While most post-mining plans, especially for surface mines, calls for pits to be redeveloped into lakes or farm land, an increasing body of research and evidence shows that these ripped-up landscapes can be successfully transformed into clean energy gold mines—whose solar PV resource potential, unlike coal’s, is infinite. L. Michael Buchsbaum reports New lives for old mines A new study from the European Union’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) entitled Solar Photovoltaic Electricity Generation: A Lifeline for the European Coal Regions in Transition suggests that if solar PV systems were built on post-mined land, within existing mine boundaries and on rooftops in regions moving away from coal, the resulting solar energy would be roughly equivalent to the combined coal and lignite-fired generation capacity of all the power plants currently operating throughout the European Union. Coal today is mined throughout 42 regions across 12 EU countries. Additionally, coal-fired power plants generate electricity for 21 member states—accounting for almost a quarter of the EU’s overall electricity production. Combined, the 248 operational coal power plants (as of February 2019) … Continue reading Fire in the holes: Transforming mined out lands into solar plants