Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier
Mining area in Germany / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier, often called the Rhenish mining area, is a lignite mining area or district in the Cologne Bay, on the northwestern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. The mining of lignite using the open pit method has had a significant impact on the landscape here and led to the formation of several important industrial sites. The area includes the Zülpicher and Jülicher Börde, the Erft lowlands and the Ville, making it the largest lignite mining area in Europe.[1] To a lesser extent clay, silica sand and loess are mined here. The area is the only active lignite mining area in what was West Germany during German partition (all other active lignite mines in Germany are in the former east) and contains the mines with the largest surface area, greatest depth (both absolute and relative to Normalhöhennull), and biggest annual output of coal.
Today, the industrial use of the coalfield with the complete value chain from coal mining to power generation is carried out exclusively by the RWE Group (via its subsidiary RWE Power). According to current planning, mining in the Rhenish lignite mining area is secured until 2030. Forecasts about future developments are difficult, as a central pillar of the German energy turnaround is a coal phase-out.