point where the periods in many decades, amounts in millions of cubic
meters and sizes are shown in thousands of hectares. Dimensions thus
leading to the edge of your imagination and beyond.
For Christian Rinkens begins at this point the work. Decades, cubic
meters, hectares: for they are no more than Rinkens basis of
calculation. Numbers are being counted in formulas.
Rinkens, 18, visits the Inda-Gymnasium in Aachen Kornelimünster as
advanced courses he has chosen math and Dutch, and about a year ago,
he has begun to plan the future of the mining town of Hambach.
The Hambach opencast mine is situated between Jülich and Elsdorf
Erftkreis in the mining area is 85 square kilometers, 2.5 billion
tonnes of brown coal operator suspects that RWE Power AG, in the soil.
Transported to the days they are of the largest excavators which are
in the world. By 2045 this will go like this. As long as it will
probably take until RWE has brought the whole coal from the earth.
There are different ideas about what should then happen to the open
pit. RWE plans to fill the hole with water. That would take decades
and in the end would be one of the largest and deepest lakes in
Germany arose.
Rinkens plans with two lakes, one large and one small. And unlike RWE
he wants to use the area of the mine Hambach continue to produce
energy. Even then, when the last coal was removed long ago.
Rinkens want in the open pit area, a pump storage power plant (see
box), build a project that sounds ambitious, particularly of course if
it is brought by a 18-year-olds. But Rinkens project is more than an
obsession, he has planned the whole thing within its means in detail.
This becomes clear when he clicks on the laptop through the pumped
storage power plant presentation, occasionally he looks every now and
then hold your mouse on the cable, which he kneaded between the
fingers.
It is the presentation, the "Young Scientist", he also people from
the competition has shown, in which he only just at the first place,
failed to present with whom he won the federal environmental contest
an award, combined with a mandate to expand the work further. On the
first slide is a bit of "improvement and increased use of renewable
energies" and the "invention of new, environmentally friendly
technologies," the speech. If you ask Rinkens why he has planned a
pumped storage power plant, he says: "It's about the question of how
we meet our energy needs in the future. I want more because you think
about it, more research, more investment. "
It is no coincidence that Rinkens opted for the Hambach mine. The
selection was quite large, the area in which he is called, not without
reason Rhenish lignite mining area. But the Hambach mine has a unique
feature that makes it ideal in Rinkens eyes for the construction of a
pumped storage power plant: the height of Sophie. The small hill was
filled with earth, which was dredged away in another place, to get at
the coal. Rinkens wanted to build the upper reservoir of its first
power plant to the highest point of Sophie height because it the
biggest drop height and the largest current efficiency is achieved.
From this idea has become now a variant, Rinkens has ever thought
about the height and Sophie came to the conclusion that it would be
against such a large operation at this point probably considerable
resistance. Finally, the amount Sophie has been a popular destination,
about 90 percent of its area is forested.
In the variant, the Rinkens now calls his favorite, the upper basin
lies with his pelvis volume of 25 million cubic meters of water is not
quite as high, but it is probably socially acceptable. The head of
water and the current yield is smaller, the chances of realizing
greater.
At RWE but they are still considered very low, even though company
spokesman Manfred Lang with the pumped storage power plant in Hambach
a "great idea" and called indicating that you Rinkens not think any
"spinner". Especially the storage power plants would take over a
leading role in energy supply in the future, "not for nothing that we
have already some of them," says Lang.
Not least, such a project at the end is not always a matter of
economics, business grants are also welcome at RWE. Lang also has the
"geology" out of an surface mine.
What he means white Rinkens. He also sees the geology as the biggest
challenge: "You do not know how the ground behaves when such an
enormous pressure on him." So far, pumped storage power stations were
usually built in mountainous areas, there is where the ground of solid
stone. The plan to build one of these in a former mining area, is new.
Rinkens Christian says: "So something has simply never done." It does
not sound as if it would discourage that.
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