In a development that surprised a grand total of zero people, due to the TEŠ 6 project, the Šoštanj coal power plant is going bust. Bankrupt. Done for. Broke. Insolvent, even. The government announced yesterday that it will draft an emergency bailout legislation to safeguard the plant’s thermal energy production, vital for some 35,000 residents in the region.
Such is the inglorious end of one of the largest and most expensive infrastructure projects since the completion of the motorway network. That is not to say that TEŠ (and, specifically, the infamous Unit 6) will be shutting down tomorrow. But the site and the connected “coal” mine will now be on life support, indefinitely. Lest they drag down half of the Slovenian energy sector with them.
Funnily enough, indefinitely just happens to be the precise amount of time the good people of Muddy Hollows will have to wait for politicians who brought on this calamity to face some fucking consequences.
Money-guzzling bottomless pit
To bring both readers up to speed really quickly, Unit 6 of Šoštanj power plant, the so-called TEŠ6 was mulled for a long while as a replacement for the dirty and less efficient Units 1-5.
But in between green-lighting the project in 2006 and breaking ground in 2010, the costs went through the roof. So much so in fact that the general public was kept in the dark about the actual number well past the beginning of the construction. It was only in 2012 that the government publicly acknowledged that the already eye-watering EUR 600 million price tag will be doubled and then some.
When all was said and done, the cost to complete TEŠ6 in 2014 amounted to a mind-blowing 1.4 billion euro. Which, for comparison, was about 10% of yearly Slovenian budget at the time.
Economically, TEŠ6 turned out to be exactly the sort of money-guzzling bottomless pit its detractors claimed it would be.
The economics of the original 600-mil price tags were shaky to begin with. They assumed the pre-2008-crash environment of cheap credit, labour and material on one hand, and increasing energy prices on the other, would go on for the foreseeable future. A future, mind you, that was to be coal-based. Which at the time was already dubious proposition.
How do you bankrupt a casino?
But when the price gauge stopped at 1.4 billion units of the common currency, it was beyond obvious that TEŠ6 had turned into a giant financially unsustainable clusterfuck that will cost the taxpayers a metric fuck-ton of money down the road.
Which brings us to today.
Borut Pahor, Janez Janša, Andrej Vizjak, Matej Lahovnik, Franci Križanič, and scores of other less important individuals deserve to be tarred, feathered and then run out of town for their role in this shitshow. Not simply because they fucked up. Stuff happens, and despite what they think of themselves, these people are not that brilliant.
No, the thing is that these people were either vehemently proactive or – in case of Pahor – looking the other way con gusto, while the project was going tits-up in plain sight of everyone.
But how can that be, I hear you ask. Well, how do you bankrupt a casino?
In some ways, things are painfully simple. Like so many other infrastructure and other state-funded projects, TEŠ6 was seen as a vehicle for currying political favour, win votes, line pockets and generally bring home some bacon.
Media matters?
Then, there was the media. By far and large, Slovenian media landscape at the time was vehemently in favour of the project. Sure, there were a few lone voices screaming into the void. This blogger included. But for the most part, print and electronic media were positively ecstatic about the whole thing.
Was that because there was conflict of interest, and TEŠ and its mother-company HSE (state-owned energy conglomerate) were spending massively on sponsorships, advertorials and other goodies? Did the press simply like the notion of the new shiny object in the bleakness of a post-crash economy? Was it that the main detractor of the project were the now-defunct Zares party and its leader Gregor Golobič whom most of the press had it in for?
Maybe it was all of the above.
Looking back, however there was no way of stopping the TEŠ 6 project. Not when there was so much to gain in the short term and … well, who gives a fuck about long-term consequences, right?
Borut Pahor and Janez Janša found common ground and decided to divide the spoils. As a result, SD and SDS characters were looking to profit from making sure TEŠ 6 happened, no matter the cost to the taxpayers. Some were looking to profit politically, some financially, some perhaps both. Criminal and other investigations have shown as much, beyond a shadow of the doubt.
It’s about the jobs, right? Right?
Which is why – after every other argument flew out the window, – TEŠ 6 was billed as a way to keep the Velenje “coal” mine in operation. Only it’s not really coal, it’s lignite and of a poor energy value to begin with. But the final pitch was that mining jobs need to be protected and then gradually phased out during TEŠ6 operational life.
Fast forward to today, a mere decade after TEŠ6 came on line and the Velenje mine is having more and more trouble delivering sufficient amounts of coal, while the price of extraction is increasing. This further screwed up the already royally screwed up financial outlook of the power plant, the mine’s sole customer.
Point being there is no way in hell those mining jobs will be phased out gradually. Not in the least, because there was fuck-all done to phase them out over the last decade, while the money was still flowing in.
TEŠ 6 was built, spoils were divided, elections were won, politicians moved on to other positions, and in addition to civil damages, a single suspended sentence was handed down. Nobody gives a flying fuck about the people.
A heating bill from hell
It beggars belief, but Šoštanj power plant didn’t turn a profit since since TEŠ 6 was put in operation. The sole bookkeeping exception was in 2021, when the company was awarded damages stemming from the corruption probe into the whole project.
But in terms of making money by producing electricity, TEŠ6 was and is an abject failure.
To date, almost two billion euros were spent building and maintaining the project. Just last year, TEŠ power plant ran a loss of almost 50 million euro. And in 2025, additional 150 million of taxpayers’ money will have to be funneled in, just to make sure those 35,000 residents in the Velenje region will be able to keep their homes warm.
That is one motherfucker of a heating bill.
