Former mining settlements can, with serious cash and co-ordinated action, become home to sustainable new industries. Australia's Latrobe Valley has been moving away from coal mining to renewable energy and emerging industries like hydrogen production in a transition supported with funding from the Victoria state government for infrastructure, job training programmes and partnerships between industry, government and community groups. In having the potential to revive its mining heritage, Cornwall is particularly lucky. A recent Nature Communications paper estimates that just 7 per cent of rural towns in coal-mining systems have the potential to mine energy transition metals like lithium, as these resources are not usually co-located. "These towns may be best positioned to prosper through rapid workforce re-deployment from a coal economy to an energy transition metals economy, although they would face significant challenges in adapting," says the University of Gottingen's Dr Kamila Svobodova, an author of the paper.
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