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Billions for the transformation of coal regions may end up supporting lithium mining in Cínovec
The Operational Program Just Transformation (OP ST), which was supposed to economically stimulate the coal regions with the help of European billions, is gradually showing cracks. It turns out that some selected projects do not meet the conditions for receiving support, and the regions will have to decide where to send billions of crowns. Because of this, the possibility that the lithium mining project at Cínovec, for which the giant ČEZ is applying for half a share, will receive billions of dollars in support is back in play.
Regions where coal was mined for many decades, the raw material on which the economic growth of the Western world is built, must now come to terms with the shift away from fossil fuels. That's why the European Union has prepared financial support for them, the program is "aimed at solving the negative effects of moving away from coal in the most affected regions". In the Czech Republic, this concerns the Karlovy Vary, Ústí and Moravian-Silesian regions, between which 41 billion crowns are to be distributed between 2021 and 2027.
However, this plan is starting to show major cracks. The regions, in cooperation with the government, have agreed that the money will also be directed to giant strategic projects, which should receive hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. The problem, however, is that some regions submitted projects to the call that did not meet the funding conditions, and therefore will not receive the money in the end. It is already clear that the Support, Employment, Transformation (POZATR) projects of the Labor Office and the planned gigafactory, i.e. a factory for the production of lithium batteries for electric cars of the ČEZ company, will not seek support in the Ústí Region.
"We are not abandoning the location or the gigafactory project, we will just look for other financial sources," ČEZ spokeswoman Soňa Holingerová told Litoměřický deník some time ago, adding that she will prioritize the lithium mining project at Cínovec. According to the energy company, the mining of the mineral necessary for the production of batteries is more suitable for OP ST. According to ČEZ spokesman Ladislav Kříž, the granting of a subsidy is crucial for the entire project. "It is a major transformational project. Failure to grant the subsidy would have a negative impact on the entire project, the grant of the subsidy is essential for the first phases of the project," he told E15.
According to him, the money would be used to explore the deposit and prepare studies in the first phase. The second phase would involve the preparation of the site from the point of view of infrastructure, and the third phase would involve the construction of a deep mine with an entry portal on the surface in the Sedmihůrka location and the construction of a processing plant. According to the semi-state company, lithium production should employ up to a thousand people, the entire project would cost eleven billion crowns, and if everything went according to plan, mining could start at the turn of 2026 and 2027.
The lithium mining project at Cínovec is the only strategic plan that the Ústí Region has prepared in reserve. Overall, strategic projects in the Ústí Region account for 7.3 billion crowns out of a total of 15.8 billion crowns, all strategic projects with priority 1, i.e. including POZATR and the gigafactory, accounted for a total amount of 8.2 billion crowns. Both withdrawn projects together asked for two billion, so at least 1.1 billion crowns should be available.
"The funds from the withdrawn projects will be used for other strategic projects in priority 1 even in the case of an increased project budget due to inflation and increased construction work," said Jana Nedrdová, head of the business support, innovation and transformation department at the regional office.
So there are two possibilities. The first is an increase in support for individual strategic projects with priority 1, such as investment in hydrogen mobility in Ústí nad Labem or the revitalization of the ČSA mine of billionaire Pavel Tykač's Sev.en Energy company. The second option is the allocation of a subsidy to a new strategic project, which at the moment is only lithium mining at Cínovec.
The possibility that the money from OP ST would ultimately be directed to lithium mining was also confirmed to E15 by regional councilor Iva Dvořáková (ODS), under whose responsibility the issue falls. "Now it looks like we will ask CEZ to provide us with information on what specifically it would request the 1.2 billion for, we will look at it within the working group and a decision would be made in the fall," she said.
The regional opposition is against it. "The idea that lithium is to be subsidized from the money that is to be used for the transformation of the region after mining is completely turned on its head," says the head of the regional representatives of the Elders and Independents (STAN) Filip Ušák. "The region should be properly compensated for mining, if possible in such a way as to eliminate as many of the problems plaguing it as possible; instead, options are being sought to deal with it the other way around. In other words, to subsidize mining from "regional" money, and if possible process it somewhere else completely," he criticizes.
Dvořáková herself was originally against subsidizing the beginning of lithium mining from public budgets. "I thought it was absurd that we would support it with this money. But now I can imagine that we could support the beginning, i.e. research into the use for further mining, because there are other strategic elements besides lithium," she declared, adding that what exactly ČEZ would publicly used the means. According to her, it would also be a shame if the region did not use mining experts who work in coal mines.
Complications regarding the possible use of European billions are also looming in the Karlovy Vary region. Some time ago, the Minister of the Environment Petr Hladík (KDU-ČSL) stated that he sees risks in three of the ten strategic projects. "Out of the ten, there are three that need to be paid attention to, considering whether it is achievable, whether the intention fulfills the intention of a just transformation, just as we are negotiating with the European Commission about what is and what is not public support," he said in Hladík in May. According to him, it is also necessary to consider whether individual projects are feasible, because the money must be used up by the end of 2027.
Specifically, these are the projects of the Vlaštovka center in Aš, which is supposed to support economic activity in the region, Smart Landscape 2030+ under the leadership of the Czech University of Life Sciences, which aims to analyze the local landscape and propose its further development, and the Boží Dar project for the regeneration of the Klínovec Mountain Hotel. Together, these three projects count on a subsidy of 688 million crowns, in total, 6.3 billion crowns fall on the Karlovy Vary region.
In the middle of last year, the Czech concept of a just transformation was also criticized by the European Commission (EC), which monitors whether individual projects are in line with the goals of the entire fund. According to a letter sent by the EC to the Czech government a year ago, some projects were problematic, for example Podolu Park in the Moravian-Silesian Region or the reclamation of the ČSA quarry.
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