People in the Submaidane-Turceni area in Romania live their lives in coal ash that still hasn’t been cleaned up after an accident that took place in December 2013 at an ash deposit belonging to the Oltenia Energy Complex in Turceni.
The renewables capacity installed in Romania has grown tenfold in the last five years and constitutes 23 percent of Romania's installed energy capacity. Still, the government is pushing for new lignite-fired power plants.
While likely not the cause, the EBRD-financed Dariali hydropower plant is being constructed without proper assessment or mitigation of known geological risks. The construction must be halted to avoid further damage.
Bankwatch and Greenpeace won a court case* in Romania this week, which will effectively prevent 59 hectares (the equivalent of 118 football pitches) of forest from being destroyed by the expansion of one of the open-pit coal mines that supplies Rovinari, one of the largest coal plants in Romania.
Shale gas has become a focal point of interest for central and eastern European governments, with oil corporations (not only) from the West ready to start drilling as soon as possible. But protests have sparked across the region from Zurawlow in Poland to Pungesti in Romania. We spoke with two anti-fracking activists working on the Neuquén province in Argentina where the struggles of local communities against conventional oil and gas exploration are now amplified by even more problems related to unconventional fuels.
As EU Member States continue to negotiate with the European Commission their spending plans for the next Cohesion Policy funds for 2014-2020, the Polish region of Podlaskie in the northeast proves an unexpected champion for the green energy citizen’s revolution in Poland.
After several years of developments related to a seventh unit at the Tuzla power plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the public is now able to understand the plant's economics, thanks to a document published in the run-up to a debate in the Federation of BiH parliament this week. It might have been a better idea to have this debate earlier, considering that the news is not exactly good for the project developer, Elektroprivreda BiH (EPBiH).
Seasoned Bankwatch-watchers may recall our successful four-year campaign to stop the EBRD from financing a waste incinerator just outside Zagreb. Between 2005 and 2008, we supported Zelena akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia and local group UZOR to prevent the City of Zagreb from building a huge 385 000 tonnes per year waste incinerator in Resnik on the outskirts of Croatia's capital.
While Ukraine’s aging coal power infrastructure is causing pollution and energy loss in the country, coal-based electricity is exported at a dumping price to EU countries.
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