No more smoke is emitted from the chimney of Norway’s last coal-fired power plant since yesterday. Photo: Marcel Schütz The end of coal: Just over 24 hours ago, an era came to a close in Longyearbyen. For decades, the power plant supplied electricity and heat...
Russian coal production in Svalbard will be reduced by two-thirds to 40,000 tonnes per year by 2032 (Photo: Arktikugol) After acquiring the rights to mine coal on Spitsbergen more than a century ago, Russia says it will reduce coal production to the minimum needed to...
The end of the Gruve 7 mine southeast of Longyearbyen should have come at the end of 2023. But the chemical company Clariant is counting on the black fuel from Svalbard’s underground for years to come. Image: Marcel Schütz The war currently raging in Ukraine...
Just opposite the main town of Longyearbyen lies the Austre Adventfjord. This area had been bought by the Norwegian state in 2017 so that the owner would not sell it to foreign nations. But the state failed to secure resource extraction rights as well. Picture:...
The company Store Norske’s mine 7 is the only Norwegian coal mine still active on Svalbard. Every year it delivers around 30,000 tonnes of coal to Longyearbyen and another 80,000 to Europe. Photo: Michael Wenger Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard, has grown...
