Energy Supply : Germany

With a primary energy consumption of 14,638 petajoules in 1996, Germany is one of the world’s largest consumers of energy. Its efforts to conserve and make rational use of energy have proved successful: Specific energy consumption, i.e. the energy required to generate one unit of gross domestic product, has decreased by about one third since the beginning of the 1 970s.

Since unification, lignite has become the principal domestic source of energy. The country’s major lignite deposits are in the Rhineland, southern Brandenburg and Saxony as well as in Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Lower Saxony. Proven recoverable reserves total 44 billion tons. Lignite was the main source of energy in the former GDR, but energy supply there was onesided and caused environmental pollution on a massive scale.