Poland is suggesting that coal make a big comeback in the European Union in order to thwart Putin’s use of Natural Gas as a weapon.

“Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says the country’s giant coal fields should become a cornerstone in Europe’s defense against a newly aggressive Russia.”

(Too bad the EU has fought against fracking to the point of insanity)

But the sentence that jumped out at me is

“Poland burns over 50 million tons of coal a year, more than any European nation other than Germany, “

Wait! I thought Germany was the poster boy for green energy!

Yes indeed. BP Statistical Review of World Energy says Germany burned more coal than any other European nation and it burned 3.9% more coal in 2012 than it did in 2011.

Why? The shutdown of some of its nuclear power plants.

Country	2012	Change
Austria	2.0	-23.8%
Azerbaijan	^	3.8%
Belarus	^	1.2%
Belgium	3.0	-9.5%
Bulgaria	7.0	-13.4%
Czech Republic	16.6	-7.8%
Denmark	2.5	-23.4%
Finland	2.9	-15.1%
France	11.4	20.1%
Germany	79.2	3.9%
Greece	7.5	-0.5%
Hungary	3.0	-1.9%
Republic of Ireland	1.5	16.9%
Italy	16.2	0.3%
Kazakhstan	35.0	2.6%
Lithuania	0.2	-5.5%
Netherlands	8.5	8.2%
Norway	0.7	-0.5%
Poland	54.0	-4.0%
Portugal	2.9	31.4%
Romania	6.7	-9.5%
Slovakia	3.2	-3.5%
Spain	19.3	24.2%
Sweden	1.5	-25.7%
Switzerland	0.1	6.5%
Turkey	31.3	-5.6%
Turkmenistan	–	–
Ukraine	44.6	6.9%
United Kingdom	39.1	24.0%
Uzbekistan	1.2	-0.3%
Other Europe & Eurasia	22.2	-1.7%