"BELCHATOW, Poland -- They call it Poland’s biggest hole in the ground."

"The coal mine here is more than eight-and-a-half miles long, nearly two miles wide and as deep in parts as three football fields. Enough coal comes out of it to fuel Europe’s largest coal-fired utility plant, whose chimneys loom in the distance.

“The entire world population could fit in this hole,” Tomasz Tarnowski, an administrator here, said in a bit of proud hyperbole as he led a group of reporters on a walk near a towering mound of brown coal about halfway into the mine."

Danny Hakim and Mateusz Zurawik report for the New York Times October 31, 2013 . [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Coal-Fired Power To Grow By 434 Gigawatts By 2020" (San Francisco Chronicle) [3]

"Poland Could Halve Demand for Coal By 2030, Study Says" (Reuters) [4]