Europe’s energy dilemma — burning the dirtiest coal while meeting pollution targets — is crystallizing in opposition to a plan that would uproot 700-year-old villages and dig two pits the size of Manhattan. PGE SA and Vattenfall AB , the Warsaw- and Stockholm-based utilities, want to tap Europe’s richest lignite deposit, along the German-Polish border. They’re opposed by communities already suffering sporadic sand storms and crumbling roads, in an area where the 12 kilometer (7.5 miles) long Jaenschwalde mine has dominated the landscape for three decades. Locals will form an 8-kilometer cross-border human chain on Aug. 23 in protest. The battle reflects the divide across Europe. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sees coal, used to generate 90 percent of his nation’s power, as a way for Europe to depend less on Russian natural gas. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government calls lignite “the black gold” that will help smooth out […]