Cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face over UK coal reserves

GORDON Lawrence (Yorkshire Post, June 29) dismisses Britain’s enormous coal reserves, stating that if the seams are too thin, if the coal is too deep, if current levels of technology make extraction uneconomic, there are more suitable sources of energy available and it would be a waste of resources to spend money on mining coal.

Previous generations of miners did not appear to accept such a negative outlook but wasn’t the main reason for closing our coal industry caused by Britain agreeing to cut CO2 emissions from the burning of coal?

Britain’s CO2 emissions represent 1.6 per cent of the world’s total, yet we are so bloated with our perceived importance to believe reducing this already minute amount will save the world. It is even more unbelievable that Britain’s government has agreed to reduce this minuscule amount by 90 per cent by 2030.

Of course, advanced clean-coal technology which can extract 90 per cent of CO2 emissions would have reduced this anyway and provided employment for thousands of our own people, used our own coal and made us energy independent and not at the mercy of supplies of energy from other countries, but this is, apparently, too difficult to comprehend. Many place the blame on Arthur Scargill for the demise of Britain’s coal industry.

Yes, Arthur Scargill had to be defeated, but, surely, one man, however objectionable, cannot be allowed to destroy such a colossal industry and there must be better ways of achieving this than closing it down and making hundreds of thousands of miners redundant. ‘Cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face’ comes readily to mind.

Gordon Lawrence says that the potential of clean-coal technology is an extremely long shot. So, having over three million tonnes of coal and being world leader in this technology is a ‘long shot’ in obtaining our future energy supplies. I totally disagree; in my opinion spending £40bn on a high speed rail system is what I would call a ‘long shot’. As this figure has been increased by £10bn in less than a year, just guess at what the final total will be when the system is completed. By comparison clean-coal technology presents absolutely no uncertainty.

However, what other sources of energy are available, as Gordon Lawrence maintains? Let’s see, we are spending £700m, yes, £700m, converting the previously coal-fired Drax power station to burn biomass. Where will we get the biomass materials from? By importing 15 million tonnes of wood pellets in over 300 shipments annually, all the way from America, a total of 1.5 million miles of travel. Is this operation magically free of causing pollution and, if our coal is uneconomic, just what is the cost of all of this? Does anyone know? Has anyone been told?

What other, more suitable sources of energy are available? Apart from the colossal cost already mentioned, I forget, billions have already been spent on inefficient, heavily subsidised, foreign-made wind turbines and with any remaining money fleeced from taxpayers we are going to buy, oh no, yet more useless wind turbines and if any money is leftover, still more wind turbines. No wonder Britain and the rest of Europe will rapidly become uncompetitive for we have a surfeit of brilliant theorists whose brains have no room left for simple basic common sense.

The energy watchdog, Ofgem, has warned that Britain could, as soon as 2015, have insufficient supplies of electricity, which would necessitate some kind of energy rationing, with the possibility of supplies being available on a rota basis. Can anyone imagine the ramifications of this scenario? It is a perfect example of ‘how to become uncompetitive without really trying’. China, using its coal-fired power stations must be planning to rapidly expand its manufacturing base, bewildered by the sheer stupidity of Europe. Many domestic users will find rationing of electricity unnecessary as they will not be able to afford it anyway.

Of course, the Government has said this situation will not occur, but then again, governments said road travel was the ‘future’, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that the NHS computer system would revolutionise the Health Service and that state-of-the-art fire control centres were required, so who is correct?

And, what is Britain doing to obtain the wealth of shale gas we have? In Northern England alone, conservative estimates of £1 trillion of recoverable gas would supply our current needs for the next 47 years. Friends of the Earth are trying to block any move to obtain this treasure making alarmist claims of its dangers – are these people democratically elected, or do we elect MPs to make such decisions?