Coal, Renewables Battle for Power in Germany

When the wind blows just right, Guenter Jurischka can hear the machines that may soon devour his home. A mile and a quarter from his house in the tiny German village of Proschim, the lip of the Welzow-Sued open-pit coal mine opens onto a 5,000-acre moonscape. A massive steel contraption longer than the World Trade Center towers were tall strips away the earth to expose a seam of lignite coal. The nearby power plant consumes 20 million tons of this fossilized plant matter each year. The...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - lundi 16 novembre 2015