totally mad.

Nuclear is the second safest form of power generation per Wh with only solar beating it.

The important thing to mention is, that all the climate activist nearly forced the government to remove nuclear energy from its energy production because "it's not save", without thinking about the consequences. Now Germany has a fatal problem, the expansion of green energy is slower than expected due to a lot of regulations, and all the energy which is missing because we throwed nuclear energy out of the energy production, is now produced by coal because (right now) we don't have a different choice. And by the way, Germany has reduced it's CO2 Emissions in comparison to 1980 by over 20%, while other countries like South-Korea, Indonesia, China and India went up between 100-300%. And we produce a lots of Europe's CO2 Emissions, because we are the country with the largest economy and population (Germany's population makes up 20% of the total population in the European union).

What surprises me as a german is that my fellow people dont resist getting kicked out of their homes and their towns demolished .

I want to build an underwater hotel there (usually these mines get filled with water to create a lake)

Eyy, this is a good topic. Can't wait to watch it all.

You don't need nuclear power to go carbon neutral. But you don't need to shut the nuclear power plants. When you build new ones, renewables are better and cheaper, so that's where Germany is heading. I think the big mistake wasn't to cut the nuclear power, but to not build enough renewables and phase out coal.

Biggest hole in europe is located in Bełchatów, Poland btw...

Its also a health desaster lul. Lung deseases like asthma aso are at peak levels around cologne and on windy days the highway through one of the mines (yes they built a highwayy there) has to be clsed due to litteral sandstorms and dusty cloudscoming out of the mine.

In Germany mainly the youger generation is for a more green future and energies, but for the most part the problem is the older generation who thinks ''Why should Germany be the country who makes the first step''... or '' These wind turbines destroy my beautiful view when i drive to work in my car''. Honestly i think money and a confortable lifestyle is more important to them, than the future from those who have to live with the consequences. Many german politicans acting in the interests of large companies like VW and RWE, who will not benefit from a green germany, so these poor politicans can't get pocket money from millions of euros if they don't help those companies. Hopefully that will change with the new government that has now been formed.

The video is really misleading. We didn't swapp out nuclear for coal. The shown mine was started in the 80s and a lot of other mines got opened in 1930-50. We swapped to green energy from nuclear. You praise nuclear but don't mention the mines that are needed to mine uranium and that we still don't have a solution for the nuclear waste.

"a green country like Germany" 😂😂😂

what is the song at the beginning of the video? @OBF?

Not trying to argue for coal at all but I think it is relevant to take into account that the argument of large mines is only partially „solved“ by nuclear energy…uranium does not come out of nowhere and has giant surface mines in Africa which are dangerous for workers and polluting the environment due to the dirty mining process. It just shifts that problem to a different continent