The Influence of Opencast Lignite Mining Dehydration on Plant Production—A Methodological Study

Benedykt Pepliński and Wawrzyniec Czubak
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Benedykt Pepliński: Department of Law and Enterprise Management in Agribusiness, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Poznan University of Life Sciences, 60-637 Poznan, Poland
Wawrzyniec Czubak: Department of Economics and Economic Policy in Agribusiness, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Poznan University of Life Sciences, 60-637 Poznan, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-29

Abstract: In many circles, brown coal continues to be viewed as a cheap source of energy, resulting in numerous investments in new opencast brown coal mines. Such a perception of brown coal energy is only possible if the external costs associated with mining and burning coal are not considered. In past studies, external cost analysis has focused on the external costs of coal burning and associated emissions. This paper focuses on the extraction phase and assesses the external costs to agriculture associated with the resulting depression cone. This paper discusses the difficulties researchers face in estimating agricultural losses resulting from the development of a depression cone due to opencast mineral extraction. In the case of brown coal, the impacts are of a geological, natural-climatic, agricultural-productive, temporal, and spatial nature and result from a multiplicity of interacting factors. Then, a methodology for counting external costs in crop production was proposed. The next section estimates the external costs of crop production arising from the operation of opencast mines in the Konin-Turek brown coal field, which is located in central Poland. The analyses conducted showed a large decrease in grain and potato yields and no effect of the depression cone on sugar beet levels. Including the estimated external costs in the cost of producing electricity from mined brown coal would significantly worsen the profitability of that production.

Keywords: external cost; opencast lignite; plant production; depression funnel; cereals; sugar beet; potatoes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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