Gruve 7 leaves its dark mark on the landscape
Coal mining has long been a major industry on Svalbard, and many of the buildings in Longyearbyen have a mining history [the artist residency building was originally used as the miners’ store]. All historical mining structures and artifacts are protected as culturally significant.
With Norway's push for greener credentials [let's not talk oil and deep sea mining] and to cut emissions in a heating arctic, Norwegian coal mining on Svalbard is being phased out. There is now only one operational mine left – Gruve 7 (mine 7) – which is scheduled to close some time in 2025.
But the coal and the mines still have a presence.
The road to the mine cuts an obvious path up the hill, coal dust spills out onto the snow leaving a dark smudge on the landscape, and trucks rumble from the mine to the port with great regularity.
The towers for the now-unused cable buckets that ferried the coal from the mines to the port still appear to march across the landscape. They are oddly beautiful, as are some of the other old mining structures – in particular the War of the Worlds-like cable car centre [Taubanesentrale] and the Santa Claus Mine.
The curiously beautiful mining structure of the old coal cable car centre – Taubanesentrale.
The Santa Claus mine is not so much a place for excavating jolly red fellows, but is the home of Santa Claus in December. Despite the crumbling infrastructure lights appear as he and the elves go into Christmas present production, and a post box is placed at the bottom of the hill for Christmas requests to be posted.
The old coal-powered electricity plant now runs on shipped-in deisel instead of locally mined coal. [As a calculation for improving the environment by not burning the local coal, I’m not sure whether it balances. I have tried to find the answer but with no luck so far.] The locals are not fans of the new system as the very cheap heating from the hot water that was a by-product of the coal fire burning to electricity process has been replaced with very expensive desiel powered electricity costs.
Norway’s challenge of being or appearing green continues. Meanwhile coal is still being mined in the Russian-controlled mines with no plans to stop.
The arctic is melting and they are still mining.
Abandoned mine in Adventdalen
Coal deposit in the port of Longyearbyen