New coal mine

[Asmith61]

Just watching the news and the government have agreed to open a new coal mine in Whitehaven Cumbria just wondered what the views are from our northern friends ?

[Ianmc]

    Well they need the coal to run one of the largest power stations in the UK that has been restarted at Junc.24 on the M1 motorway, otherwise we will have to import at great cost from Oz or similar.We must at least attempt to keep the lights and heat on in the UK over this winter.

[2112]

It's difficult to fathom really, global warming, poor air quality and legally binding international targets for the UK to reduce their fossil fuel dependency. It's a bit like opening a cake shop to help people dieting...

[Rusty Nuts]

It will be said the cake shop is opening because Putin won't let the dieters have any Ryvita. Cake is better than starving,  ask the Austrian bitch.

[StromGeeza]

Like with dodgy PPE contracts there will be dodgy fossil fuel industry links in the background and someone with contacts trying to make stupid money under cover of a supposed crisis of supply....

[Sea-Strom]

The future generations need us to help sure enough but we need to help ourselves too. If we get wiped out there may not be any future anyhow. I suspect tech leaps will help sort out future climate (virtual cooling ?) In the meantime bring on the coal. Mind, as soon as the mine opens there would be a pit strike for better pay! 

[Brockett]

By the time it is up ( or down) and running the crisis will be over. Meamwhile a great deal of money will be made and stashed in offshore funds without being reduced by tax. In fact expect a considerable government grant to get the thing going and to pay for improvements that may be needed for infrastructure improvements and later government funds to clear up after it.

[Rusty Nuts]

Almost as daft as a large parcels and  (for the time being) letters delivery organisation getting "green" incentives to switch to electric vans, then laying thousands of staff off whilst simultaneously hiring thousands of owner-drivers running around in their own clapped-out diesel Citroen Picassos.

[Barbel Mick]

I believe the coal is to be used for the production of steel, not power?
Obviously that doesn't help with the emissions from that production but as a country the UK is one of the lowest regarding that anyway & if the steel has been manufactured in the past and continues to be manufactured using the same process will the emissions increase?
My concern is who are they going to get to do the work in a mine, I'm not sure we have too many willing to put a hard days work in now.

[Joe Rocket]

You have to ask why your government won't allow inland wind farms (NIMBY) which supplies energy at about 1/9 of fossil fuels bur lets a new mine to open?

Go figure........

[Upt North]

Interesting views.
The facts are we burn coal, just about every country does.
We import the coal to burn and in turn burn more fossil fuels to get it to our shores. That is barmy, just plain balmy. There are no electric powered ships delivering this fuel and there never will be.
It makes far more sense to mine our own, reduce the burning of ships fuel and create local jobs in a deprived area in the process.
I'm surprised anyone believes that green power production will provide cheap energy. We have thousands of turbines in the UK, I don't see any cheap energy. New wind turbines are allowed on land and this was decided only recently in Westminster, I have no isuue with this, but bill payers shouldn't have to pay green levies for it to happen.
The erection of these turbines should only ever occur with the agreement of local communities, some of those already erected are in wholly inappropriate areas. Why should rural areas be blighted to provide the power that cities require? Surround the cities with turbines if that's the solution, although it obviously isn't.
If the local community wants the mine, the jobs, the wealth creation, then it should go ahead.
Upt'North.

[sjrainsford]

Oh the irony.  The conservatives opening a coal mine 

[Rusty Nuts]

Bolt a dynamo to Maggie's feet, she'll be spinning fit to power half the country.

[Barbel Mick]

Without trying to turn this into a political thread & not get into an argument as to why the mines were closed in the 80's  ....... surely it would be more ironic if labour were to open a coal mine, seeing as they closed twice as many as the conservatives?   

[Joe Rocket]

I heard on R4 this morning it's for coking coal for which there is no customer at the moment and as the mine gets established less and less demand is likely in the coming years.   

[Barbel Mick]

Some of it might be exported to France to run their steel making industry (could be cheaper than the Australian coal they import) or even used when/if they reopen the coal fired power station in the North of France?

[Upt North]

You might be right Mick, out of 56 French reactors 26 are unusable at present.
Can the last one out turn the lights off.
Upt'North.

[Brockett]

Heard on the radio this morning that most of the coal will go for export. So not actually done for British industry or power generation.

[Ianmc]

             “You have to ask why your government won't allow inland wind farms “

        Have a run around the Derbyshire and Staffordshire dales and you will see plenty of wind farms.There are hundreds around the UK.

[Joe Rocket]

Whilst this thread is about a UK coal mine Barbel Mick and Upt North can have a look at the current French situation which suffers from age of the nuclear reactor sites.

 https://www.france24.com/en/20170710-France-hulot-could-close-nuclear-plants

There are plans for having the lights turned off too! (many a true word etc.)  Electricity generation is a big problem here.

Ianmc, there are indeed many sites already in the UK but the movement to put up more is down to local decisions and not a priority policy by the government. In the meantime projects like this coal mine and a new energy (gas I think) field off the coast of Scotland is still rumoured.