While the conversion of coal into electricity is about to be phased out a considerable byeffect has to be considered: gypsum is an important byproduct of coal power plants that is extracted by flue-gas desulfurization (FGD). Experts caution about a foreseeable lack of gypsum which is widely used in construction, writes WELT:
There is broad social and political consensus on phasing out coal-fired power generation. Hopefully, we will still find out where the electricity will come from on windless winter nights. But another substance will also become scarce when the coal-fired power plants go out of operation: gypsum.
So far largely overlooked by the general public, it is becoming clear that the white universal building material will slip into a supply gap by the 1930s at the latest. Because today more than half of the material - exactly 55 percent in Germany - comes from flue gas desulphurisation plants (FGD). These amounts will no longer apply in the future.
It will be difficult to do without, because gypsum is almost a kind of miracle material: it can be shaped in any way, moisture-regulating, non-flammable, infinitely recyclable, mineral. It's found in countless uses. Only rarely in medicine, where for bone fractures instead of the legendary plaster leg, other solutions with plastic splints are often used.
