Coal news and updates

Serbia appears to have finally committed to exiting coal.

 

Workers and miners at the Thermal Power Plant Nikola Tesla (TENT) and the Kolubara mine in central Serbia this week held a “warning protest” over a supposed letter in which the country’s ministry of mining and energy instructed the state-owned EPS power company (Elektroprivreda Srbije) to halt construction on the planned Kolubara B coal power plant.

 

Construction on the Kolubara B plant, an addition to the already existing lignite Kolubara plant, began in the 1980s but was halted in 1992. In 2012, the project was resurrected again when the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) briefly considered financing it. Then, in 2020, a preliminary agreement was signed with PowerChina but no permits have been issued yet.

 

Representatives from the Kolubara workers union toldRadio Free Europe EPS received the letter from the ministry on May 21, which stated that from 2021, Serbia’s mining sector would be slowly shut down — including the Kolubara and Kostolac mines — a process that would be complete by 2030. They claim this would leave 18,000 people out of work.

 

The authenticity of the letter has not yet been confirmed.

 

 

Source : https://emerging-europe.com/news