Brown coal and lignite issues from the perspective of sustainable development in Slovakia

This paper presents the situation of coal mining in Slovakia, focusing on the social-political aspects and environmental aspects of its sustainable development.In recent years, the mining of lignite and brown coal in Slovakia has been closely linked to the production of electricity and heat in the Novaky power plant. Domestic brown coal production covered more than three quarters of demand in the Slovak Republic in the last few years. The sustainability of coal mining in the coming years in Slovakia is closely associated with raw materials reserves, new mining technologies, the development of the Novaky power plant, and the government's commitments to national economic interests through securing the energy supply or state aid. Of course, of these factors must be considered in the context of international obligations, such as those related to climate and environment, particularly air protection.The three most important Slovak brown coal deposits are located in the Upper Nitra Basin. This territory includes areas in the 5th and 4th degrees of environmental quality, signifying a disturbed and very disturbed environment. Since coal is expected to remain the dominant fuel for electricity generation araund the world, and in particular for many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it is necessary to create conditions for the environmental sustainability of coal mining in the coming years within the context of international obligations. Both the security and the stability of the electricity network in Slovakia and maintaining employment levels in the Upper Nitra region play important roles in this discussion.Underground coal gasification (UCG) is a newmining technology and a technology for gas recovery in situ.A comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of underground coal gasification was carried out in addition to summarization of the expected impacts in terms of the significance and distribution of the time period.Based on a comprehensive assessment of the proposed action, it can be stated that it could bring a socially unacceptable risk to the area, specifically the significant impairment of health or the environment (groundwater and nearby hot springs in Bojnice). The implementation of operations could affect the population's health, since the partition is placed in close proximity to residential areas.