DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - The environmental protection organization BUND believes it is possible to accelerate the lignite phase-out in North Rhine-Westphalia. The state government has clearly overestimated the demand for lignite in its mining plans for the Garzweiler open-cast mine, reported the BUND state association in Düsseldorf on Friday. This was confirmed by a recent analysis by the economic research company Prognos.

"The Prognos analysis shows that the coal requirements for both electricity generation and refinement were significantly overestimated," explained BUND NRW Managing Director Dirk Jansen according to the press release. To date, not a single gram of lignite has been demanded under the village of Immerath, which was already destroyed in 2018, or under Lützerath, which was cleared in 2023.

BUND therefore expects Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens) to use her room for maneuver vis-à-vis the operator RWE when it comes to new mining permits. The state government should take a more restrictive approach to further open-cast mining development in upcoming mining permits than it has to date.

In 2022, the state and federal governments had negotiated with RWE that the coal phase-out in the Rhineland would be brought forward by eight years to 2030./tob/DP/ngu