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Coal power plants have the same cooling problem as nuclear power plants. And looking at some rivers in Europe at the moment the problem with power plants using water for cooling isn't just heating up rivers too much, the water levels are dangerously low to the point of some rivers almost disappearing, there are some famous examples of that in Italy this year.

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At least in Germany, lignite plants are operating on locally mined lignite, which means there is a big open-pit mine directly next to the plant.

This means that the water table needs to be drained to keep the mine dry. The pumps in many cases directly feed the excess water into the power plant.

An example is the plant Neurath, which is the second biggest coal power plant in Europe, delivering 4 gigawatts of power without use of surface water.

We'll have on in NL as well, either this year or maybe the next but it is very close to that point.

A curtailment or a dry river?

Dry river:

https://twitter.com/jmattheij/status/1550847204671295489/pho...

If the Rhine falling dry doesn't wake up the Germans then nothing will...

Indeed. It's beyond my level of understanding, as long as I've been alive this has not happened, though I understand that historically it has happened, and whenever it did it was followed by at least one year of famine.

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