Energy supply: Minister Reiche defends plans for new gas power plants

Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche defended the federal government’s plans to build new gas power plants. It takes a secure service if coal disappears from the market for climate protection reasons and because of the CO2 prize, said the CDU politician at the family business day in Berlin. “We urgently need a gas supply over a longer period of time.”

Rich rejects criticism

Reiche defended itself against allegations of lobbyism. “And when I hear and read now, the gas lobby is at work, I would like to call the critics straight away that we have to enable CO2 and CCU to be used in the same train,” she added. “If we need secure performance and want to do climate protection at the same time, we have to take care of the CO2 incurred and we will do this by departing, transporting and saving it.”

With CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), there are accrued carbon dioxide, approximately in deep layers of earth. CCU (carbon capture and utilization) means to use the greenhouse gas for other processes as raw material.

Allegations of the left and the Greens

There had been criticism of the Greens and the left. The Energy Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Tobias Goldschmidt (Greens), spoke of a “march of the gas lobby” in the “Handelsblatt”. The left-wing member of the Bundestag Lorenz Gösta Beutin accused the federal government of throwing the climate goals overboard “in favor of fossil interests”. “It is significant for the plans of this group coalition that these plans come from a former energy lobbyist such as rich,” he said.

Before returning to politics at the Association of Local Company, which represents many municipal utilities, Reiche was the chair of the energy supplier Western energy later.

In their coalition agreement, the Union and the SPD had set themselves the goal of building new gas power plants with a total output of up to 20 gigawatts.