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Tom Hegen
View to the bottom of an open-pit lignite mine in eastern Germany
A coal storage site in northern Germany.
Coal bed in a lignite mine, western Germany. 2020. From the open door of a helicopter, photographer Tom Hegen took this series. They show opencast mining areas in western and eastern Germany. Lignite is mined there, from which power plants generate electricity for more than five million households and district heating. Because the coal lies at depths of up to 500 meters, excavators first remove all the earth above it. For every ton of lignite, around six tons of soil, gravel, sand and clay are excavated. Because lignite combustion releases a lot of climate-damaging CO2 gas, the German government has decided to end it. By 2038 at the latest, the last German coal-fired power plant is to be closed and lignite will no longer be mined.
Angular and symmetrical, excavation and storage sites can suggest artistry, even beauty. Hegen says his images are intended to command attention, not airbrush destruction
During and after mining, water runoff can carry toxic concentrations of minerals into drainage ponds. The minerals have been shown to contaminate groundwater.
At this coal mine near Dresden, Germany— as at others around the world—excavators move thousands of tons of soil, gravel, and clay to reach fossil fuel deposits.