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Resources, Environment and Energy Policies |
í Pe
ekkováFaculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43 Praha 2, Czech Republic
Czechoslovakia, following the communist takeover in 1948, became a member of the former East European COMECON group of countries. Its industrial potential, together with the heavy industry of the former USSR, represented a strategic base for the whole communist block. Concentration on production, with a high energy consumption, created a considerably higher demand for energy raw materials, namely brown coal in the case of Czechoslovakia. Production increased about five times with respect to 1937 levels, whereas the production of bituminous coal increased by only 80%. This created a considerable depletion of coal reserves. Consequently, only 1.9 Gt of mineable reserves of bituminous coal and about 3.1 Gt of brown coal reserves were registered in the former Czechoslovakia by 1 January 1992. These mineable reserves, recorded in the energy balance, can be divided into reserves in recently mined coal deposits and those occurring in the so-called reserve coal fields. The actual volume of mineable reserves in operating mines is equivalent to 822.7 Mt of bituminous coal and 1799.4 Mt of brown coal. Mineable reserves of brown and bituminous coal in the operating mines and open pits of the Czech Republic will be exhausted in the years 2027 and 2031, respectively, taking into consideration both the present and anticipated future production and recovery of coal.
