The energy transition policy of the European Union and the Government of Spain ended months ago with the historic coal mining sector in the province, and dragged the closure of thermal plants that now begin their dismantling processes and propose investment projects that begin to be shelled.

The disappearance of coal opens the way for access to the millions of funds that the EU puts on the table to face the Just Transition in energy. They are now joined by the Covid European Recovery Fund. A multimillion-dollar budget that awaits the competition of ideas and projects that are made with funding. In addition, projects that hoard public funds that add impetus and private investment to create new economic ecosystems, marked by technology and digitization, able to reconvert previous employment and create new sectors, and energizers of the regions now gripped by the end of fossil fuels.

The International Center for Advanced Materials and Raw Materials (Icamcyl) and the Cluster for Sustainable Mining of the Iberian Peninsula are involved in this dynamic. Its CEO, Santiago Cuesta, has participated in two of the main annual discussion forums organised by the European Commission, one on the role of clusters and the other on fair transition. In the latter he defended «as a case of success» the initiative launched in León (in the autonomous mining area, from El Bierzo to Palencia) which seeks to value the mineral wealth of the area in critical raw materials for the technology industry through the new tools of sustainable mining.

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