Czech energy magnate Pavel Tykac is ready to spend 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of his own cash on aging coal and gas-fired power plants across Europe. He’s betting the dirty generators will be needed for decades to supplement the green power that’s taking a bigger role at utilities from Germany to Britain. “The media bubble around clean energy doesn’t reflect reality,” said Alan Svoboda, an executive director of Seven Energy, the utility and lignite miner owned by Tykac. “Our fundamental assumption is that these conventional assets will be needed in the near future to balance the grids.” Governments across Europe are stepping up efforts to reduce pollution by phasing out coal use, unsettling the outlook for conventional power generators . RWE AG, Germany’s biggest energy producer, just added green generation assets to its fleet of coal plants in the utility industry’s biggest shakeup in years. But as solar […]