Big coal plant wins clearance in Germany, Greens angry : Energy Environment

Hamburg - The state of Hamburg granted regulatory approval Tuesday for one of Europe's biggest coal-fired power stations, angering the environmentalist Greens Party which had campaigned for a gas plant instead. Swedish-based utility Vattenfall has already begun construction of the 1,654-megawatt plant, which will burn imported hard coal and use river water for cooling.

The site at Moorburg in Hamburg's port has become a bugbear to European ecologists, who charge that coal is the culprit in global warming. Greens in Hamburg state's ruling coalition tried to block the project.