They install solar panels in places "nobody else wants"

For two decades, coal has been mined from a Bent Mountain mine in eastern Kentucky. But in a surprising movement in the heart of the coal country, a rival, the solar energy, getting ready to go from the front.

Appalachians in the United States in Queensland Australia and Chernobyl in Ukraine, develops or builds solar and wind parks in places that are not normally badociated with clean energyand in some areas that have long resisted.

Install solar panels on so-called industrial sites, land that is home to mines, power stations that generate emissions or that have been damaged by a nuclear disaster, It can be cheaper than decontaminating the soil and turning it into a park. At the same time, it is possible to turn environmental enemies into friends.

"Fundamentally we transform these ballasts for the community into an badet"says Chad Farrell, executive director of Encore Renewable Energy, a Vermont-based developer who is considering installing solar panels on coal ash basins in the Appalachian Mountains." They are not going to get a major badet generating income an old joke. "

Solar and wind energy was cheaper

Solar energy is already installed in the nuclear zone of Chernobyl, in an old and mbadive coal plant in Canada, and in landfills and other abandoned industrial sites in New England, where renewable energies are popular but rare earths. At the same time, the BHP Group, the world's largest mining company, is studying permits and engineering projects to turn closed sites in Arizona and New Mexico into solar and storage facilities.

Regions that have long depended on traditional sources of energy for employment and tax revenues are turning more and more towards solar and wind energy, consolidating its momentum towards the general public at a time when the coal industry is in decline. The energy produced in the United States by burning coal was reduced by 6.3% in 2018, as nearly 13 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants were shut down, according to BloombergNEF. This was only exceeded in 2015, with the closure of 15 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants.

"It's a country nobody else wants," says Jenny Chase, an badyst at BloombergNEF in Zurich.

In Queensland, Genex Power Ltd. already produces enough energy for nearly 26,500 homes on a 50 megawatt solar farm built on the disused Kidston gold mine, where the metal was discovered in the early 1900s and the activities were eventually shut down in 2001. Genex, which acquired the Barrick Gold Corp. site, is planning to open the site. add a second 270 megawatt solar generator, a 250 megawatt hydroelectric pump station and a 150 megawatt wind farm.

The pumped hydropower will utilize two existing mine pits, which use solar energy or the network during off-peak hours to move water from a lower reservoir to a second storage group. higher, then release during periods of high demand. , cascading on two turbines producing energy. During generation periods, the site will provide enough energy for about 280,000 homessays Genex executive director Simon Kidston.

How many people does it take to develop solar energy?

The transformation of Queensland, meanwhile, could breed in other historic mine sitesaccording to the Australian Clean Energy Corporation, which provided funds for the debt at the initial stage of the project. In the former Drayton coal mine in Australia, about 241 kilometers north of Sydney, Malabar Coal Ltd. plans to develop a 25 megawatt solar farm.

In eastern Kentucky, active mining activities at the Bent Mountain site will be completed by the end of summer, said Ian Krygowski, EDF Renewable Energy Development Director. , which develops a solar farm of 100 megawatts. The site, located between wooded mountains, will be the subject of recovery work to convert it into a series of trays sheltering solar energy.

Southwest Virginia

Next year, a modest 3.5 megawatt solar farm in southwestern Virginia will replace a mine which was closed in 1957. The developer Sun Tribe Solar is collaborating on the project with several groups, including the regional environmental group Appalachian Voices on the Wise County project.

"Lands are marked by the extractive industries that have been the main economic driver," said Chelsea Barnes, new director of economic programs at Appalachian Voices. "This is an important visual element to show the region that it can still produce energy, but in a way that does not degrade or pollute the Earth."

For the solar industry, construction on the site of old power plants and some abandoned mines it's an opportunity to take advantage of the existing network infrastructure. But it is also a recognition of the scarcity of the land. According to Chase of BNEF, some places limit the amount of solar energy that can be built in agricultural areas.

"The story was that these green jobs go elsewhere"Krygowski says." It is not necessary that it be like that. "