Turning Coalmines Into Solar Energy Plants 'Could Add 300GW of Renewables By 2030' (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0178112857
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/06/20/0129241/turning-coalmines-into-solar-energy-plants-could-add-300gw-of-renewables-by-2030
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/18/turning-coalmines-into-solar-energy-plants-renewables-gem-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.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/18/turning-coalmines-into-solar-energy-plants-renewables-gem-report
Land area of Palestine (Score:1, Interesting)
Land area of Palestine is a land area you can revise all plus 200% and shrink 80%, and continue to lean on some historian. 1/3 of Luxemburg.
Re: Number of terrorists per square mile? (Score:3)
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?
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.
Re: (Score:1)
"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
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
> ...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.
Not a production issue (Score:1)
Renewable has more to win from better storage.
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.
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
smells like greenwashing (Score:2)
I'm guessing this is much cheaper than cleaning up the rivers and restoring the land. At least it sounds environmental and creates some jobs.
Re: (Score:1)
It's pure symbolism. You can build solar panels and the land will still be poisoned, if it was poisoned before. It's not like we have a shortage of deserts with a lot of sun. The best thing to do with the coal mines if we're not going to clean them up is to cordon them off and let nature grow over them for 200 years or so.
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.
digging for photons (Score:1, Funny)
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?
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.
[1]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coal... [duckduckgo.com]
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coal+mines&t=osx&ia=images&iax=images
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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 ot
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 [1]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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Mining_Control_and_Reclamation_Act_of_1977
Re: (Score:1)
It's a pity we aren't building more wind power because with that whooshing noise from you missing the joke over your head we could make a killing
Canary too expensives (Score:2)
Before, we put canaries in coal mines.
Today those are replaced by PV panels. :)
Re: (Score:2)
They're going to use the neutrinos that penetrate.