Coal plant emissions can be cut: German lobby

The group said carbon capture and storage (CCS) and efficiency upgrades by that date would reduce usage of coal -- which when burned emits climate-harming CO2 -- in the power generation process, or heavily cut the pollution.

"Coal-to-power burning does have the potential to contribute to a long-term electricity mix which is both low in CO2 and provides supply security," the study from the Verein der Kohlenimporteure in Hamburg said.

Hard coal generation mainly fueled with imported steam coal accounts for a quarter of German electricity production, while burning brown coal from domestic mines provides another quarter.

Germany's hard coal-fired power plants are on average 30 years old and need replacing, but anti-coal lobbies are fighting to block permits at several potential sites.

The importers group said that new coal plants built now were 20 percent more efficient than the older generation and would help save 20 percent of the current CO2 emissions.

Using CCS technology, which propagators hope to be fully commercially ready from 2020, could provide the rest of the envisaged CO2 emission reductions, it said.

The study assumed that 30 percent of the plants would use CCS by 2030, 60 percent by 2040, and 100 percent by 2050.

Some skeptics say CCS may come too late and cost too much to effectively fight climate change. Environmentalists demand a total withdrawal from coal in favor of nil-carbon technologies.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert; editing by James Jukwey)