Turów Coal Mine

The Turów coal mine (Polish: Kopalnia Węgla Brunatnego Turów S.A.) or KWB Turów, is a large open pit mine in the southwest of Poland, located outside Bogatynia, Lower Silesia.

Turów coal mine

Location
Turów coal mine Turów coal mine
Location	Bogatynia
Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Country	Poland
Production
Products	Coal, Aggregates, Clay
Production	27,700,000
History
Opened	1904
Owner
Company	Polska Grupa Energetyczna

Situated 55 km west of Jelenia Góra, 80 km east of Dresden, Germany, and 20 km northwest of Liberec, Czech Republic, the Turów mine forms a part of an area widely known as the "Black Triangle" due to its past heavy industrial pollution, covering portions of eastern Germany, southwestern Poland and northern Czech Republic.[1] The Turów mine, operated by Polska Grupa Energetyczna, represents one of the largest lignite reserves in Poland, with an estimated reserve of 760 million tonnes in coal.[2] The annual coal production of Turów is around 27.7 million tonnes.

Lignite was found near Turasów in 1740. Between 1836 and 1869, almost 70 shafts were excavated. The owners of these mines organized the joint stock company Hercules in 1904, and three years later began strip mining. In 1925 the cap rock was dumped north to the mine. After the Second World War, in 1947, a Polish organization took the mine over from the Russian military administration and the KWB Turów came into existence. In 2005 its lignite resources were 429.7 x 106 t.

The mine's license was set to expire in April 2020, but in March 2020, the Polish government extended it by another six years. The company which operates the complex, PGE Group, wants to continue mining at the site until 2044, as well as expanding the site significantly. The move to expand is facing opposition from the Czech government, as nearby Czech and German communities say that the environmental impact from the mine is severely affecting their quality of life.[3]

Gallery

• 
  Mine from the south in 2019
• 
  Coal mining (2012)
• 
  Mining structures by the road on the south

References

1. "Turów Rehabilitation Project. The World's Largest CFB Repowering Project" (PDF). Foster Wheeler. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-25. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
2. "References 1950-2006" (PDF). Poltegor Engineering. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
3. "Czech Republic To Appeal To European Commission Over Polish Lignite Mining Complex". Retrieved 14 August 2020.

External links

• Official site (in Polish)

[1]

https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783642293832

1. Acidic Pit Lakes: The Legacy of Coal and Metal Surface Mines;