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Czech republic has some really nice quarries and dams where you can swim for free or next to free. One thing I've noticed is that Czechs only seem to go to such places when it's really really warm. So they're often empty even when they're perfect for swimming. At least the ones near me in Plzeň. I grew up swimming in the Atlantic so my idea of swimming temperature may be different to average Czechs!

The "interesting" part is that the mine closing will significantly reduce the water supply to Berlin on its own, and filling the pit will probably raise the issue to possibly catastrophic levels: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/spr...

I go often to a quarry lake in Canmore (near Banff)

I recently went swimming in one of these submerged mines/quarries in North America. This one flooded during a severe hurricane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Brownstone_Quarries

Luleč is really amazing and the food they have there is top.

> The water table fell a lot over the last 10 to 20 years in Berlin. I’m not sure what exactly contributed to this situation overal

Climate change, as your article says.

It also says that they want to use those new lakes as reservoirs to help out the situation.

It's dependent on the minerals being prospected for and the mining techniques as well as general awareness and regulations that were in place during operation. Yellowknife has a huge ecological issue due to Arsenic being actively used in Giant Mine[1] but that was introduced to ease mining (mercury is also commonly used for gold extraction and purification, though occasionally offsite). So it really depends on the mine. Mines are never good for the environment but how toxic they are will vary.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine

Excavation pits can be clean and I'm pretty sure they would have considered what was left in the pit.

What you're thinking of is the processing aspect of mining, which is a whole different beast.

There's a sandstone quarry I've swam in, the deep end is 60+ feet deep. I wouldn' want to be a lifeguard there. Although the added depth doesn't really mater past about 15 feet.

https://www.cityoftenino.us/parks-recreation/page/quarry-poo...

This quarry in chicago used as a storm water buffer is cool. It would be interesting to drive over it when it is full.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/environment/2026/07/11/chicago-...

There are lots of these in northern Minnesota and they used the tailings to turn the areas into some really great mountain biking trails, which really helps those old mining towns.

They came to the conclusion in 2018. There is a law in place to phase it out completely by 2038.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausstieg_aus_der_Kohleverstrom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Growth,_Structur...

Wind and solar power do not provide dispatchable power and they therefore do not replace conventional power plants.

Germany isn't keeping their coal-fired power plants and they're not building new gas-fired power plants despite the energy transition but because of it.

You're spreading conspiracy theories when you claim Katherina Reiche is a fossil fuel puppet. She is doing what has always been the plan for the energy transition: Building gas-fired power plants.

That plan is even in the DENA study for the energy transition:

https://www.dena.de/fileadmin/dena/Dokumente/Pdf/9262_dena-L... (p. 29)

And before you claim DENA is some sort of fossil fuel lobby organization, they're not. DENA belongs to the German state and was founded in 2000 by SPD and Greens:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Energie-Agentur

The title is incorrect. The articles’s text adds “artificial”:

“Part of Lusatian Lakeland – now Europe's largest artificial water landscape”

Even that’s debatable, I think, given, for example:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alqueva_Dam: a 250 km² artificial lake

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Reservoir: over 3,000km²

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJsselmeer: 1,100km²

=> it depends on such things as whether you call a reservoir a lake, how you define “water landscape”, etc.

I think you need to go much, much, much deeper for that.

The Tagebaurekultivierungsaktivitäten have been going on for a long time. I remember visiting some former open pit in the 90s, as they started filling it, noting how it would take like 10 years or so. Pretty strange land.

Why mention nuclear but not wind? Wind has nearly as low an LCOE as solar, and is still dropping too, and wind power is anti-correlated with solar power, meaning we get more wind at night and in the winter.

One of these things is not like the other. You can have solar next week at a reliable price and you'll be able to buy insurance for your solar array on the private market. Nuclear isn't going to happen no matter how many data center projects get hyped. No nuclear project will be complete before we're all talking about data centers like we talk about the Metaverse.

Good luck with solar in Germany when you will be paying a fee for feeding in energy to the grid during solar peek time from 2027 onwards.

Added 17GW solar in the last 12 months, reached 129GW: https://solarzubau.de/deutschland/

We are currently busy building new gas turbines. lol.

I dunno:

1. There should be plenty broken up press board after the apocalypse. It is apparently quite flammable but sometimes gives off bad emissions. Perhaps you should set up a website where people can print a guide to press board emissions, so we all will know which to cook foods with and which to only heat with.

2. And there should be plenty of auto tires. Here's a fella who needs only a few tires each day to heat a 12' x 16' corrugated metal siding workshop:

https://www.farmshow.com/view_articles.php?a_id=1072

Another article with photos:

https://www.farmshow.com/a_download_page.php?aid=MzI4Nw==

3. Finally we see:

"Study Shows Dangerous Plastics Are Being Used As Fuel To Heat Homes":

https://www.slashgear.com/2075676/plastic-fuel-burning-heat-...

So I don't see a problem finding dry combustible fuel, In fact gathering fuel will be somewhat like gathering manna in the desert!8-))