The subject of preventing climate change will top the agenda in coming years: around the globe. We are aware of our responsibility, being one of the big CO₂ emitters, and we are facing up to this responsibility. In this respect, we feel it is important to point out that nuclear energy is making an indispensable contribution toward climate protection. Besides that, we will use all our might to push ahead with innovations in the area of fossil-fired power plants and accelerate developments able to have a sustainable effect on the prevention of climate change. The focus for avoiding CO₂ is on the further technological development of fossil-based power stations. We are pursuing three main lines of development: 

• The big step toward a completely new power plant technology is being taken by RWE with its planned IGCC station. Here, the gasification of coal is combined with the capture of CO₂, and electricity is produced in downstream gas and steam turbines.
• With the capture of carbon dioxide from the flue gas, also referred to as CO₂ scrubbing, a process is used that will enable a sustainable lowering of emissions from existing power plants in the course of retrofit measures.

• Both projects require CO₂ sequestration, i.e. safe long-term CO₂ storage in deep rock layers, so that the development of suitable CO₂ storage facilities is another firm component of our research work.