Hambach surface mine

The Tagebau Hambach is a large open-pit coal mine (German: Tagebau) in Niederzier and Elsdorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is operated by RWE and used for mining lignite.

The mine is on the site of the ancient Hambach Forest, which was purchased by RWE in 1978. The company then cut most of the forest down and cleared it to mine. Only 10% of the forest area remains. RWE planned to clear half of the remaining area between 2018 and 2020. This plan was met with massive protests in the autumn of 2018 and was temporarily stopped in October 2018 by the supreme administrative court of North Rhine-Westphalia (Oberverwaltungsgericht für das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen).

Having begun in 1978, the mine's operation area currently (as of end of 2017) has a size of 43.8 km², with the total area designated for mining having a size of 85 km². It is the deepest open pit mine in relation to sea level: the bottom of the pit, with up to 500 metres (1,640 ft) from the surface, is 299 metres (981 ft) below sea level, the deepest artificially made point in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The mine ceased expansion in 2020 following a government agreement to preserve the adjacent forest. RWE continues extraction within the existing boundaries, with full cessation of lignite mining planned by 2030 as part of Germany's coal phase-out. The site is being gradually transformed into a reclaimed landscape, including the future Hambach lake.

The open pit operator RWE, then known as Rheinbraun, initiated the permitting process for open-pit mining in 1974 and was able to commence operations in 1978. The first excavator began its work on 15 October 1978. This was accompanied by the resettlement of local villages and towns and the largest forest area in the region, the Hambach Forest, was largely cleared. On 17 January 1984, the first brown coal was mined.

Hambach is the largest open-pit mine in Germany, with an area of 3,389 hectares (as of 2007), with an approved maximum size of 8,500 hectares. About forty million tons of lignite are produced annually in this mine. It has recently^[when?] been estimated that 1,772 million tons of lignite are still available for mining. The lignite was created from extensive forests and bogs, which developed in the Lower Rhine Bay between thirty and five million years ago. The geology of the Lower Rhine Bay is characterized by long-lasting subsidence movements in the last thirty million years, which led to the deposition of up to 1,300 m-thick sediment layers through the North Sea and many rivers. This today consists of lignite seams up to 100 m thick.

At 299 m below sea level, the deepest point of the Hambach open-pit mine forms the deepest artificial depression in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Since 1995, the giant bucket-wheel excavator Bagger 293 is used to remove the overburden. It holds several Guinness world records for terrestrial vehicles.