German power plants meet emissions cut targets - VDEW
Source: Reuters News via Planet Ark

FRANKFURT - German power plants since 1990 cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by nearly eight percent, showing they were serious about global climate protection goals, electricity industry body VDEW said yesterday.

But their annual emissions of CO2 - thought to contribute to global warming - during that time dropped to 267 million tonnes from 289 million, it added.

The German power industry in 1996 had pledged to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 12 percent to 255 million tonnes by the year 2015.

VDEW president Guenther Marquis said the reduction by 22 million tonnes in the 1990s showed that power companies were keeping their earlier promises.

This was also demonstrated by the specific CO2 emissions savings per kilowatt hour - these dropped by 13 percent to 0.58 kilogram per kWh in the period under review, VDEW said.

VDEW said new plant constructions, higher efficiency rates, and the increased usage of gas with lower specific CO2 emissions had contributed to these savings.

Other factors were the expansion of renewable energy sources and combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Germany.

Nuclear energy currently helps save 160 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, as these would be incurred if the third of German power output they contribute was produced at plants based on fossil fuel usage, VDEW said.

Industry and government have agreed to phase out Germany's nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s.

Germany is to host the sixth annual U.N. Conference of Parties (COP6) to discuss the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Bonn (July 16-27).

 

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