Alarmed that nuclear curtailment has prompted German power utilities to burn its most coal in six years, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is now taking steps to restrict coal-fired power generation, which currently provides 45% of Germany’s electricity. This large excavator is seen at the Welzow-Sued opencast mine, near the eastern German town of Spremberg, where Vattenfall Europe Mining, one of Europe's largest generators of electricity, mines about 20-million tons of brown coal a year.