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Beethoven and Brown Coal

20/08/2015

BBC World Service - The Essential, Beethoven and Brown Coal

Could opencast mining flatten a whole small town in the Czech Republic?

Rob Cameron's on the Czech hillsides which first heard the "Eroica" - but now echo to the noise of opencast mining. Could energy demands end up flattening  a whole small town?

A special essay from Prague correspondent Rob Cameron on the Czech hillsides which first heard the "Eroica" - but now echo to the noise of opencast mining. Opencast extraction of brown coal turns this picturesque landscape into a moonscape - but it's profitable, and politically convenient. Could the country's energy demands end up flattening a whole small town?

(Picture: the baroque Jerezi Castle, once home to Bohemian aristocrat and music patron Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, looks straight out over the scene of opencast mining around the town of Horni Jiretin, Czech Republic. Credit: Rob Cameron BBC)

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