The German government is destroying the country's largest battery
The planned flooding of the Hambach open-cast mine brings into focus a project that could have far-reaching consequences for the energy supply. From 2030, Rhine water is to be diverted into the pit until a huge lake is created. At the same time, a billion tons of lignite will disappear permanently underwater, along with a secure energy source for Germany. While uncertainty and price chaos prevail on the energy markets, the question arises as to what is actually going on in the minds of those in power.
While the rest of the world is doing everything it can to secure its countries' energy supplies, German politicians are preparing the next irreversible step in this destruction: flooding the Hambach open-cast mine. Starting in 2030, Rhine water is to be pumped through a 45-kilometer pipeline into the enormous pit, creating a lake that would be the second largest in Germany by volume. This is the deliberate destruction of a strategic energy reserve. After phasing out coal and nuclear power and demolishing decommissioned power plants, this is the next step. Domestic reserves are being rendered inaccessible. Forever.
The Hambach open-cast mine still contains over one billion tons of recoverable lignite, which is to be permanently submerged under 300 meters of water by flooding. This amount corresponds to what RWE and the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia themselves identified as remaining reserves in earlier plans before the 2030 coal phase-out was finalized. The energy contained within is enormous. With a typical calorific value of around 9.1 gigajoules per ton of Rhenish lignite, this results in a thermal energy reserve of approximately 2,780 terawatt-hours. If the goal were to generate electricity rather than heat, around 1,200 terawatt-hours of electricity could be produced, assuming a conservatively calculated efficiency of 43 percent for modern lignite-fired power plants.
Germany's current annual electricity consumption is around 458 terawatt-hours. The Hambach reserve could therefore supply the country with electricity for more than two years, without imports and without dependence on the weather. Or it could be used directly for thermal energy production, for heating, for example (for the Greens: thermal energy production means burning). In an emergency, in the event of a threatened blackout due to a period of low wind and solar power generation or geopolitical supply bottlenecks, this coal would be a lifeline for industry, households, and critical infrastructure. Instead, it is literally being drowned.
Politicians are pursuing different visions. Instead of securing existing energy resources, they are promoting the expansion of intermittent power generation from wind turbines and solar farms, as well as its storage in battery storage systems. A recent example is Hamburg's largest battery storage facility, which went into operation in April 2026 amidst considerable media attention. It
stores a mere five megawatt-hours of electrical energy, which is just enough to power an average five-person household for a year.
To even remotely store the thermal energy content of the Hambach coal in such lithium-ion batteries, around 556 million such systems would be needed. These would weigh 23.3 billion tons and cost €1.39 trillion. That's equivalent to 310 years of Germany's gross domestic product. This is not a viable alternative; it's suicide by a long shot. It's madness. Incidentally, producing a battery weighing 23.3 billion tons would be neither environmentally friendly nor climate-neutral. That's equivalent to 2.31 million Eiffel Towers. The "energy transition" is physically and financially impossible; we might as well rely on energy from unicorn farts.
The decision to flood the mine follows no logic whatsoever, but only an ideological agenda. The red-black-green state governments in North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal government, also controlled by the left-green unity party, decided on a coal phase-out by 2030, even though the technical and economic lifespan of the plants and reserves would have been significantly longer. The EU leadership is also pursuing the goals of "climate neutrality" and "net zero." So, instead of filling in the remaining pit or keeping it open for possible future use, it will be flooded with billions of cubic meters of Rhine water to prevent any excavator from ever reaching the coal again.
This move fits seamlessly into the insane overall picture of German energy policy. First, power plants are blown up, then the reserves are rendered unusable, thus cementing dependence on imported electricity and volatile "renewables." Security of supply is sacrificed for the deceitful mantra of climate neutrality. The lignite from Hambach was one of the densest and most reliable energy sources Europe has ever had. Left-wing politicians are replacing this reliability with a system that can collapse on any windless, dark winter day, and then hope that neighboring countries will supply electricity.
If, besides the demolition of the power plants, another symbol were needed for the complete madness of left-wing green energy policy, Hambach is that symbol. The country's largest battery is being destroyed. The citizens will foot the bill when the lights go out. Incidentally, if Austria thinks it's in a different situation than Germany simply because it has pumped-storage power plants, they're mistaken. Electricity only covers a little less than a quarter of the country's total energy needs. Converting the remaining three-quarters to pumped-storage power plants would be quite a challenge, to put it mildly, given the lack of mountains in eastern Austria. Austria, too, needs reliable alternative energy sources that provide electricity at all times. Austria, too, needs oil and gas. Coal. Or it will have to abandon its aversion to nuclear power.
) and the LNG tanker from the US got stuck in the ice. Then the rescue ship also got stuck and needed to return for repairs.
. Except that maybe Russia will stop all deliveries of gas to Europe, against the plan of the EU to stop it in 2027.
