doing away with collieries would throw thousands upon thousands of miners and auxiliary staff out of work.
Yes, this is the downside unfortunately. Miners in the UK suffered this fate in the eighties and there are still unemployment black spots throughout the country as a direct result of this.
we all know that coal burning pollutes the atmosphere.
Which is why Poland and other EU countries have to reduce their carbon emissions.
What I don't understand is why this new foundation is planning to try to defend an industry which causes major pollution. They are just going to end up at loggerheads with EU commissioners. That doesn't bode well for boosting Poland's international image.
If the EU supplied the funds for research, development and implementation, then maybe the collieries could be saved.
There is a link I supplied in post #3 which I don't think you've bothered to read, and explains quite well the problems with Polish mines.
They are simply uneconomic to run, the 3 biggest mining companies having lost over 10 billion PLN last year alone.
Why would the EU want to throw more money away on them? The biggest problem is that the mines in Poland are very deep and so it becomes more expensive to extract the coal. Even if coal could be turned into a low polluting liquid fuel, the coal still has to be extracted first.
alternatives should be sought such as wind farms even watermills which can often provide enough energy to light up an entire village.
They should definitely be, but it seems the new government is trying it's best to throw a hammer in the works regarding wind power :-
theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/03/proposed-polish-law-would-shackle-wind-power-say-industry
All in all, I think this new foundation will have their work cut out if they want to boost Poland's image abroad. There needs to be some definite plans as to what the 100 million will be spent on to start with, otherwise many people will be skeptical to say the least, that anything will actually come of it.