Swanson School of Engineering

We started the day with some traveling, about a 90-minute drive to the CEZ Ledvice Power Plant. Where we got a presentation about the history of the plant and a tour of the facility. It was fascinating to see the shear size of the entire operation happening. After seeing the plant, we were taken into the mine where the coal used in the plant is taken from. Here is where we got to see big machinery. One of the bucket wheel excavators had buckets that were capable of holding a volume of 1,300 liters each. It was amazing seeing such an enormous piece of equipment work so smoothly, after each sweep the entire machine would move a very small amount and begin its next sweep. In the meantime, it was connected to a conveyer belt that goes along the entire mine. I wasn’t sure exactly where it went but on the other side of mine there were spreaders that were covering part of the hole where they had finished mining. It was cool to learn that before starting to mine a piece of land there much be a plane to recover the land which was why there were the spreaders covering parts of the hole. This is also done to allow the environment to come back and allow plants to grow again. It is great that the idea of taking as much care as possible of the environment is important in the Czech Republic. As well as phasing out coal plants to be replaced by renewable sources. The Ledvice Plant we visited has a relatively new coal station that was initially supposed to be active to around 2055 but recently it was announce it instead will be 2033 as part of the plan to use more renewable sources. After the mine visit I made my way back to Prague with a new perspective of energy production and how much demand there is for it today.