Tag Archives: power plant
NEW POWER PLANT ‘WITHIN TWO TO FIVE YEARS’: Norway’s government says new climate-friendly energy facility will be in 2022 budget; fate of Mine 7 and Store Norske uncertain

A major and accelerated transition from a coal-fueled to a climate-friendly power plant in Longyearbyen, with a new facility in the 2022 budget that is operating within two to five years, was announced Monday by Norway’s government.
The announcement, if fulfilled, means the city’s 38-year-old coal plant will shut down well before the end of its theoretical life expectancy – although it will decommissioned in phases. It also means Mine 7 will lose its essential purpose of supplying coal to the power plant, leaving uncertain the fate of the last mining operation by Store Norske and other Norwegian companies that have been the foundation of Longyearbyen’s existence for virtually all of its 115-year history.
BLACKOUTS POSSIBLE FOR A FEW DAYS: If you can read this it means the activation of a new backup power plant isn’t having a lights-out impact – but it may between now and Monday

Sort of along the lines of “it takes money to make money,” the city’s spending the next few days improving the reliability of backup power sources if the main coal-fired facility suffers an outages – but until then it may mean more “dark times” during these continuous and cold December polar nights.
Burning curiosity: Kids, researchers and dozens of others get a charge out of tours at Longyearbyen’s power plant

Erik Haukalid, 6, is already an expert when it comes to energy production. But it’s still tough explaining in words what’s going on inside that giant building constantly emitting smoke.
“He has seen this large building and he is wondering what this is,” said his father, Snorre, a cultural heritage advisor for The Governor of Svalbard, shortly before joining a group of about a dozen others Saturday for a tour of Longyearbyen’s coal-fired power plant.