“Business as Usual” mining
Anglo Kleinkopje Mine
The existing Anglo Kleinkopje mine consists of 2 active mining sites with a third abandoned mine, a coal distribution center, and coal depots scattered across the 7,200 hectacre site.
In the current mining process, individual mines of several hundred hectacres are undertaken piecemeal and dug down roughly 70-80m deep with steep mine walls, resulting in a landscape pockmarked with deep holes that cannot be easily used for any other purposes. Backfilling or flooding are typical remediative strategies but both supress the mines’ potential for future uses.
Conventional mining operations maximize extraction efficiencies but are not conceived holistically as a landscape strategy that, while rooted in its requirement for producting energy, can act as a framework for stimulating future, undefined and flexible possibilities. Three scenarios are explored to demonstrate speculative exploitations of the site on the basis of macroeconomic adoption of renewables over coal.
Tutors
Sanne van den Breemer
Filip Geerts
Ilmar Hurkxkens