Mine number 7 is the last working Norwegian mine in Svalbard archipelago.
It will close permanently next summer.
It's part of the authorities plan to switch to alternative
energy sources.
When I started working in the mine, we were supposed to be doing it to
2045 around and just a year later
we were told that we were closing.
Right now I'm calm about it.
Don't try not to think too much about it.
All miners and maintenance staff are set to lose their jobs.
The closure of Mine Seven was scheduled for 2023, but due to
the war in Ukraine and rising energy prices, that was pushed back.
To 2025.
Every year the mine produced about 30,000 tons for heating
the archipelago's capital long year beyond,
and another 80,000 tonnes for the needs of the metallurgical and
chemical industries in Europe, including Germany.
Last autumn, however, Longia Bien abandoned
Kohl and switched its only power plant to diesel.
According to Mayor Terrio Onivic, this is the first stage of the energy transition.
Due to the use of coal.
About 70,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted into the atmosphere
every year and the town needed to find something more efficient.
I know it sounds a bit weird because we go from
fossil fuels to fossil fuels, but diesel is a good first step
because it's more get it, get its more flexible
and we have invested in a new Battery Park to stabilise it and that makes
it also easier for us to face in renewables like wind and sun.
The direct green transition in Svalbard is handled by Mons Ole Sellevold,
an employee of the state owned company store in Noshka.
The company has been mining coal and Svalbard for 100 years and
is now investing in green energy.
Monsoon's projects are a solar panel park outside Longyearbyen at a place
called Isførd Radio, as well as solar panels in the settlement itself.
The projects are now in the test phase.
Polar Knight in winter changes to Polar Day in Svalbard in spring,
so the solar panels are ideal for the energy transition, says Monts.
So behind me here you see one of the six, one of the six solar
facilities we have built
the last years in Longyearbyen.
On the building called the Polar Centre, it's a combined hotel and
office building, so we have a good solar panels on almost
all of the roof.
It's like curved roof, It's quite cool actually.
Svalbard has a special status enshrined in a treaty from 1920.
Along with Norway, Russia is also a player in Svalbard through
the Arktikugol Trust in the Russian enclave of Barentsburg.
The Russians, unlike the Norwegians, plan to continue developing
their minds, although coal production will decline there as well.
At the moment they are producing 120,000 tons per year and by
the end of 2032, coal mining in the archipelago as
a whole should be reduced to 40,000 tons.
But according to the representatives of
the Norwegian State Energy Company, there are no discussions with
the Russians about developing renewable replacements.