!!!Kohle

Coal: Until the end of the 19%%sup th/%  century the use of charcoal 
dominated, even in the iron industry in Styria. From the 2%%sup nd/%  
half of the 18%%sup th/%  century onwards many sub-bituminous and hard 
coal deposits were opened up in Upper Austria (Hausruck mountains), 
Lower Austria (Thallern, Stanzendorf, Lunz), in Styria (Seegraben, 
Fohnsdorf, around Eibiswald, near Koeflach and Voitsberg, hard coal in 
the valley of River Enns, anthracite on the Turracher Hoehe mountain) 
and in Burgenland (Tauchen). During the Austro-Hungarian monarchy the 
vast reserves in northern Moravia (Czechia) and Silesia (Poland) 
supplied industry and railways with coal. After 1918 and again after 
1945 closed or limited coal deposits in Austria were used to make up 
for the loss of these mines. Due to coal imports, the trend in the 
energy sector towards oil and natural gas and the intensified use of 
water power mining became less profitable, and many pits were closed, 
e.g. in Ratten (Styria) in 1960, in Seegraben near Leoben (Styria) in 
1964 (coal had been mined there since 1606), in Gruenbach am 
Schneeberg (Lower Austria) in 1965 (surface mining from 1827-1850, 
then underground mining, in 1951 172,000 t were extracted, total 
amount: 11 million t), in St. Stefan im Lavanttal (Carinthia) in 1968, 
in Fohnsdorf (Styria) in 1978 (deepest drift in the world). In order 
to guarantee the existence of the remaining mines thermal power plants 
were built (Koeflach in Styria, Timelkam in Upper Austria), but only 
the mine in Koeflach (30 million tons reserve, surface mining) is 
still operated, the mine in Ampflwang (in 1980 435,000 t were 
excavated, 1,629 miners employed) in the Hausruck Mountains region 
(Upper Austria), run by the Wolfsberg-Traunthaler AG, had to be closed 
in 1995. In 1994 coal extraction in Austria was 980,000 t. Most coal 
is used by the power plant in Duernrohr (Lower Austria), which is run 
with Polish hard coal (6,000 t per day, annually more than 1 million 
tons).

!Literature
H. Lackner, Kohlenbergbau und Technik, doctoral thesis, 
Graz 1980; A. Weiss, Kohlenbergbau in der Steiermark, in: Kohle und 
Glas, exhibition catalogue, Baernbach 1988; A. Kusternig (ed.), 
Bergbau in Niederoesterreich, Studien und Forschungen aus dem 
Niederoesterreichischen Institut fuer Landeskunde 10, 1987.


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