Energieland

Summary

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

The CCS technology ("Carbon Capture and Storage") controversy has been going on for about 2 years now. The power company Vattenfall wants to implement underground compression of the exhaust gases from a test power station in Jänschwalde in East Brandenburg and needs a CCS federal law for this. Together with climate researchers, politicians and a few environmentalists, the CCS Group is fighting for the protection of the world climate and electricity as well as for massive potential exports. It wants to explore two areas for this: Birkholz-Beeskow and Neutrebbin. The opponents of the technology fear not only the risks of this compression (such as salinization of ground water and risk of a leakage), but also that the existing power system would be cemented by CCS.

"Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder" follows every minute of this controversy – from daily meetings of the citizen initiatives to the mass rallies, from the Vattenfall employee conferences, information events and press conferences to the massive PR campaigns organized by IZ Klima. When bringing forth the daily conflicts, insights are provided into the various forms of citizen protests, the (survival) struggles of a large enterprise, the opportunities and risks of implementing a technology and lastly, the difficulties in implementing local solutions in a global climate crisis. The topic CCS thus gives rise to basic questions about the development of alternative energy resources.

Source: German films Service & Marketing GmbH