Spremberg - Schwarze Pumpe

Schwarze Pumpe

Schwarze Pumpe (Lower Sorbian: Čorna Pumpa) is a district of Spremberg, lying approximately 7 km southwest of Spremberg's town centre on the federal state boundary between Brandenburg to Saxony. It had 1988 inhabitants as of 1 January 2006. A large industrial area extending into Saxony and including the site of a large power plant is known by the same name.

On 26 May 2006 construction work started on the world's first CO2-free coal power plant in the Schwarze Pumpe industrial district. The plant is based on a concept called Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), which means that carbon emissions will be captured and compressed to 1⁄500th their original volume, liquefying the gas. It will then be forced 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) below the soil into porous rock where it is believed that it will remain for thousands of years without exacerbating global warming. The project, which has cost some 70 million Euros, was funded entirely by the Swedish company Vattenfall AB and will go into service in September 2008. The power plant is a pilot project to serve as a prototype for future full-scale power plants.

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