Coming from a country with fairly large domestic capacity for hydropower and no commercially viable coal resources, I tend to feel glad over not having the opposite. In most European countries with domestic coal, the transformation from a coal based energy system has been ruthless and painful and even the traditional bastion and nucleus of the Coal and Steel union, today’s EU – Germany is now finally closing their mines.

There is a strong link between coal and steel, as the modern steel processes all rely on coal/coke to reduce the oxygen in the iron ore in a blast furnace. Even countries without own ore but with a steady supply of coal often went deep into the steel business. The reformation of the process of steelmaking was initiated during the 1950’s. Enormous steel mills were built in Japan and the Italians started to exploit the modern strip-steel process in mini-mills, charged with scrap rather than ore. Oxygen processes, more high yielding ores and alternative fuels turned the market for coal somewhat problematic already in the 1950’s, but the big blew came with the post-WWII explosion of the oil supply, which transformed large parts of the energy sector. In the following twenty years to come, the coal industry all over Europe was in a deep crisis.

France and Italy, countries with insignificant own coal resources were quick in jumping onto the oil bandwagon and both countries created large, state owned oil conglomerates, fed by cheap crude from North Africa and the middle east. Other countries with large domestic coal supplies, such as Germany, Belgium, UK and Spain had deeper involvement into the coal industry and years of subsidies to “protect” the coal from the oil did not help in the long run.

Walking around this abandoned and silent village and coal industry buildings in Spain gives an insight in the problem. Casting a long shadow over the village is a huge coal fired power plant, which is also closed and abandoned. Being located far inland, away from the coast, most likely, the power plant was the only customer for the mine in the last years. Even though Spain has a fairly large steel industry, being located by the shore typically means that it is cheaper to bring in coal and coke from elsewhere than taking it the way over land.

Located in a valley, it must have been a hell of a place to live in when the mine and power plant were in operation. The soot still covers everything.
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