Dutch believe in dirty coal

The highest Dutch court on Wednesday upheld a suit brought by Greenpeace and annulled the operating permit for the planned Eemshaven coal-fired power station. But Minister of Economic Affairs Maxime Verhagen and operator RWE/Essent want the plant to go on grid in 2014 once technical adjustments have been carried out. That's dumb, writes the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant: "Everyone knows you can no longer build coal-fired power plants. They are superfluous and pollute the environment, they play a major role in climate change, they are harmful to people's health and they prevent renewable energies from being developed. .. But no doubt we'll go on producing energy this way for the next 40 years. ... We can't manage a decent transition to clean energy production like the Germans and Danes have. We set up a wind turbine here and there or produce gas from chicken shit, but that's about it. Here, it's stupidity, short-sightedness and the coal industry that win out."

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