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72-582: The shareholders of the Schluchseewerk are RWE (50%), EnBW (37.5%), Energiedienst (7.5%) and Energiedienst Holding (5%) (the last two are subsidiaries of EnBW). The Schluchseewerk was founded in 1928. Its head office was in Freiburg in Rempartstraße 14–16. In 1931 Häusern Power Station joined the network. Whilst work on Witznau Power Station had to be delayed until 1943 as a result of

144-641: A consignment of LNG from Lake Charles, Louisiana , US, to a new LNG terminal on Canvey Island , in the Thames estuary in Essex, England. A 212-mile (341 km) long high-pressure trunk pipeline was built from Canvey Island to Bradford. The pipeline and its branches provided Area Gas Boards with natural gas for use in reforming processes to make town gas. A large-scale LNG reception plant was commissioned on Canvey in 1964, which received LNG from Algeria in two dedicated tankers, each of 12,000 tonnes. The slow decline of

216-406: A feedstock to chemical reactions that produce gas. The first process used was the carbonization and partial pyrolysis of coal . The off gases liberated in the high-temperature carbonization ( coking ) of coal in coke ovens were collected, scrubbed and used as fuel. Depending on the goal of the plant, the desired product was either a high quality coke for metallurgical use, with the gas being

288-496: A feedstock to manufacture town gas. These facilities utilised the chemical reaction processes described above. The rise of oil as a feedstock to manufacture town gas is shown on the graph below. The peak usage in 1968/9 and subsequent decline coincides with the availability of North Sea gas which, over the next few years, displaced town gas as a primary fuel and led to the decline of oil as a feedstock for gas making, as shown. Oil-based town gas production, millions of therms By

360-683: A majority stake in the lignite company Braunkohlen- und Briketwerke Roddergrube AG. In 1923, it acquired its founder company EAG. Three years later, the company acquired a stake in Rheinische Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft (Rheinelektra) and became a shareholder in the newly established Ruhrgas gas company in exchange of its gas grid. In 1927, RWE and Prussia swapped their holdings in the Brunswick and Cologne coalfields and RWE became an owner of Braunkohlen-Industrie AG Zukunft. In 1932, RWE acquired

432-649: A majority stake in the coal company Rheinische Aktiengesellschaft für Braunkohlenbergbau (Rheinbraun). In 1936, it acquired Niederrheinische Braunkohlenwerke AG, an operator of the Frimmersdorf Power Plant . On 1 May 1933, the executive board including Ernst Henke joined the NSDAP as a unified body. Since autumn 1943, the Essen state police had been investigating Wilhelm Ricken, RWE's technical director and designated general director, for "subversion of

504-406: A producer (generator), carburettor and a super heater connected in series with gas pipes and valves. During a make run, steam would be passed through the generator to make blue water gas. From the generator the hot water gas would pass into the top of the carburettor where light petroleum oils would be injected into the gas stream. The light oils would be thermocracked as they came in contact with

576-443: A result of the assets swap with RAG AG , RWE gave away its stake in the power company STEAG . It received almost full control of the renewable energy company Harpen AG. The full control of Harpen was achieved in 2005. In 2003, RWE also achieved full control over Thyssengas. In the same year, it decided to divest its American coal company Consol Energy . In 2011, RWE unbundled its transmission system by selling its majority stake in

648-482: A separate company named Innogy , which is listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange . The new entity combined RWE subsidiaries RWE Innogy, RWE Deutschland, RWE Effizienz, RWE Vertrieb and RWE Energiedienstleistungen. In March 2018, it was announced that E.ON will acquire Innogy in a complex €43 billion deal of assets swap with RWE. As a result, RWE will take a 16.7% stake in E.ON. Following

720-400: A side product, or the production of a high quality gas, with coke being the side product. Coke plants are typically associated with metallurgical facilities such as smelters or blast furnaces , while gas works typically served urban areas. A facility used to manufacture coal gas, carburetted water gas (CWG), and oil gas is today generally referred to as a manufactured gas plant (MGP). In

792-580: A source of important findings which supported the design and operation of commercial nuclear reactors. RWE's nuclear operations started in 1961, when RWE and Bayernwerk (now part of E.ON ) started to build the first German industrial nuclear reactor—the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant . In 1962, they started to build the Gundremmingen Nuclear Power Plant. In 1965, at the request of the surrounding municipalities,

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864-538: A subsidiary of Thames Water. In 2006, RWE sold Thames Water to Kemble Water Limited, a consortium led by Macquarie Group . RWE previously owned American Water , the United States' largest investor-owned water utility, but this was divested in 2008. In 2002, RWE acquired the British electricity and gas utility company Innogy for £3 billion (US$ 4.3 billion). Innogy was subsequently renamed RWE npower plc. As

936-400: A wide variety of feedstocks in some mixture of air, oxygen, or steam, to reduce the latter to hydrogen and carbon monoxide although some destructive distillation may also occur. Manufactured gas can be made by two processes: carbonization or gasification . Carbonization refers to the devolatilization of an organic feedstock to yield gas and char . Gasification is the process of subjecting

1008-617: A €2.6 billion compensation payment to RWE to phase out lignite in the Rhine region. No details of the deal, or its timing, have been released. RWE operates in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The group is organized around four core areas: In addition to these core areas, there is a Coal/Nuclear segment. In the UK, RWE fully owns RWE Generation UK plc., which operates a number of natural gas and renewable energy power stations across

1080-664: Is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen . It generates and trades electricity in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the United States. In July 2020, RWE completed a far-reaching asset swap deal with E.ON first announced in 2018, whereby the international renewable generation portfolio of E.ON and Innogy were transferred to RWE. The company was founded in Essen in 1898, as Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk Aktiengesellschaft (Rhenish-Westphalian Power Plant) by Elektrizitäts-Actien-Gesellschaft vorm. W. Lahmeyer & Company (EAG) and others. The full name

1152-614: Is around 2 million m of crude oil (about 365,000 BOE ) ) and 3 billion m of natural gas (about 18 million BOE, 49,300 BOE) a day. In March 2015, RWE closed the sale of RWE Dea to a group led by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman despite opposition from UK regulators. The $ 5.6 billion deal, announced in 2014, required approval from 14 countries where RWE Dea operates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. On 1 April 2016, RWE transferred its renewable, network and retail businesses into

1224-488: Is demonstrated in this graph. Coal-based town gas production, millions of therms New technologies for manufacturing coal gas using oil, refinery tail gases, and light distillates were developed. Processes included the Lurgi Process , catalytic reforming , the catalytic rich gas process, steam reforming of rich gas, and the gas recycle hydrogenator process. The catalytic rich gas process used natural gas as

1296-474: Is highly toxic . Other compositions contain additional calorific gases such as methane , produced by the Fischer–Tropsch process , and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen . Prior to the development of natural gas supply and transmission—during the 1940s and 1950s in the United States and during the late 1960s and 1970s in

1368-449: Is now a restored gasworks museum). The Portadown site has been cleared and is now the subject of a long-term experiment into the use of bacteria for the purpose of cleaning up contaminated industrial land. As well as requiring little processing before use, natural gas is non-toxic; the carbon monoxide (CO) in town gas made it extremely poisonous, accidental poisoning and suicide by gas being commonplace. Poisoning from natural gas appliances

1440-460: Is only due to incomplete combustion, which creates CO, and flue leaks to living accommodation. As with town gas, a small amount of foul-smelling substance ( mercaptan ) is added to the gas to indicate to the user that there is a leak or an unlit burner, the gas having no odour of its own. The organisation of the British gas industry adapted to these changes, first, by the Gas Act 1965 by empowering

1512-507: Is shown in the graph below. Until 1968 this was from supplies of LNG from Algeria, until North Sea gas was available from 1968. Natural gas available, millions of therms The exploitation of the North Sea gas reserves , entailing landing gas at Easington , Bacton and St Fergus made viable the building of a national distribution grid, of over 3,000 miles (4,800 km), consisting of two parallel and interconnected pipelines running

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1584-526: Is threatened by the planned expansion of one of the group's coal mines . RWE also operates some of the largest coal-fired power stations in Europe. In 2018, RWE was the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe. Since 2012, environmentalists have protested against RWE because of the Hambach surface mine situated in the area of Hambach Forest . In November 2017, in the lawsuit filed by Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND),

1656-698: The Great Depression , work on Waldshut Power Station was completely halted in 1944 due to the Second World War Not until 1951 (six years after the end of the war) was the power station finished. Both projects involved the engineer and, later, federal service cross ( Bundesverdienstkreuzträger ) holder, Erich Pfisterer. In 1951, the company picked up plans for the Wutach Dam and expanded them comprehensively. For nature conservation and environmental reasons as well as widespread opposition by

1728-530: The Urenco Group with E.ON . The remaining stakes are held by the British and Dutch governments, with one-third each. In 2019, RWE produced a total of 153.2 TWh of electricity from the following sources: 33.2% natural gas , 32% lignite , 13.8% nuclear power , 10.7% renewables , 9.3% hard coal and 1.2% pumped storage . In 2019, the company generated 88.1 Mt of CO 2. Electricity production at

1800-399: The 1850s by Sir William Siemens . The incandescent fuel bed would be alternately blasted with air followed by steam. The air reactions during the blow cycle are exothermic, heating up the bed, while the steam reactions during the make cycle, are endothermic and cool down the bed. The products from the air cycle contain non-calorific nitrogen and are exhausted out the stack while the products of

1872-432: The 1860s. Gas oil (an early form of gasoline) was the flammable waste product from kerosene refining, made from the lightest and most volatile fractions (tops) of crude oil. In 1875 Thaddeus S. C. Lowe invented the carburetted water gas process. This process revolutionized the manufactured gas industry and was the standard technology until the end of manufactured gas era. A CWG generating set consisted of three elements;

1944-747: The 1920s, Bonn , Cologne , Krefeld , Duisburg , and Düsseldorf also became shareholders and municipalities owned the majority of RWE's shares. In 1925, the Prussian state became a shareholder in RWE. In 1929, municipalities and the Rhine Province combined their shareholdings into a holding company Kommunale Aufnahmegruppe für Aktien GmbH. In 1920, RWE acquired Niedersächsische Kraftwerke AG, located in Osnabrück . In 1922, it expanded its coal business by acquiring three anthracite mines in Essen and

2016-428: The 1960s, manufactured gas, compared with its main rival in the energy market, electricity, was considered "nasty, smelly, dirty and dangerous" (to quote market research of the time) and seemed doomed to lose market share still further, except for cooking where its controllability gave it marked advantages over both electricity and solid fuel. The development of more efficient gas fires assisted gas to resist competition in

2088-598: The 1990s, RWE acquired a number of assets in the former East Germany , including stakes in the mining company Lausitzer Braunkohle AG (LAUBAG) and the power company VEAG. In 2000, RWE and VEW merged to create a "new" RWE, and stakes in LAUBAG and VEAG (now both merged into Vattenfall Europe ) were sold to avoid competition violation. In 2001, RWE took over the British company Thames Water . In 2002, it acquired American Water Works Company, based in New Jersey, which became

2160-505: The Czech gas transmission network operator, for €1.6   billion to a consortium consisting of Allianz and Borealis . The company (named Transgas A.S. then) was privatized to RWE in 2002. In the 2000s, RWE also acquired energy companies in Poland (STOEN S.A.) and Slovenia (VSE a.s). It also owned RWE Dea (now DEA AG ), which produced some of the oil and gas RWE sold (annual production

2232-590: The Gas Council to acquire and supply gas to the twelve area gas boards . Then, the Gas Act 1972 formed the British Gas Corporation as a single commercial entity, embracing all the twelve area gas boards, allowing them to acquire, distribute and market gas and gas appliances to industrial commercial and domestic customers throughout the UK. In 1986, British Gas was privatised and the government no longer has any direct control over it. During

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2304-794: The German arm of Friends of the Earth , the Higher Administrative Court in Münster ruled to end the tree cutting. According to BUND, Hambach Forest is a habitat type 9160 of annex I of the European Habitats Directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992). Opponents also argue that an environmental impact assessment study for the mine was never conducted. The Administrative Court in Cologne denied

2376-408: The German branch of RWE had the following environmental implications in 2006: 700 μg/kWh radioactive waste and 752 g/kWh CO 2 emissions . In 2007, the company ranked between the 28th and the 29th place of emitters by country. RWE has long been among the top targets of climate activists, in part as a result of a long-running, high-profile battle to preserve a forest in western Germany that

2448-567: The Karnap power plant in Essen started to burn domestic waste. In 1969, RWE acquired a stake in Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-Aktiengesellschaft which allowed its expansion into the oil industry. However, in 1974, it was sold to VEBA AG . In 1971, founded Gesellschaft für elektrischen Straßenverkehr , a company to develop an electric car for commercial scale production. The prototype presented in 1983

2520-487: The LNG plant on Canvey. The Fuel Policy White Paper of 1967 (Cmd. 3438) pointed the industry in the direction of building up the use of natural gas speedily to 'enable the country to benefit as soon as possible from the advantages of this new indigenous energy source'. As a result, there was a 'rush to gas' for use in peak load electricity generation and in low grade uses in industry. The growth in availability of natural gas

2592-718: The Reisholz Power Plant and acquired a stake in the tram company Süddeutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft AG. RWE also started to build its own gas supply network in 1909. Deliveries of coal gas to the Bergisches Land region started in 1912. In 1914, RWE opened Vorgebirgszentrale power plant in Hürth . By 1920, the plant had installed capacity of 190 megawatts, which made it the largest in Europe. Before World War I , municipalities of Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr , and Gelsenkirchen , became shareholders in RWE. By

2664-484: The Second World War as petroleum shortages forced Nazi Germany to develop the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis to produce synthetic fuel for aircraft and tanks. The by-products of coal gas manufacture included coke , coal tar , sulfur and ammonia and these were all useful products. Dyes, medicines such as sulfa drugs , saccharine , and dozens of organic compounds are made from coal tar. The coal used, and

2736-1068: The UK. RWE's last coal-fired power station in the UK, Aberthaw Power Station in South Wales, was closed in March 2020. The company owns the gas-fired power stations Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire, Pembroke in West Wales, Little Barford in Bedfordshire, Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and Didcot 'B' Station in Oxfordshire. It has previously closed its Didcot 'A' Power Station in Oxfordshire, Littlebrook Power Station in Kent, Fawley Power Station in Hampshire, and Tilbury Power Station in Essex. RWE jointly owns one third of

2808-477: The United Kingdom and Australia—almost all gas for fuel and lighting was manufactured from coal. Town gas was supplied to households via municipally owned piped distribution systems. Sometimes, this was called syn gas , in contrast to natural gas. At the time, a frequent method of committing suicide was the inhalation of gas from an unlit oven. With the head and upper body placed inside the appliance,

2880-541: The Volksgerichtshof (People's Court), partly because of his statement that "the war would end like 1918". On 2 May 1944, Wilhelm Ricken was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee. In 2015, a " stumbling block " was placed at this final address in Essen to commemorate Ricken's fate. During World War II, the infrastructure owned by RWE was severely damaged but mostly repaired by 1948. In 1952, the company

2952-642: The Wehr underground power station and the Wehra and Hornberg Basins were added to the system. Due to renovation work the level of the Schluchsee was lowered in 1983, which brought numerous onlookers to the reservoir. Since 2004, the Schluchseewerk has had the engineering and business operating lead for the Albbruck-Dogern Power Station . This run-of-the-river hydroelectric power station

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3024-616: The coal gas, but would leave behind a crumbly, low-quality coke not suitable for metallurgical processes. Coal or coke oven gas typically had a calorific value between 10 and 20 megajoules per cubic metre (270 and 540 Btu/cu ft); with values around 20 MJ/m (540 Btu/cu ft) being typical. The advent of electric lighting forced utilities to search for other markets for manufactured gas. MGPs that once almost exclusively produced lighting gas shifted their efforts towards supplying gas for heating and cooking, and even refrigeration and cooling. Fuel gas for industrial use

3096-507: The concentrated carbon monoxide would kill quickly. Sylvia Plath famously ended her life with this method. Originally created as a by-product of the coking process, its use developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries tracking the Industrial Revolution and urbanization . By-products from the production process included coal tars and ammonia , which were important raw materials (or "chemical feedstock ") for

3168-478: The dye and chemical industry with a wide range of artificial dyes being made from coal gas and coal tar. Facilities where the gas was produced were often known as a manufactured gas plant (MGP) or a gasworks . In the United Kingdom the discovery of large reserves of natural gas, or sea gas as it was known colloquially, in the Southern North Sea off the coasts of Norfolk and Yorkshire in 1965 led to

3240-459: The early years of MGP operations, the goal of a utility gas works was to produce the greatest amount of illuminating gas. The illuminating power of a gas was related to amount of soot -forming hydrocarbons ("illuminants") dissolved in it. These hydrocarbons gave the gas flame its characteristic bright yellow color. Gas works would typically use oily bituminous coals as feedstock. These coals would give off large amounts of volatile hydrocarbons into

3312-482: The era of North Sea gas , many of the original cast iron gas pipes installed in towns and cities for town gas were replaced by plastic . As reported in the DTI Energy Review 'Our Energy Challenge' January 2006 North Sea gas resources have been depleted at a faster rate than had been anticipated and gas supplies for the UK are being sought from remote sources, a strategy made possible by developments in

3384-665: The expensive conversion or replacement of most of Britain's gas cookers and gas heaters, from the late 1960s onwards, the process being completed by the late 1970s. Any residual gas lighting found in homes being converted was either capped off at the meter or, more usually, removed altogether. As of 2023, some gas street lighting still remains, mainly in central London and the Royal Parks. The production process differs from other methods used to generate gaseous fuels known variously as manufactured gas , syngas , Dowson gas, and producer gas . These gases are made by partial combustion of

3456-430: The fuel gas by enriching it with CO and hydrogen (H 2 ) produced by water gas reactions. Producer gas has a very low calorific value of 3.7 to 5.6 MJ/m (99 to 150 Btu/cu ft); because the calorific gases CO/H 2 are diluted with much inert nitrogen (from air) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) (from combustion) The problem of nitrogen dilution was overcome by the blue water gas (BWG) process, developed in

3528-497: The gas-using equipment of almost thirteen million domestic, four hundred thousand commercial, and sixty thousand industrial customers were converted. Many dangerous appliances were discovered in this exercise and were taken out of service. The UK town gas industry ended in 1987 when operations ceased at the last town gas manufacturing plants in Northern Ireland (Belfast, Portadown and Carrickfergus; Carrickfergus gas works

3600-622: The industry produced) to marketing management (meeting the needs and desires of customers) and the lifting of an early moratorium preventing nationalised industries from using television advertising , saved the gas industry for long enough to provide a viable market for what was to come. In 1959 the Gas Council in Great Britain demonstrated that liquid natural gas (LNG) could be transported safely, efficiently and economically over long distances by sea. The Methane Pioneer shipped

3672-498: The length of the country. This became the National Transmission System . All gas equipment in Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland) was converted (by the fitting of different-sized burner jets to give the correct gas/air mixture) from town gas to natural gas (mainly methane ) over the period from 1967 to 1977 at a cost of about £100 million, including writing off redundant town gas manufacturing plants. All

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3744-597: The local population, the project was axed in 1960 by the state government. In 1967 the Säckingen underground power station , which was fed by the Eggberg Basin , was added to the network. At the same time the Kühmoos load balancing and power switching station ( Lastverteilung/Schaltanlage Kühmoos ) was opened as a control centre for all Schluchseewerk-operated pumped storage hydroelectric power stations . In 1976,

3816-410: The market for room heating. Concurrently a new market for whole house central heating by hot water was being developed by the oil industry and the gas industry followed suit. Gas warm air heating found a market niche in new local authority housing where low installation costs gave it an advantage. These developments, the realignment of managerial thinking away from commercial management (selling what

3888-455: The military". The then First Mayor of Essen, Just Dillgardt, who was also second chairman of RWE's supervisory board, had reported Ricken to the state police. Previously, he had received a tip from the then commercial director and fellow board member of Ricken, Friedrich Praedel. This "board member" of RWE is said to have pushed Dillgardt to press charges. Wilhelm Ricken was then arrested on 20 October 1943, and sentenced to death on 8 March 1944, by

3960-552: The necessity of such a study in November 2017, because the permission for the mining operations was given in the 1970s, long before environmental impact assessment studies became mandatory. In October 2018, an estimated 50,000 protesters turned out against the company's planned continued forest clear-cutting for its open-pit coal mine expansion while a court order delayed the process until at least late 2020, to explore if it violated EU environmental regulations. In September 2021, it

4032-467: The purchase of E.ON's renewables business and nuclear electricity generation assets, RWE is expected to become Europe's third-largest renewable energy provider behind Spain's Iberdrola and Italy's Enel , and the second-largest in the market for offshore wind power. On 1 December 2023, it was agreed that RWE would be part of an £11 billion investment in the UK's Dogger Bank wind farm project. The German government received EU approval in late 2023 for

4104-473: The steam cycle are kept as blue water gas. This gas is composed almost entirely of CO and H 2 , and burns with a pale blue flame similar to natural gas. BWG has a calorific value of 11 MJ/m (300 BTU/cu ft). Blue water gas lacked illuminants; it would not burn with a luminous flame in a simple fishtail gas jet as existed prior to the invention of the gas mantle in the 1890s. Various attempts were made to enrich BWG with illuminants from gas oil in

4176-449: The technologies of pipelaying that enable the transmission of gas over land and under sea across and between continents . Natural gas is now a world commodity . Such sources of supply are exposed to all the risks of any import. Monty Python parodied the conversion from coal to North Sea gas, and the jumping through hoops some encountered, in their "New Cooker Sketch," as part of the episode that began its second series in 1970. Coal gas

4248-403: The town gas and by-products produced, by the major three gas companies of London are summarised in the table. Coke is used as a smokeless fuel and for the manufacture of water gas and producer gas . Coal tar was subjected to fractional distillation to recover various products, including Used in the manufacture of sulfuric acid Used in the manufacture of fertilisers Coal gas

4320-540: The town gas industry in the UK was driven by the discovery of natural gas by the drilling rig Sea Gem , on 17 September 1965, some forty miles off Grimsby , over 8,000 feet (2,400 m) below the seabed. Subsequently, the North Sea was found to have many substantial gas fields on both sides of the median line defining which nations should have rights over the reserves. In a pilot scheme customers on Canvey Island were converted from town gas to natural gas supplied from

4392-646: The tramway companies Bochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahn AG and Rheinische Bahngesellschaft AG. In 1908, RWE signed demarcation contracts with Städtische Elektrizitätswerk Dortmund and Elektrizitätswerk Westfalen AG. Together they created Westfälische Verbands-Elektrizitätswerk AG. RWE contributed to the newly established company by its power station in Dortmund–Kruckel and the supply grid in Witten/Dortmund. Later all these companies formed Vereinigte Elektrizitätswerke Westfalen AG (VEW). In 1909, RWE opened

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4464-418: The transmission system operator Amprion (RWE Transportnetz Strom GmbH), but keeping 25.1% in the company. On 14 August 2012, RWE AG announced that the company would cut 2,400 more jobs to reduce costs. Previously the company had announced to eliminate 5,000 jobs and 3,000 jobs through divestments as anticipated of closing all nuclear reactors by 2022. In August 2013, RWE completed the disposal of NET4GAS,

4536-447: The user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous fuels produced for sale to consumers and municipalities. The original coal gas was produced by the coal gasification reaction, and the burnable component consisted of a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in roughly equal quantities by volume. Thus, coal gas

4608-399: The white hot checkerwork fire bricks inside the carburettor. The hot enriched gas would then flow into the superheater, where the gas would be further cracked by more hot fire bricks. Following the Second World War the slow recovery of the British coal mining industry led to shortages of coal and high prices. The decline of coal as a feedstock for town gas production using carbonisation

4680-539: Was excluded from the Allies' control. In 1957, RWE acquired the coal company Neurath AG. RWE and the Bavarian state-owned 'Bayernwerk' joined forces to build Germany's first industrial nuclear reactor . The Kahl experimental nuclear power plant (15 megawatts), constructed right next to RWE's Dettingen hard coal fired power plant, supplied its first electricity in 1962. Until its closure in 1985, this plant would serve as

4752-566: Was expanded in December 2009 by a weir power station and delivers an average of 650 million kilowatt-hours of power per year. The reservoir of this Rhine power station uses the Waldshut Power Station as a lower reservoir . Head office was moved in late 2006 to Laufenburg (Baden) . 47°33′27″N 8°02′44″E  /  47.55737°N 8.04542°E  / 47.55737; 8.04542 RWE Europe RWE AG

4824-455: Was initially manufactured by independent companies but in the United Kingdom many of these later became municipal services . In 1948 there was a total of 1,062 gas undertakings. Both the private companies, about two-thirds of the total, and the municipal gas undertakings, about one-third, were nationalised under the Gas Act 1948 . Further restructuring took place under the Gas Act 1972 . For further details see British Gas plc . Apart from in

4896-414: Was made using producer gas technology. Producer gas is made by blowing air through an incandescent fuel bed (commonly coke or coal ) in a gas producer. The reaction of fuel with insufficient air for total combustion produces carbon monoxide (CO); this reaction is exothermic and self-sustaining. It was discovered that adding steam to the input air of a gas producer would increase the calorific value of

4968-430: Was produced in cooperation with Volkswagen and named City-Stromer . In 1988, RWE again expanded into the oil industry by acquiring Deutsche Texaco, formerly known as Deutsche Erdoel AG, which was renamed RWE-DEA AG für Mineralöl und Chemie (RWE-DEA). RWE was reorganized to hold energy, mining and raw materials; petroleum and chemicals; waste management; mechanical and plant engineering; and construction divisions. In

5040-506: Was revealed that RWE are among a number of fossil fuel companies suing governments for enacting green policies against climate change . RWE are suing the Dutch government for $ 1.6bn following their move to phase out and shut down coal power plants. Between 2000 and 2007, RWE was the main kit sponsor of German Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen . Coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to

5112-469: Was used to power several historic balloon ascents in the 19th century (see The Aeronauts ). In many ways, Germany took the lead in coal gas research and carbon chemistry. With the labours of August Wilhelm von Hofmann , the whole German chemical industry emerged. Using the coal gas waste as feedstock, researchers developed new processes and synthesized natural organic compounds such as Vitamin C and aspirin . The German economy relied on coal gas during

5184-490: Was used until 1990 when it was renamed to RWE AG. Its first power station started operating in Essen in 1900. In 1902, EAG sold its shares to a consortium formed by Ruhr industrialists Hugo Stinnes and August Thyssen . In 1906, it expanded its operations beyond Essen by acquiring Elektrizitätswerk Berggeist AG in Brühl , and Bergische Elektrizitätswerke GmbH, Solingen . During the same year, it also acquired shareholdings in

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