Coal's return raises pollution threat

Rising prices are spurring plans for a big increase in mining despite a threat to climate change goals
John Vidal, environment editor

The Observer, Sunday November 23 2008

Britain is poised to expand its coal mining industry, despite fears that the move will lead to a rise in climate change emissions and harm communities and the environment.
Freedom of information requests and council records show that in the past 18 months 14 companies have applied to dig nearly 60 million tonnes of coal from 58 new or enlarged opencast mines. At least six coal-fired power stations are planned. If all the applications are approved, the fastest expansion of UK coal mining in 40 years could see southern Scotland and Northumberland become two of the most heavily mined regions in Europe.
The demand for new mines is being driven by dramatic increases in the price of coal. This has quadrupled in two years and has risen by 45 per cent since the start of this year. Opencast, or surface, mines are much cheaper than deep mines, but those living nearby can suffer years of pollution.
The increase in mining will embarrass the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, who is arguing that Britain must reduce carbon emissions. Ministers must soon decide whether to approve a controversial new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, the first in 30 years. 'Attention has been focused on the decision at Kingsnorth, but over the past 18 months local authorities have approved more than 24 new opencast mines and 16 expansions of existing mines,' said Richard Hawkins, of the Public Interest Research Centre (Pirc), which conducted the study.
'There is a clear contradiction between the government's 80 per cent target for climate change emissions cuts and investment in new coal. With industry and government saying carbon capture and storage is at least 20 years away, this shows that the 160m tonnes of carbon dioxide released by burning this coal would not be captured,' he said.
Research shows that Scotland will bear the brunt of the expansion. Currently 11 mines produce about 5m tonnes of coal a year. A further 27 mines could extract a total of 22m tonnes of coal over just a few years. Thirteen of the 27 have already been approved and the rest are awaiting planning decisions.
Northumberland is likely to become the centre of coal mining in England with plans to extract more than 20m tonnes of coal from some of the largest opencast mines in Europe. Wales, which has one of the biggest surface mines in Europe at Ffos-y-Fran, could have five large new mines. The research also suggests that power companies would like to build six new coal-fired power stations. These would replace existing power stations if given the go-ahead but could lock Britain into coal for the next 50 years at a time when it is trying to lead the world on reducing climate change emissions.
According to the research, based on information provided by energy companies, Scottish and Southern, Scottish Power, Eon and RWE npower all have plans at different stages of development. Feasibility studies have been carried out on new plants at Cockenzie and Longannet in Scotland, as well as new stations at Tilbury in Essex, Blyth in Northumberland and Ferrybridge in Yorkshire. Only one application to build, at Kingsnorth in Kent, has so far been put forward.
In the past six months 12 groups, made up of climate change activists and residents, have been set up to object to the plans. There have been big protests in Wales, Derbyshire and Yorkshire and a coal train heading for Britain's biggest power station at Drax in North Yorkshire was hijacked by protesters in June.
Nearly half of all British coal is mined using opencast methods against just 12 per cent 10 years ago, but this is expected to increase significantly. In 2005, total UK production was 20m tonnes, with 9.6m tonnes coming from deep-mined production and opencast accounting for 10.4m tonnes. Nearly 70 per cent of all the coal burnt in UK power stations is imported from Russia, South Africa, Colombia and Australia.
But coal prices have risen far above official projections. 'Part [of the increase in applications] is certainly due to the increase in the world coal price, which follows oil and gas,' said a spokesman for the Coal Authority, the body which regulates the licensing of UK coal mines.