The urgent need to decarbonize the energy sector marks the beginning of a post-fossil fuel era, leading among others to a significant decrease in coal production and a corresponding shift towards energy from renewables. This transition will bring changes spatially but also socio-economically and will affect primarily coal mining communities as their primary economic driver gradually declines. This thesis sets out to investigate the coal phase-out as happening in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland - Europe’s ‘coal heartland’. It focuses on the spatial aspect of it, a twofold challenge, that stems from the two contradictory conditions: the abundance of vacant land (land supply) that results from the coal phase-out and depopulating-shrinking trends in these coal regions and the spatial pressure (land demand) that the emerging deployment of renewables triggers in combination with possible unregulated land takeovers. The thesis conceives the coal regions as a systemic zone and proposes a shift to another form of the carbon economy, one based on forestry. It builds upon a timeline of actions starting from the phase-out of coal and shapes a narrative for a transition to a more sustainable and lower-carbon-intensive economy in the affected areas. The project approach this with a multiscalar perspective, zooming gradually to Lusatia, a historic region marked by many years of intensive lignite mining, an area in which four lignite extraction sites are still operating, and proposes a systemic approach to how another form of use in this cluster of mines could affect the ongoing depopulation in the area and care for the damaged and exhausted environment by fostering economic growth through sustainable timber harvesting and the creation of valuable ecosystem services that will trigger biodiversity growth. Last it looks at the area around Cottbus, where a former mine, and a currently active one, Jänschwalde mine, have shaped a unique landscape, surrounded by the characteristic pine forests of the region, and small scattered settlements. Spatial elements and their synergies are unraveled that facilitate sustainable wood production, the energy transition, and the care of natural ecosystems. The project works with a timeline spanning from 2025 until 2090, during which the area transforms as forests take over and grow while at the same time, several settlements and infrastructures decommission, depopulate, shrink and retreat. The final outcome inspires an alternative understanding of the coal regions, one described by a ‘spatial growth-retreat dynamic’ that builds upon the shrinking built environment and expresses itself with constant fluxes of carbon storage and carbon releases.

Steel is a widely used and very circular material, it can be recycled endlessly but that consumes a lot of energy, therefore, it is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Only 2% of this pollution is caused by production, the other 98% is caused by transportation during the production and recycling process. Half of the pollution caused by transport is by export en import of scrap metal from and to the port of Rotterdam to Asian and African countries, this also creates geo-dependency on non-EU countries for essential materials. We will use research through design approach, quantitative (LISA data and Openstreetmap data) and qualitative methods such as research on the steel cycle, scrapyard activities, stakeholders, and social and spatial environment. The main objective is to reduce the logistic effort by closing loops more locally by creating a network of bigger and smaller hubs and reinstalling makers- and manufacturing industries around the hubs in a symbiotic relationship. Hereby we aim to move metal recycling higher up in the R-ladder of circularity. Different socio-spatial, techno-economic and governmental strategies should make scrapyards more attractive and interesting locations and intertwine them more into the urban tissue. Hereford, they should attract makers- and manufacturing industries around the scrapyards to form a symbiosis in the use of metal and scrap metal. Simultaneously, this increases dutch manufacturing and increases the local economy and decreases geo-dependency. The end of the report provides a set of strategies that can be applied to scrapyards throughout the country to improve the locations and the network between them. This project can form a precedent, both for other bigger industrial or port cities in Europe, as well as for different material flows.