Coal miners
wary of a greener future
Amid
efforts to reskill miners in the East, money and mindset are a problem.
By ANCA
GURZU 12/18/19, 2:01 PM CET Updated 12/20/19, 4:43 AM CET
Miners push
the last coal loaded mining carriage at the end of their last shift at the coal
mine in the Romanian city of Petrila, on October 30, 2015 | Daniel
Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images
BUCHAREST —
Sebastian Tirintica descends 300 meters underground in one of Romania’s oldest
coal mines to go to work. For eight hours, he operates an industrial lift
transporting his fellow miners and materials deep under the earth.
But in a
Europe that's moving to rapidly decarbonize, it's a job without a future.
That’s why
a wind energy company offered him and a few of his colleagues a different path:
retrain as a technician to fix wind turbine blades. It’s a rare opportunity —
but he doesn’t think the new offer makes the switch worth it, so for now
Tirintica is sticking with coal.
“We all
understand that going into new fields requires sacrifices, but sometimes those
sacrifices need to be calculated,” he said.
Tirintica’s
hesitation is a sign of the enormous social challenges the EU faces in greening
the economies of the bloc’s coal-intensive regions — something that is key to
Ursula von der Leyen’s promised European Green Deal. Poland, citing the huge
costs involved, is balking at agreeing to become climate neutral by 2050. Other
countries like Romania — which have agreed to the mid-century goal — also face
major disruption.
“Both my
colleagues and I, the younger generation of miners, realize that our chances to
receive a pension by retiring from the mining industry are very small” —
Romanian coal miner Sebastian Tirintica
It’s
difficult to change people’s perspectives and reassure them, and obstacles in
accessing EU funds to help such pilot projects get off the ground make the
transition even more difficult.
Tirintica,
33, knows the coal industry is dying but he’s trying to hedge his bets.
“Both my colleagues and I, the younger
generation of miners, realize that our chances to receive a pension by retiring
from the mining industry are very small,” Tirintica said. “Unfortunately,
mining is on its way out, economically, structurally. Everything is going
badly.”
Tirintica
has been working in the coal sector since 2014 in Romania’s Jiu Valley region —
once a coal economic powerhouse. He was one of 10 miners invited to see how his
skills could be adapted to match the needs of the renewable energy industry or
those of the energy distribution sector. It’s the test phase of a pilot project
spearheaded by the Romanian Wind Energy Association (RWEA).
Changing
mindsets
The
association’s goal is to get EU funds and strike a deal with an existing
renewable energy skills academy located by Romania’s Black Sea coast that could
retrain about 100 miners as part of an extended pilot project. The long-term
goal is a 10-year project to reskill 800 miners per year. For now, private
companies will finance the handful of miners involved in the early trial.
“There’s no
one else who came to our work to say, ‘Come on, let’s do something for these
people,'” Tirintica said. “The project is good because it doesn’t make us
waiters or bartenders — it trains us to work in a sector of the future and to
remain in the energy field.”
Yet when it
came to the bottom line, Tirintica said "no." The job offer would
have kept him abroad working four weeks in Germany followed by one week at
home. He makes €900 a month now and his new salary would have come to around
€1,300.
Tirintica,
a father of two, said he knows he could earn more than that working abroad in
other sectors if he wanted to. The deal wasn’t enough for him to be away from
home for so long.
Tirintica
and other younger miners feel they can still switch jobs at a later date,
taking advantage of the EU’s freedom of movement.
Others who
have been working in coal mines for much longer are angry at the prospect of
their industry dying, and are fighting for social protection.
Romania
still has about 15,000 coal miners, according to the European Commission;
Poland has the most in the EU, about 100,000.
“There are
some who are still resisting change and say: ‘We are miners and miners we will
be all our lives,’ and others who realize that the world is transforming, the
energy transition is happening and they can be part of it from the start,” said
Sebastian Enache, business development manager at renewable energy company
Monsson, a partner in the retraining project.
Romania
gets about a quarter of its energy needs from coal-fired electricity but the
coal sector, together with the mines, have been shrinking for years.
State-owned Complexul Energetic Hunedoara, which owns both mines and power
plants, filed for insolvency last month while Complexul Energetic Oltenia,
another state-owned company, saw massive strikes earlier this year, with miners
calling for pay rises and better working conditions.
Romania
still has about 15,000 coal miners, according to the European Commission; Poland
has the most in the EU, about 100,000.
When it
comes to Poland, the country went through a deep restructuring of its coal
industry in the 1990s which saw hundreds of thousands of people lose their
jobs, and many mining communities lost their reason for existing, said Tomasz
Rogala, the president of coal lobby group Euracoal and head of the management
board of Poland’s biggest coal company, state-owned PGG.
“That’s why
this experience is very negative in people’s minds,” he said.
Rogala said
that the key is to manage people’s sense of security as they undergo the
transition.
Money
problems
That’s
exactly what the von der Leyen Commission pledged to do as part of its flagship
European Green Deal, including by creating a Just Transition Mechanism
combining public and private funding — up to an estimated €100 billion — meant
to help carbon-intensive regions shift to greener forms of production.
But getting
it right won’t be easy, based on the challenges facing the pilot project led by
the Romanian Wind Energy Association.
In July,
RWEA presented its project at the EU's Coal Regions in Transition Platform,
which was set up in 2017 to help coal-dependent regions manage a shift to a
low-carbon future. It brings together Commission and local officials to discuss
the regions’ transition challenges and offers finding possibilities.
Despite
praise for its project, RWEA is still fishing for funding.
“Everyone
wants to give us money but everyone says it’s not in their pocket,” said
Enache, explaining the challenges he and his colleagues have been facing. “The
possibility to hire exists, the need exists, industry is open — we are looking
for funds.”
Mihai
Bălan, policy officer at RWEA, admitted that “we won’t save the whole region
with the renewable energy industry — but we are doing our part.”
But not
everyone thinks that the project is the best possible use of EU funds.
Cristina
Prună, a Romanian MP from the opposition Save Romania Union, said it's good the
project is offering alternatives for coal miners but warned it's not an answer
to transform the country’s coal-intensive regions. She said EU funds should go
toward boosting transport infrastructure in those regions to better connect
them to the rest of the country and spur longer-term investments.
“If there
will be funds wasted on entrepreneurship training for miners or unsustainable
projects that will only work as long as they have European funding and then end
up in ruins, then they will certainly not produce any change at the end of the
day,” Prună said.
Mihai
Bălan, policy officer at RWEA, admitted that “we won’t save the whole region
with the renewable energy industry — but we are doing our part.”
It’s the
environmental impact of coal that is driving Brussels’ push to halt its use and
help miners find other jobs.
Climate
worries are not really on Tirintica’s mind, he said when asked. “No, to be
honest, my biggest concern is financial stability for me and my family.”
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