In 1986 there were 110 deep mines in the UK, which reduced dramatically to zero by 1995. After 142 years, the closure of the last coal-fired powered station, has been accelerated by the ever greater emphasis on renewable resources and net zero targets. Given this fact, what is even more remarkable is the continuing demand to import three million tonnes of coal in 2023.
The Energy Secretary Ed Milliband, has recently launched the Great British Energy initiative, confirming £21.7bn in funding for carbon capture and storage. This is part of a net zero policy on carbon emissions. However, a closer examination of electricity generation continues to unearth some interesting observations.
The initiative remains at odds with the German fossil fuel policy, that continues to mine coal, whilst planning to phase it out by 2038. The German economy has had to step up coal-fired power generation to 7.8% as the dependence on nuclear power, now at 3.8% has diminished as a result of their home-grown green lobby and in addition to the response to Russian gas supply issues, since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Do we still need coal?
Can the importance or need for this raw material be rekindled, where there is no viable alternative? In a speech by Arthur Scargill in 1986, the suggestion that coal had to take its place alongside the use of renewables and new technologies was part of the then NUM ‘plan for coal’.
Can it ever be a net zero policy?
The import of wood pellets from the US demonstrates that the subsidies paid to generate electricity from Drax and Lynemouth power stations do not account for the carbon dioxide generated by the cutting down of American conifer plantations from the Hoover era. Processing, including drying and movement by sea-bulk carrier from Baton Rouge to Tyne Dock across the Atlantic, is then compounded by the delivery by train to UK power stations and not accounted for on the net carbon use equation. It is incorrect to weigh up the carbon account for biofuel pellets as photosynthesis in one country versus combustion in another. Yet it appears that the very same transatlantic carbon model is being used to import coal from countries as far apart as Columbia and South Africa.
The closing of the last coal fired power station at Ratcliffe-on -Soar and the closure of the Port Talbot Steel works in recent weeks, has been compounded by the turning down of a permission to mine for coal in Northumberland in August. The equally controversial debate surrounding coal mining in Cumbria continues to suggest that there is cross party agreement to this ban. That coal mining is evident from the bags of coal ovoids to be found in your supermarket or garage forecourt.
Heritage coal
A recent visit to the North Yorkshire Railway, I observed the steam engines burning coal from Kazahkstan. On another heritage site visit to the Ryhope water pumping station near Sunderland, wood from waste garden decking was being used to fuel the Lancashire boilers. Is this undermining our Victorian and Edwardian heritage and their initiatives to go ‘green’, which given their technology is very restricted. I know that there is a useable resource that can in smaller quantities bring economic benefits to the region – it is coal mined in this country.
The ‘White Heat of Industry’, the initiative of Harold Wilson to invest in energy infrastructure, was made in 1963 and began the building of Ratcliffe on Soar power station, now the last to be closed.
The black fuel?
If the received wisdom is that wind and solar are virtuous and that fossil fuels like coal are not, then this ‘disgust psychology’, is preventing a more pragmatic and transparent policy being enacted.
We seem to have a deep bias about coal.
To the observer, the idea of ‘green energy’ is perhaps more seductive.
Because of the diffuse and chaotic character of both wind and solar flows, collecting, converting and delivering this energy is extremely capital expensive. The cost of energy is now a very significant part of the public perception of the cost of living and is set to increase to support new investment.
Incineration
The idea that our refuse, can also be used for fuel to generate power reveals my final point. The waste has to contain enough single use plastics of high energy content to ensure that temperatures are high enough to oxidise and destroy dangerous chemicals in the waste itself. This is just as polluting as a coal fired power station. The delivery of this subsidised electricity to the North East is like the transport of ‘coals to Newcastle’.
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