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Moorburg coal-fired power plant on the Elbe: The location for the floating terminal should be nearby (picture from 2016, still in operation at the time)
Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa
A liquid gas terminal in the port of Hamburg - the Senate of the Hanseatic city has spoken out against this.
Studies by experts showed that the size of the LNG terminal planned by the federal government could not be reconciled with the general conditions in the short term, said a spokesman for the environmental authority.
Hamburg had offered itself as a location for one of the four terminals with which the federal government wants to reduce Germany's dependence on Russian natural gas.
"It is in the national interest that all available floating units are put into operation as early as possible," Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) said in July.
Hamburg is ready to make a contribution.
According to the report, the project is opposed in particular to the necessary waterway development measures and the risk of a far-reaching closure of the southern part of the port to maritime traffic.
At the planned location of the floating platform next to the decommissioned Moorburg coal-fired power plant, large amounts of silt had to be dredged away, the NDR reported.
Hamburg had hoped that the federal government would help – but it had refused support.
According to a report by abendblatt.de, the Süderelbe should have been closed to shipping if a refueling ship had moored for unloading.
This would have been twice a week, for 24 to 48 hours each time.
Now it was said that the Senate, in coordination with the Federal Ministry of Economics, had offered to examine the stationing of a smaller LNG terminal ship.
"Due to the much smaller dimensions, many of the challenges that arise with a large LNG terminal are less," the environmental authority said.
According to the NDR report, it is still unclear what such a smaller solution could look like and when it could be implemented.
ani/dpa
