Soma is a town and district of
Manisa Province in the
Aegean region of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
. According to the 2009 census, the population of the district is 101,011, of which 74,158 live in the town of Soma. The district covers an area of , and the town lies at an elevation of .
Economy
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...
mining and a lignite-fired thermal power plant are the main economic activities in Soma. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
the mines were opened up for production. The lignite extracted during that time was described as being of "very bad" quality. That lignite was burned with German
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
for trains in the region. A small portion was exported to
İzmir
İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban aggl ...
.
A
just transition
Just transition is a framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable production, primarily combating climat ...
from coal could be supported by the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially fo ...
.
The
Soma Wind Farm, with 119
wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
s and an installed total capacity of 140.4
MW, is one of
Turkey's largest wind farms.
Olive, walnut and almond cultivation is among the important agricultural activities of Soma.
2014 Soma coal mine disaster
On 13 May 2014, as a result of an explosion caused by a mine fire at the
Soma coal mine, 301 workers were killed.
Notes
External links
*
Road map of Soma and environs
Populated places in Manisa Province
{{Manisa-geo-stub