Inden opencast mine

Basic data
State :	North Rhine-Westphalia
Expansion:	1295  ha (as of 2009)
geographical location:	50 ° 52 '46 "  N , 6 ° 19' 21"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 52 '46 "  N , 6 ° 19' 21"  E
Approved extension:	4500  ha
Coal content:	510 million  tons
Annual amount of spoil:	80-85 million  t
Annual coal production:	20-25 million  t
Coal-overburden ratio:	1: 3.1
Approved operating time:	by 2030
Resettled people:	so far about 7,400
Residual hole :	see Indescher See

The Inden opencast mine of RWE Power AG is located in the Rhenish lignite mining area near Inden , between Eschweiler and Jülich . The annual production amounts to 22 million tons of lignite and serves exclusively to supply the Weisweiler power station . The coal seams are up to 45 meters thick. The excavation takes place with the help of bucket wheel excavators , the backfilling before the recultivation with settlers . 850 people are employed in this company. The open pit mine is expected to be exhausted by 2030 . The construction engineer Andreas Wagner is the head of the open pit mine .

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Inden opencast mine, 180 ° panorama

The Inden opencast mine has lignite reserves of currently 440 million tonnes that can still be mined. The lignite originated from extensive forests and moors that developed in the Lower Rhine Bay 30 to 5 million years ago. The geology of the Lower Rhine Bay is characterized by long-lasting subsidence movements in the last 30 million years, which have led to the deposition of up to 1,300 m thick sediment in this region through the North Sea and many rivers.

history

The open-cast mine was opened in 1957 by the brown coal and briquette works Roddergrube AG . As early as 1959, around one million tons of lignite were being mined for the power plant in Weisweiler. The dismantling was postponed between 1969 and 1981 because the production in the Zukunft-West opencast mine was sufficient for its operation. With increasing charring, the mining equipment moved from there between 1981 and 1987.

Resettlement of localities

Rhenish lignite district

Bucket wheel excavator in the Inden opencast mine

The large-scale dismantling made it necessary that some villages had to be completely abandoned and the residents relocated. In the population there was sometimes vehement resistance to this, but the resettlement is seen by the opencast mine operators as inevitable, as the coal profit from the opencast mine legally serves the public good. The Rheinbraun AG buys the land and houses of local residents in order to subsequently demolish. When the entire site is demolished, the brown coal seams will be exposed and mined.

Sometimes new localities are founded that contain the name of the old locality or name combinations such as Inden / Altdorf . The official name of Indener hamlet Inden / Altdorf with slash in Germany unique.

In the case of Inden, archaeologists are examining an entire parish with associated villages and streets for the first time in Germany - before the site is excavated . It is the parish of Geuenich with Altdorf and Inden . In contrast to the Zukunft opencast mine , where archaeological rescue excavations began too late in the parish of Lohn and were therefore “not optimal”, the investigations in Inden began in 1988, 15 years before the excavation.

Resettled localities

• Inden , former capital of the municipality of Inden - relocated in 1999 - dredged in 2005
• Altdorf , district of Inden - relocated in 1999 - dredged in 2005
• Pattern (Aldenhoven)
• Geuenich , district of Inden - already destroyed in the 17th century - dredged in 2005
• Pier , district of Inden - relocated from 2005 to 2013 - dredged in 2014.
• Pommenich , part of Pier - relocated from 2005 to 2013 - has been demolished since 2014
• Verken House , part of Pier - relocated from 2005 to 2013
• Vilvenich , part of Pier - relocated from 2005 to 2013
• Lohn, belonged to Eschweiler - moved from 1962 to 1980 - excavated in 1982
• Pützlohn, part of Eschweiler - moved from 1962 to 1972 - dredged in 1975
• Erberich, formerly Jülich (Lohn) district, today Eschweiler, dredged in 1985

See also : List of excavated towns

Reclamation

Diverted section of the Inde in a recultivated landscape

The Inden opencast mine is moving eastwards. This means that on the eastern edge of the open pit, the layers above the coal are removed until it is exposed. The overburden that arises is then backfilled on the opposite side and the landscape is recultivated, so that the open pit quasi “wanders”. Lake Indesche is to emerge after the coal has been burnt out .

Diversion of the Inde

As the Inde River crosses the mining area, a new river bed was created that has been leading the river around the open pit to the west since the end of 2005.

See also

• Indeland
• List of German lignite opencast mines
• List of active mines in Germany, section lignite opencast mines

Web links

Bucket wheel excavator with belt system

Commons : Inden open-cast mine  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Interest group for "Memorize worth living"
• Inden opencast mine: Working embankment in the area of ​​the company premises slipped , RWE Power AG press release of March 18, 2010 , accessed on April 11, 2010

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inden opencast mine at the Euregio Maas-Rhein industrial museums ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 12, 2016 
2. ↑ Bernd Päffgen, Udo Recker Research possibilities in the Rhenish lignite area - The example of the parish of Lohn. Ruralia II. Památky archeologické - Supplementum 11 (1998) ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.6 MB), p. 36f. 
3. ↑ Devastation of the Inden opencast mine ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.