V a t t e n f a l l - Sweden´s other face

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The Jänschwalde Brown Coal Power Station, located near the Polish border in Eastern Germany, contains six 500 Megawatt turbines. It was constructed in the mid 80's as the GDR's most modern power plant, but it was not equipped with filters for removing sulphur dioxide (SO2) from the exhaust fumes. Because of the high sulphur content of the lignite used as fuel, 400,000 tonnes of SO2 were emitted anually. That was as high as the sulphur dioxide produced by all of Sweden
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After German reunification, the Jänschwalde facility was modernized and fitted with SO2 filters to comply with Germany's demanding emissions requirements. However, there is no commercially available technology for reducing the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a greenhouse gas believed to produce global warming. Because of this danger, the German government pledged in 1990 to reduce the country's carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by the year 2005. With this deadline now approaching, it appears likely that this ambitious goal will be missed by a wide margin. The CO2 emissions level registered in 1990 has been reduced thus far by only 15 percent. The modernization or demise of eastern German industrial installations have been mainly responsible for this qualified success. Moreover, CO2 emissions have again begun to rise, due in part by a renaissance of the brown Coal industry in Eastern Germany.
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As shown in the graph, carbon dioxide emissions of the Jänschwalde power station have increased by about 40 percent in the last few years because of prolonged operation. Brown coal emits nearly a kilogram of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, more than any other fossil fuel. The Jänschwalde plant produces more than 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, making it Germany's greatest single source of greenhouse gas emissions
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The Jänschwalde power station is owned and operated by the Vereinigte Energiewerke AG (Veag).
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