Photo Gallery Unavoidable Coal
An open-pit coal min in Fuxin, China: The world will be relying on coal to produce electricity for a long time to come. China currently generates over 80 percent of its electricity from coal.
Energy companies are hoping that carbon capture and storage technologies may mitigate environmental concerns about the use of coal. On July 14, German Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle (right) and Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen unveiled a bill to regulate the construction of CO2 storage facilities.
For the past year, energy producer Vattenfall has operated a small pilot plant at its Schwarze Pumpe power station in Spremberg, Brandenburg, that separates CO2 from coal and then captures it.
Another part of the answer lies in the town of Ketzin in northwestern Brandenburg, where scientists from the Potsdam-based Geo Research Center are compressing CO2 into porous underground layers.
Many local residents don't want CO2 stored under their backyards, however. Here, a demonstration in the Brandenburg town of Beeskow against a planned CO2 storage facility. The sign reads: "Caution: Poisonous Gas!"
The Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine, which is located near the city of Cologne in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, is five kilometers (3.1 miles) wide and more than 200 meters (656 feet) deep.
An open-pit mine in Germany: No other fossil fuel is available in such large quantities --current coal reserves will last for generations.
