Coal news and updates

In northeastern England, a battle is raging between grass roots campaigners and a company intent on digging a new open cast mine as world coal prices soar.

A year after Britain closed its last deep coal mine and pledged to phase out coal-fired power generation, the economics of mining have been transformed.

Coal prices have risen by well over 100 per cent this year to $US100 a tonne. Some mining stocks have risen even more, spurred by US President-elect Donald Trump's pledges to revive coal and pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Some wonder how long the coal price surge will last, but in Northumberland, the Banks Group is pressing ahead with plans for a new mine despite opposition from local environmentalists.

Northumberland County Council agreed that Banks could extract three million tonnes of coal by cutting an open cast mine near Druridge Bay, a scenic windswept arc of white sand and grassy dunes on the North Sea coast.

The government has "called in" the application, meaning there will be a public enquiry in 2017.

Jeannie Kielty, who works on community relations for Banks, says open cast is part of the social fabric of the northeast, an area with a long history of coal mining.

"The benefits that come from these sites can't be over-stated," she says. "We are frustrated with the call-in because it delays us, but we still believe we can work the site."

On the other side of the argument is the Save Druridge Bay campaign, led by a hard core of eight campaigners. It also has high-profile support from television personality and comedian and keen bird watcher Bill Oddie.

 

"Suddenly someone wants to turn the clock back in some really perverse way," Oddie said at a campaigning beach party in May. "It's sacrilege."

Banks has overcome opposition in the past, appealing successfully against a ban on developing another site in the area at Shotton.

Situated on the Blagdon Estate owned by Matt Ridley, a peer and Conservative politician who has said climate change has done more good than harm, Shotton has been mined by Banks since 2008.

Banks says all the coal at Shotton and Highthorn, the site of the proposed mine, can be extracted by the government's 2025 deadline for phasing out coal-fired power generation.

But the company plans to expand. In September, Banks announced it was exporting coal to Spain and has begun canvassing opinion on a project to extract 800,000 tonnes of coal at Dewley Hill near Newcastle.

British planning rules and the government's drive to close coal-fired power stations do allow coal mining in some circumstances.

The phase-out plans apply only to so-called unabated coal, meaning a company that has the technology to reduce emissions can carry on generating power with coal.

Exceptions can also be made if there is a risk that supplies will be disrupted, a danger heightened by Britain's vote to leave the European Union. That makes the country more reliant on its own resources and less sure it can tap into the European power grid.

Source: News.COm