Turning Coalmines Into Solar Energy Plants 'Could Add 300GW of Renewables By 2030' (theguardian.com) 38
Turning recently closed coalmines into solar energy plants could add almost 300GW of renewable energy by 2030, converting derelict wastelands to productive use, according to a new report. From a report: In a first of its kind analysis, researchers from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) identified 312 surface coalmines closed since 2020 around the world, and 134 likely to close by the end of the decade, together covering 5,820 sq km (2,250 sq miles) -- a land area nearly the size of Palestine.
Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.
Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.
digging for photons (Score:3, Funny)
Re:digging for photons (Score:5, Informative)
Putting solar panels in a coal mine? I'm neither an electrical engineer nor a miner. But, like, it's pretty dark down there, right?
These are pit mines and mountaintop removal, not underground mines.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coal... [duckduckgo.com]
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And for reference China alone installed 324GW of solar in 2024, so up to 300GW by 2030 is not nothing, but unless it's very cheap it probably isn't the first place you would look to put solar panels.
Renewables not displacing coal in China (Score:2)
And for reference China alone installed 324GW of solar in 2024, so up to 300GW by 2030 is not nothing, but unless it's very cheap it probably isn't the first place you would look to put solar panels.
The problem with China is that renewables are displacing oil and natural gas, not coal. They pursue a coal first strategy to reduce costs. The only limits on coal usage is how much they can dig up or import. And they are allowed by the Paris accord to continue doing so until 2030.
Earlier in the year they claimed to have reduced coal usage, but such statements in the past did not represent an actual reduction in coal being burned. It represented the percentage of electricity generated by coal. Coal usage
Re:digging for photons (Score:4, Interesting)
it is still just industrial lobby BS. You could just truck all the local slash from construction and development projects elsewhere and the yard waste otherwise landfill bound and dump in these places. In a few decades you'll have soil again and forestation would start.
Cheap, easy and would probably do more for global temperatures than solar farm not near where the power will be used requiring probably more deforestation to put in transfer lines.
Obvously still heavily contaminated with heavy metals and other issues, so nobody will want to be living there for quite some time, but just filling the places with organic waste and letting nature take its course is simple and effective.
Landfill and restoration (Re:digging for photons) (Score:2)
I was thinking the same thing. Pit mines have requirements to restore the land they mine to at least the state it was in before. I don't know how they make up for all the volume of coal they remove but using the pit as a waste disposal landfill sounds like the obvious solution. Presumably the topsoil would have been preserved and then placed on top again as that is the most fertile and so would bring back plant life the quickest.
The fine article points to opposition to solar power because solar farms are
Panels probably cheaper than restoration (Score:2)
Re:digging for photons (Score:5, Informative)
Putting solar panels in a coal mine? I'm neither an electrical engineer nor a miner. But, like, it's pretty dark down there, right?
Except that this idea is about putting solar panels on the surface of strip mines.
There is currently a law called the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977 [wikipedia.org] that requires strip mines after 1977 to submit detailed reclamation plans and post bonds to ensure the land is restored to its approximate original contour and condition after mining. This has resulted in the reclamation of over 2.8 million acres of strip mine land, which is about double the size of the land described in the article.
Putting solar panels on reclaimed land is not necessarily a bad idea. However, the idea that all strip mine land remains unusable is not correct.
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Canary too expensives (Score:3)
Before, we put canaries in coal mines. :)
Today those are replaced by PV panels.
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They're going to use the neutrinos that penetrate.
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It ain't totally dark, or else how would the miners see what they're mining? They might need to install a few more lightbulbs to get the solar panels to put out 300 gigawatts
Land area of Palestine (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: Number of terrorists per square mile? (Score:4, Informative)
You don't have to be a supporter of the modern Palestinian movement to realize that your contention that it is merely a "nickname" created by Yasser Arafat is utter hogwash.
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"You do realize that right up until the formation of Israel, the land in question was called ... drum roll ... "British Palestine," right? And that under the Romans, the region was known as Palaestina?"
The Romans named the region "Palestina" (Palestine) after the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE) as part of a broader effort to suppress Jewish identity and connection to the land. Before this, the region was generally referred to as Judea, named after the ancient Kingdom of Judah.
The name "Palestina" is derived
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Dude, no one cares. Ethnostates are a bad thing. I live on the verge of a 'Jewish suburb' in a peaceful western country. We have Syrian cafes selling 'Arabic coffee', Lebanese cafes selling baklava. Russia orthodox churches. LGBTIQ+ centres. Sephardi synagogues alongside Ashkenazim. Churches of England.
The most visible? The Polish, Ukrainian and Hungarian ultra orthodox Jews in their traditional attire on Saturdays who came largely in the 1950s who are now raising their great grandchildren in more or less h
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"You do realize that right up until the formation of Israel, the land in question was called ... drum roll ... "British Palestine," right? And that under the Romans, the region was known as Palaestina?"
The Romans named the region "Palestina" (Palestine) after the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE)
No. The region was already called Palestine well before that, and there are literally dozens of references in the Roman and Greek literature to the name predating the second century. The Romans gave the Roman Province the name after the name of the region.
The province Judea was part of the region Palestine, the same way Boston is part of New England, or Belgium is part of Europe. Places often have different names in different contexts.
But in any case it is completely untrue that the name Palestine did not
Re:Number of terrorists per square mile? (Score:4, Informative)
Palestine is a nickname coined in the 1960s by a terrorist (Yasser Araftat) for an area of land he didn't possess, but which he was offered in full (along with East Jerusalem) and each time rejected it so he could fulfill his ultimate goal -- kill and remove all the Jews "from the river to the sea."
This is not correct. Palestine has been used in a nonstandard geographical sense for more than 2000 years. The area that is now generally referred to as Palestine was first defined in the 1920 Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations that defined the areas of Palestine and Trans-Jordan.
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> ...a land area nearly the size of Palestine...
Palestine is a nickname coined in the 1960s by a terrorist (Yasser Araftat) for an area of land he didn't possess,
Huh? Where did you learn history? Palestine has been the name for that region for thousands of years. Herodotus used the word in the 5th century BC, but it dates far back from that. When the British gave it that name when they took over in 1922, it was because they adopted the Turkish name, which the Turks took from the Romans.
The comparison with Palestine was a bad idea (Score:2)
Delaware. That's a good comparison.
I agree. The comparison with Palestine was a bad idea as the very use of that word is loaded with politics. Different people will have different ideas on what land is defined by the word "Palestine" so it is a worthless comparison. Further, given recent events, Palestine may not exist for much longer, or at least not with the same area it had at the time the article was written. The borders of Delaware are well defined, unlikely to change any time soon, and people will know how to find it on a map.
An in
Not a production issue (Score:1)
Re: Not a production issue (Score:2)
They could fill the mines with batteries. Hope they find a less combustible chemistry than what's currently in regular use.
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Renewable has more to win from better storage.
I'm quite certain renewable energy has a production problem, and this comes from the goal to get to net zero CO2 emissions. If renewable energy is going to replace fossil fuels then we are going to need a lot more of it quickly. As it is now fossil fuels make up more than half of the global electricity production: https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
If the goal is to replace fossil fuels for transportation with solar power and battery-electric vehicles then that production problem doubles.
When nuclear power
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I expect there to be mention soon of France having to reduce output at the Bugey power plant because of a heatwave. The reply to that is the number of power plants operating in far hotter places than France.
Transmission (Score:2)
Here in the US most of the coal mines, like in WV, are extremely rural and nowhere close to where the power demands are. The coal is shipped via rail and then barges (like on the Ohio / Kanawha rivers) to power plants. That infrastructure investment for transporting the energy in that manner is already in place. It doesn't make any sense to convert these mines (or what used to be mines) to solar if it requires spending a fortune on power transmission lines (which that entire process incurs conversion and tr
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This can easily be solved by using existing infrastructure. Just build rail cars that are essentially batteries, and ship them to where the demand is.
Re:Transmission (Score:4, Interesting)
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How do you know that isn't what they've been doing all along? Maybe the story of a coal mine in some remote mountainous area is just a cover story. Things that make you go hmmm...
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Here in the US most of the coal mines, like in WV, are extremely rural and nowhere close to where the power demands are. The coal is shipped via rail and then barges (like on the Ohio / Kanawha rivers) to power plants. That infrastructure investment for transporting the energy in that manner is already in place. It doesn't make any sense to convert these mines (or what used to be mines) to solar if it requires spending a fortune on power transmission lines (which that entire process incurs conversion and transmission losses).
To be fair the fine article did limit the estimates for suitable mines to those within 10 km of existing electrical infrastructure. I'm assuming that if there's a rail line to any such mine then the issue of establishing a right of way has been resolved. If the coal is brought out by trucks then there may be a right of way issue as roads can be considered temporary.
Just build solar farms closer to where power demands are. At least that is the better option in the US.
That's kind of the issue that I'm seeing they are trying to resolve. The complaint is that land near people tends to be where crops grow (bec
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Here in the US most of the coal mines, like in WV, are extremely rural and nowhere close to where the power demands are.
Meanwhile, back on Earth Prime, West Virginia is right next to the state with the fastest growing electricity demands in the country -- Virginia, land of lovers and data centers, and also Pennsylvania. Indeed the heart of the coal belt is just 200 miles from the axis of the Northeast Megapolis [slashdot.org] where one in every six Americans live. Run one very high capacity long distance transmission line to tie in to that vast grid and you are golden.
Very high capacity because that "near 300 GW" figure is over 20% of the
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smells like greenwashing (Score:2)
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but we're going to clean up the wastelands, right? (Score:2)
slapping a bunch of solar panel infrastructure across lands devastated by coal mining does not relieve us of our duty to clean up the wastelands, and charge the energy companies for such efforts.
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Those doing the open pit mining are already charged for cleaning up their mess after the mine is closed. That's been the case in the USA for decades at least.
Maybe in other nations this plan would help in cleanup and restoration of the land. There's money in producing electricity so if someone believes they can make money in putting solar panels where these pit mines are today then they can fund the effort to clean up the mess (at least partially), run the power lines, etc. so that the area isn't a wastel