Rich Felgate’s film FINITE: The Climate of Change, features the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley and the occupation of the Hambacher forest. It shows how, through relentless campaigning, direct action and creative protest, concerned people stopped destruction of the remaining Hambacher forest in the Rhineland, Germany. The forest was being consumed for RWE’s brown opencast coal mine. FINITE also follows opposition to the Banks Group’s opencast coal mine in the Pont Valley, Durham, UK. The Pont Valley Protection Camp started opposing the coal mine plans in early 2018.
FINITE is available to rent or buy online worldwide on Vimeo On Demand!
Numerous applications to extract coal from the Pont Valley via opencast coal methods were rejected for over 30 years by the local council, before UK Coal were given planning permission after a second planning appeal, in June 2015, although the company had gone bankrupt. Banks Group took over the license to extract coal for power stations in early 2018 and rushed to remove the first coal before the planning permission lapsed on the 3rd June 2018.
Local people, some living just 300m from the site’s perimeter, alongside activists from across Europe, set up a protest camp in February 2018 during the ‘Beast from the East’ snow storm. This action was taken just after the coal company felled an ancient hedgerow that ran through the proposed site.
UK Coal’s ecologists had found protected great crested newts on the opencast site and had promised to relocate them, to ponds in the north of the site built for this purpose. Banks Group’s ecologist, in a rush to extract coal before the deadline, conveniently found no newts at all living on the site. The assertion that there were no newts was challenged by everyone who knew the Brooms pond area well. Newts were a central theme in the campaign to stop the mine.
The Campaign to Protect Pont Valley was led by people living in the three villages surrounding the opencast site. The film shows some of the many court hearings, protests, direct action, and a private prosecution for wildlife crimes.
FINITE shows some of the victories from this campaign. The strong resistance to the opencast in the Pont Valley showed that new opencasts are unwanted and irresponsible in the face of the serious impacts from climate change already being felt. This meant that extracting 3 million tonnes of coal from a proposed opencast coal mine near Druridge Bay, in Northumberland, was rejected by central government at the end of 2020. A proposed opencast coal mine at Dewley Hill on the outskirts of Newcastle was also turned down by the planning committee of Newcastle Council in December 2020. Both of these proposals were submitted by Banks Group, who were targetted by campaigners against coal in the Pont Valley.
Although there is very little UK mining happening right now coal mining remains legal. There is currently a proposal for a new underground coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumbria, which was given permission to start in December 2022, but faces legal challenges. There is also an extension proposed to the operating underground coal mine at Aberpergwm, Neath Port Talbot, which is subject to a legal challenge by Coal Action Network.
The tactics used against Banks Group and RWE, shown in FINITE, are applicable against many other extractive industries and unsustainable projects worldwide. Less than 2 miles from where Banks Group opencast mined the Pont Valley now lies Derwentside detention centre. Tactics used in the Pont Valley are now being deployed against this detention centre for asylum seekers, which opened in 2021.
The policing seen in FINITE is familiar to many who fight for social change, and shocking to many who are not yet involved. The interactions between police and protestors in the Pont Valley lead to an academic article, Police and Private Security Responses to the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley Against Opencast Coal Extraction. Even at a low level, the police continue to support the actions of those with money, pursuing projects which are known to cause harm.
FINITE touches on the death of Waka, a much loved part of the Campaign to Protect Pont Valley who was killed fighting for Kurdish freedom by ISIS and Steffan, an embedded journalist documenting the struggle in the Hambacher Forest, killed by the police.
Share the film on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
An underlying message in the film is that the power of coal, as well as the actual resource, is finite—but the energy and passion of the activist movement is relentless. Together we can turn things around and build a system that puts biodiversity and people beyond profit. It’s time to get active.
Today (Sat 15th October 2022) the Scottish government has stated that the “era of coal is over”. Lorna Slater, Co-leader of the Scottish Greens, announced at their party conference the preferred position against coal mining, for all types of coal.
This is essentially a ban on coal mining in Scotland, similar to the one on fracking. The Scottish Government doesn’t have ultimate say on mineral extraction, but the preferred position means that local councils won’t be able to permit new coal mines under Scottish policy.
Image credit: the Guardian
Scotland was once the heartland of UK coal mining, as the above 2008 image shows, Scotland dominated the UK in its extraction of coal via opencast mines. The last deep Scottish coal mine, Longannet pit, in Fife, closed in 2002 and the final coal load was transported from an East Ayrshire opencast coal mine in 2020. Longannet coal power station closed its doors in 2016, ending electricity production from coal in the country. However, in recent years there has recently movement towards an application for a new underground coking coal mine in Dumfries and Galloway.
At a site called Lochinvar an Australian company, NAE Ltd wanted to extract up to 33.7 million tonnes of coking coal for steelworks in the rest of UK and beyond (there are no major Scottish steel works using coal) NAE Ltd wanted to mine between 2025 and 2051, under a massive area under Canonbie near Gretna, in South West Scotland. This would have emitted around 73 million tonnes of CO2 and around 750 thousand tonnes of methane, a powerful climate change accelerant. This announcement should stop this application from ever progressing.
The area of the proposed Lochinvar coking coal mine
Coal Action Network strongly supports the Green Party’s position that, “I’m calling on the UK Government to follow us. To make the right call for once. To ban coal extraction for good.”
The UK government is still deliberating on whether to prevent an underground coking coal mine starting at Whitehaven, a decision is due this autumn. The Coal Authority has been taken to Judicial Review by Coal Action Network in the hope that it will reverse its decision on Aberpergwm underground coking coal mine extension. There are also two Welsh opencast coal extension proposals.
The UK government has been keen to be seen to say the right things regarding coal, but has failed to take the many opportunities to stop the mining industry to date.
Today’s decision has been hard won by the communities, campaigners and organisations such as Coal Action Scotland who fought opencast coal mine applications in Scotland and created the foundations for this decision.
Ffos-y-fran (pronounced in English as Foss-uh-vran and also known as the 'Ffos-y-Fran Land Reclamation Scheme') is a large opencast coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, mining primarily thermal coal. Mining company Merthyr Ltd (previously, Miller Argent) was awarded planning permission in February 2005 on appeal and began opencast coal mining. Planning permission for the opencast coal mining came to an end on 06th September 2022 (confirmed by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to Coal Action Network under a Freedom of Information request).
The two planning conditions that Merthyr Ltd are pressuring the Council to throw out are:
Merthyr Ltd want to delay its restoration responsibility and extend mining its dirty coal from the Ffos-y-fran opencast initially by 9 months (06 June 2023), but then by a further 3 years. The 9 month extension is to give the coal operator enough time to mine a further 240,000 tonnes of coal and submit an application for a 3 year extension but during this time, it’ll be mining as much coal as it can. See all the application documents at P/22/0237.
So, how does Merthyr Ltd seek to justify breaking its promise to the Council and local communities to restore and end opencast coal mining?
In a personally signed letter to the Council, Merthyr Ltd’s Director, David Lewis, claims production was reduced due to lockdowns so not all the coal could be mined in the void that was expected to be by the deadline of the 06 September 2022, so a time extension should be awarded to “ensure the full reserve can be realised”.
There are two issues with the justification attempted in Lewis’s letter:
Via repeated Freedom of Information Requests, Coal Action Network eventually succeeded in forcing the Council admit only £15 million had been deposited by Merthyr Ltd into the escrow account for restoration. In 2018, restoration was estimated to cost £62 million, meaning there is roughly a £47 million shortfall (depending on how much of the site has been restored alongside coal mining since 2018). This is shortfall is highlighted by Merthyr Ltd in its Planning Statement for the time extension: “As the Council is fully aware, there are insufficient funds within the Escrow and restoration fund to allow for the full and successful implementation of the current restoration strategy for the site.”
Merthyr Ltd’s solution is “that the additional time to finish extraction and restoration will enable a more sustainable and modernised restoration scheme”. Although Merthyr Ltd promised to fund and carry out a restoration strategy as a condition to it gaining planning permission, the company now uses its failure to fulfil this condition as a reason to let it mine more coal. And by “modernised”, Merthyr Ltd almost certainly mean cheaper restoration scheme.
Merthyr Ltd transferred most the of the land ownership to Geraint Morgan Legacy Limited of which David Lewis is the sole Director. If the Council attempts to recover the £47 million shortfall for restoration, and Merthyr Ltd cannot pay, responsibility may lie with the landowner, which appears from its Companies House records to only have £2 million in the bank. Merthyr Ltd may reap the profits from years of mining, and the Council could be face bankruptcy to pay the remaining shortfall for restoration.
Similar situations have been seen with other mining companies (most notoriously by Celtic Energy) holding Councils to ransom for permitting more coal mining by threatening to fold or transferring the liability to shell companies, knowing Councils can’t afford to fund the massive costs involved in restoring ex-coal mining sites.
Merthyr Ltd have known for years that planning permission at Ffos-y-fran would expire on 06 September 2022, yet attempts to leverage the fact that it has seemingly failed to support its workers to reskill or find alternative employment as a reason to extend the planning permission: “…it will ensure that current employees have a further 9 months to weather the cost of living crisis and look for alternative means of employment” (Planning Statement).
Incredulously, Merthyr Ltd even goes beyond this neglect towards its workers, to use its own lack of business strategy as it approached the known end of planning permission as a rationale for permitting the initial 9 month extension to allow “…the operators of the mine to look at other investment possibilities.”
Merthyr Ltd’s Planning Statement attempts the justification commonly used be coal mining companies in the UK: “The transport emissions for each tonne of UK coal delivered to Port Talbot are typically five times lower than coal imported from abroad” and therefore, less CO2 is emitted overall if coal is mined and used in the UK. This argument relies on the idea that more coal mining in the UK would displace the same amount of coal being mined in another country, and the coal mined in the UK would be used in the UK.
Coal-laden HGV leaving the Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine on 13/09/2022
Coal operators are notorious for making lofty claims about the unrivalled quality of coal they would mine—this is to circumvent the presumption against new coal extraction in planning decisions, hoping to fit into the loophole made for exceptional need and economic value.
Merthyr Ltd has rebranded its thermal coal as “dry steam coal”, a term that doesn’t seem to be widely used by anyone except Merthyr Ltd and its trade customers. In reality, this is just thermal coal, and used to be primarily sold to RWE’s Aberthaw coal-fired power station. However, Aberthaw had to stop burning coal from Ffos-y-fran to generate electricity because the European Court of Justice ruled the toxic nitrogen oxides it emitted were too high.
With the loss of this customer, Merthyr Ltd invested £10 million in machinery to refine some of its lower grade coal to ‘metallurgical’ coal that could be used in steelworks in 2015.
Merthyr Ltd has clearly been studying other coal mine applications in the planning system, and likewise in its Planning Statement emphasises Port Talbot Steelworks’ reliance on coal, claiming its thermal coal is needed in the vaguely worded “steel manufacturing process”.
Like most coal operators, Merthyr Ltd (and former coal operators) like to change the rules along the way. The original coal operator agreed to all the conditions attached to the original planning permission in 2005, but in 2008, the coal operator wanted to rip up condition 37 requiring col to leave the site by freight train. The coal operator applied for a 'S73' change to use HGVs to transport 100,000 tonnes of coal each year by road, rather than rail. The company pragmatically reduced this to 50,000 tonnes but HGVs loaded with coal on the roads is dirty and dangerous, so the Council rejected the attempt to change this condition. The company didn’t accept this, and won the right to change this condition on appeal in May 2011 (APP/U6925/A/10/2129921)
Merthyr Ltd want to change the rules again with this 'S73' application for a time extension to mine more coal and delay the promised restoration. Each time the coal operators change the rules, it’s inevitably the local communities living in Merthyr Tydfil that pay the price. Enough is enough.
Updated. The decision to stop or allow the proposed 61.4 million tonne coal mine has been delayed or a second time. It is now due on or before the 8th November. (Following a first delay when the Government had said the 17th August.) We are keen to apply as much pressure to stop the mine as possible. For why this mine cannot be allowed to go ahead, see our blog post Key facts: Whitehaven coal mine.
The public inquiry into the application closed nearly a year ago (September 2021). Now we’re contending with the invasion of Ukraine, a looming energy crisis, and the closure of Port Talbot steelworks if it doesn’t receive £1.5 billion in subsidies from the government to pay for new equipment to remove its dependence on coal.
Since Liz Truss became Prime Minister there is a new Minister, Simon Clarke responsible for this decision. He is the third new holder of this role since Robert Jenrick said the government would take over the proposed Whitehaven coal mine decision in March 2021 from Cumbria County Council.
Write to your MP now to ask that they make Simon Clarke, the Secretary of State responsible for the decision, aware of your concerns.
Find out who is the MP for your area.
Below are some suggestions of points to include, please re-write them yourself and or change their order. Unique letters make a much bigger difference than reproducing the same one.
Some things to consider in your letter to your MP:
1) The only significant domestic demand for Whitehaven’s coal would be Port Talbot Steelworks (at most, 13% of the coal produced could be consumed in the UK at full production). Port Talbot Steelworks has announced it will either cut out coal from its steelworks with a £1.5 billion government subsidy – or close. Either way, close to 100% of Whitehaven coal would be exported where it doesn’t get included in UK emissions statistics, but does worsen everyone’s climate risk.
2) The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a good reason to lead the way in reducing our industries’ dependence on fossil fuels, starting with Port Talbot Steelworks, and embrace the massive potential for renewable energy across the UK. Much can be done just by increasing efficiencies, see our report on Coal in steel.
3) Chris McDonald of the Materials Processing Institute has said that the Whitehaven mine would not displace a single tonne of Russian coking coal from the UK. The industry’s trade association—UK Steel - has confirmed that no Russian coal is used in UK steelworks any more; these plants have already found alternative sources.
4) The UK holds the COP (climate summit) presidency until the end of 2022, the UK needs to set an example by keeping all fossil fuels in the ground. Lord Deben, of the Climate Change Committee, said in June 2022 "As far as the coal mine in Cumbria is concerned, let's be absolutely clear, it is absolutely indefensible".
5) The cost of living crisis means that we need to invest in technology and industries which can offer sustainable, well paid, long-term employment, building a greener country—rather than investing in a declining industry at a coal mine with an uncertain future. The Local Government Association, says there is potential for over 6000 green jobs in Cumbria this decade of which 10% of these could be in Copeland, where the Whitehaven coal mine would be.
You can also include reasons against this coal mine which are not on this list, but important to you. Remember it would produce coal for steel making, rather than for coal power stations. Please remember to include a full name and address.
Particularly important Ministers to contact are: Alok Sharma, Reading West; Simon Clarke, Middlesborough South and East Cleveland; Kwasi Kwarteng, Spelthorne; Greg Hands, Chelsea and Fulham; Paul Scully, Sutton & Cheam; Marcus Jones, Nuneaton; Lia Nici, Great Grimsby; Steve Double, St Austell and Newquay; and Alan Mak, Havant, Hampshire. However, only the MP for the area that you live will correspond with you on this issue.
If they haven't already you could ask your MP to sign the Early Day Motion titled, “Planned coalmine in Whitehaven, Cumbria”. 51 MPs have signed so far. Is yours one of them? Normally only opposition party MPs sign EDMs.
Update - Sat 15th October 2022 the Scottish Government De Facto banned coal mining. As such this article is for historic interest only, this is not a live campaign.
New Age Exploration Ltd (NAE Ltd) proposes to extract up to 33.7 million tonnes of coking coal for steelworks in the UK and beyond between 2025 and 2051 from a mine under Gretna and Canonbie, near Carlisle, in South West Scotland. This may worsen local air quality, reduce the value of nearby residential properties, make local roads more dangerous with HGV traffic, and will emit around 73 million tonnes of CO2 and around 750 thousand tonnes of methane, a powerful climate change accelerant.
NAE Ltd has a conditional licence from The Coal Authority and aims to secure full planning permission by 2023-4.
Local impacts
Global impacts
(Company-supplied in the application for a conditional licence to The Coal Authority in 2020. Redacted by The Coal Authority)
Eyes and ears on the ground: ‘Lochinvar Coal Limited’ employs someone in the role of ‘community-liaison’ based in the town of Canonbie.
Dirty coal: NAE Ltd’s target sulphur content is 1.2-1.4% whereas current imports from USA are less than 1.2%, with some as low as 0.9%. The higher sulphur content of coking coal from the proposed coal mine in West Cumbria recently led an industry leader to rule out its use in UK and European steelworks.
Rolling the dice: based on a Wood Mackenzie forecast of European demand for imported coking coal to grow over 50% from 2017 to 2035. Recently, serious flaws in Wood Mackenzie forecasts were revealed in a public inquiry into the proposed Whitehaven coal mine—as it fails to properly consider rapidly increasing momentum behind green steel.
Best corporate quote: “Investor confidence is then expected to slowly return, making it possible to again raise larger amounts of funding required to progress quality coking coal projects, notwithstanding growing climate change related general anti-coal sentiment globally.” (Licence application to the Coal Authority, 2020)
Shaking the money tin: NAE Ltd claims it is currently progressing discussions for direct investment from potential investors, but its existing relationships have been redacted from the licence application.
2012: New Age Exploration Limited (NAE Ltd) acquired the Lochinvar licence. NAE Ltd set up Lochinvar Coal Limited (formerly Canonbie Coal Limited) in 2012 to operate the Lochinvar Coking Coal Project. However, NAE Ltd remains its parent company, and holds the exploration and conditional licences directly.
2013: NAE Ltd drilled 10 deep boreholes to a total of 3,752 metres underground, through its subsidiary, Lochinvar Coal Limited, on the Scottish/English border near the town of Canonbie, to estimate coking coal quantities and access . This follows drilling by The National Coal Board, British Geological Survey, and Greenpark Energy between 1979 and 2009.
2014: NAE Ltd conducted a scoping study, subsequently updated in 2017.
2014-2016: Coal prices fall to historic lows of USD$70/tonne and NAE Ltd put the project on hold as it was unable to raise funding. Prices remained volatile up to 2019, reducing investor confidence.
2019: NAE Ltd conducted a “Project optimisation study” and touted for partners or investors to finance the development of a coal mine—then the UK and many countries went into lockdown as the pandemic was responded to.
2020: NAE Ltd paid a £13,800 application fee to the coal authority for a coal mining and exploration conditional licence.
2021: JHD Exploration Ltd Dumfries and Galloway Council (within which the Lochinvar test-drilling took place received) for the first time since 2013 to notify them of test drilling.
2022: NAE Ltd had its conditional underground licence renewed by the Coal Authority on 21 January 2022—just 4 days before issuing the Aberpergwm coal mine expansion, in Wales, a full licence. This occurred in a changed context of increases in the price of coal through 2021-22, sanctions on Russian coal has driven demand for alternative sources, production has ramped up post-lockdowns, and the UK Government is broadcasting a more favourable approach towards new coal projects again.
Going forward...
2023-2024: Between 2023 and early 2024 NAE Ltd aim to secure planning permission.
2025: Towards the end of 2025, NAE Ltd aim to begin extracting coal.
NAE Ltd is the named coal mine operator for the Coal Authority's Lochinvar conditional licence. NAE Ltd is a reasonably small company Australian-based mining company, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Dealings in the UK and elsewhere: NAE are a NAE Ltd previously operated the Redmoor Tin-Tungsten mine in Cornwall under Cornwall Resources Limited, in a joint-venture with Strategic Mineral PLC. NAE Ltd is also advancing gold exploration projects in Australia and New Zealand, and previously (dates) advanced thermal and coking coal exploration projects in Colombia.
Financial turmoil? NAE Ltd's shares have tumbled by over 46% on the Australian Stock Exchange over the past year, and have been erratic over the past 3 years - decline is clear though over the past 6 months.
Is NAE Ltd actually a mining company? From its size, current portfolio, and the sale of its share in the Redmoor Tin-Tungsten mine in the development stage, it appears NAE Ltd is focused on exploration and development rather than long-term mine-operation. Two of the 3 Directors of NAE Ltd have backgrounds in raising capital and equity capital, further signalling the company’s business model.
This means NAE Ltd may look to sell the Lochinvar coal mine to another operator early or at some point during its development. The company that buys the coal mine licence will not be subject to the same financial and competence tests that NAE Ltd has been, raising concerns about how the coal mine will actually be operated.
While NAE Ltd has yet to apply for full planning permission, the preparation for an application is underway.
Coal & refuse to be excavated: 72 million tonnes in total - 30 million tonnes of which will be "middling" coal to be dumped or put back into the coal mine.
Coal to be sold: 42 million tonnes during the life of the extension
CO2: 100-120 million tonnes of CO2, according to uses listed below (2022 BEIS Conversion Factors)
Methane: up to 1.17 million tonnes of methane, a powerful climate accelerant
Coal operator (mining company): Energybuild Ltd/Energybuild Mining Ltd.
Type: Anthracite
Claimed uses:
The planning application said power stations and steel works. With Aberthaw power station closed, Energybuild now talks of Pulverised injection for steelmaking, household heating, cement, and water filtration.
County Council Local Planning Authority: Neath Port Talbot
Address: Glynneath, Neath, SA11 5AJ
Physical size: Because this is an underground mine, much of the excavation would be invisible but very real, as communities victim to flooding mine shafts have experienced. The underground tunnelling has permission to extend to 2.3km squared, taking you roughly half an hour to walk from one side of the tunnels to the other. And this doesn’t factor in the vertical shafts, sending offshoots that go beneath the River Dulais.
Time: Planning permission to mine coal until 2039 (this is often subsequently extended).
Published: 22/04/2022
In the midst of the climate crisis, the UK still mines and imports coal. The coal is used for steel and cement production, as well as in power stations. Mining companies are currently applying for more underground coal mine applications and expansions, which we are fighting - such as the Aberpergwm coal mine extension and the proposed West Cumbrian coking coal mine. Read our September 2023 coal summary.
Energy Build ltd are on the cusp of getting their Aberpergwm coal mine extension licence. The licence could be obtained any day, and work begin shortly thereafter. Coal is our collective heritage, but it cannot be our future…
We are deeply saddened to hear that yesterday (25th November 2021) a suspected methane explosion killed 52 people, including 6 rescuers, at the Listvyazhnaya coal mine. The underground mine lies close to the town of Gramoteino, in the heavily mined Kuzbass coal field.
On the first day of the Conference of Parties Climate summit (COP26) in Glasgow Boris Johnson for the first time has said that he is not in favour of a new coal mine in the UK. Tommy Greene explains what happened in an article on Left Foot Forward.
Today (1st October) is the last day of the public inquiry into the proposed West Cumbria coal mine. The inspector will privately deliberate the evidence presented, write up a report and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State, who is now Michael Gove.
Opencast coal extraction causes extensive damage to local environments by opening up the land like a quarry, destroying habitats and polluting the air and water. Imported coal, from Russia, Venezuela, Colombia, the USA and Australia…
New report from Coal Action Network. Coal in Steel provides background information to campaigns against proposed new coking coal mines and considering how coal needs to be phased out of steel production.
From West Cumbria to London, opposition to the controversial proposal for an underground coking
coal mine, sited near Whitehaven, is widespread and growing. On 7th September, the day the
public inquiry investigating the proposal by West Cumbria Mining Ltd started, members of the public gather in two locations to demand a greener future, in which a new coal mine has no place.
Coal Action Network has commissioned research revealing massive debts of over £29million, Cayman Islands tax havens, corporate structures that undermine responsibility, and taxes that may not get paid.
The situation with coal production and use in the UK is changing. There are no new opencast mines proposed; only one proposed opencast coal extension and one existing opencast extraction site. However there are three new underground coal mine applications or extensions proposed and there was an increase in coal use in power stations between 2020 and 2021.
As you can see from the image above coal use in power stations has dropped dramatically since 2012, when 43% of electricity in the UK grid was produced from coal combustion, to just 1.72% in 2020.
Coal use hit a record low in 2020 supplying 253 TWh to the grid, and increased slightly the following year to 267 TWh, as the economy ramped back up from covid-19. (The data for 2022 is only for the first fortnight of the year). Thanks to MyGridGB for this data.
There are presently three applications for new/ extended underground coal mines.
Proposed underground mines
Aberpergwm Colliery (Energybuild Ltd) in Neath port Talbot had planning permission for a 40+ million tonne underground (anthracite) coal mine approved in 2018. The Coal Authority offered the coal company, a license to extract coal in January 2022. Coal Action Network are currently considering legal action against the Coal Authority and Welsh Government for failing to stop the mine being licenced.
Lochinvar (Australian New Age Explorations) are applying for licences for an underground coking coal mine at Lochinvar in three sections, on the Scottish border. If constructed the company hopes to be producing coal until 2044. The first of the three areas would supply an average 1.4 million tonnes of coal each year.
Woodhouse Colliery proposed by West Cumbria Mining had its proposal for a new 1.78 million tonne per year underground coking coal mine off Whitehaven, Cumbria called in by the Secretary of State in 2021. The Planning Inspectorate ran a Public Inquiry in September 2021 and the report is expected to be given to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove imminently.
There is currently an application to extend a previously operated mine at Glan Lash in Camarthanshire by Bryn Bach Coal.
The last existing opencast coal mine in the UK is Ffos-y-fran, operated by Merthyr (South Wales) Ltd in Merthyr Tydfil, it is widely reported to be due to close in October 2022.
There are four major UK steel producers, half are using coking coal and produce much higher emissions that the two which recycle scrap steel.
Tata Steel
Port Talbot steel works, in Neath Port Talbot, Wales, is the second biggest UK single site emitter of carbon dioxide.[1] The plant uses coking coal to make steel in blast furnaces.
British Steel
Currently British steel’s Scunthorpe plant can use a maximum of 25% to 30% recycled content using Basic Oxygen Steel making. It currently uses coking coal.
Liberty
Liberty Steel, which has sites in Newport and in Tredegar, has said it aims to become a carbon-neutral steel producer by 2030. The site currently uses Electric Arc Furnaces and recycles scrap metal so does not use coking coal.
Celsa
Celsa’s Cardiff steelworks uses 100% recycled scrap steel in its products and so does not need coking coal.
For more details see our report Coal in Steel.
Ratcliffe on Soar power was given a contract to supply 411 MW to the grid from coal in 2022/23 at a Capacity Market auction in Feb 2022. Ratcliffe's owner Uniper plans to turn the power station into an incinerator for household waste and produce heat and electricity operational by 2026. It has secured planning permission.
Drax power station is supposed to have stopped burning coal this year. However it has offered that it could stay online until 2024 to the UK government.
EDF are closing their West Burton coal power station in September 2022.
Kilroot coal and oil power station in Northern Ireland is going to be converted to gas. It has been announced that Kilroot will stop consuming coal in September 2023.
Coal phase-out in the UK is expected by October 2024. Given that coal consumption in power stations is very low in the summer, the last generation could be April 2024.
[1] The Coal Authority, Production and Manpower returns for three month period January to March 2020 and other sources.
Queries and media contact: info @ coalaction . org .uk (without spaces)
Check out what else we're doing now to stop the Aberpergwm coal mine expansion
See our first letter and our second letter 'before action' from lawyers Richard Buxton Solicitors challenging the decisions made around the Aberpergwm coal mine expansion licence.
Under direction by grassroots campaign organisation, Coal Action Network, Barrister Estelle Dehon has sent a letter-before-action to the Welsh Government and the Coal Authority on the grounds that:
Our Barrister’s pre-action letter convincingly puts the power to stop the Aberpergwm colliery extension licence firmly in the hands of Welsh Government Ministers. Now it is up to those Ministers to take their rhetoric and put it into swift, decisive action to stop this climate calamity whilst there is still the opportunity to do so. Our pre-action letter also identifies why The Coal Authority, hosted by BEIS of the UK Government, isn’t bound by the narrow set of criteria it claims to be, and could, for instance, site climate change as a reason to withdraw this licence and reject future coal mining licence applications, becoming an ally to our climate commitments rather than an undermining force.
Coal Action Network tried to avoid legal action, with supporters sending over 4000 emails to Lee Waters of the Welsh Government and Michael Gove of the UK Government, urging them to come to work together and arrive at a common understanding as to which could intervene on the pending licence to extend the Aberpergwm colliery—and then take that action to stop the licence before it’s granted. However, along with our open letter, Ministers ignored thousands of concerned members of the public. As Ministers refuse to respond to the public’s and civil society’s concerns, we must resort to this legal action.
We hope that the Welsh Government and The Coal Authority act swiftly to stop this coal mine, in accordance with the legal grounds identified within the pre-action letter. This may avoid the need for a judicial review. But we cannot allow it to go unchallenged, that every institution and individual involved has shrugged off the responsibility for committing us to the extraction of 70 million tonnes of coal, selling 40 million tonnes of coal, and the release of 1.17 million tonnes of methane and c.100 million tonnes of CO2. This is a terrible climate injustice, it must be stopped, and those responsible must be held to account. The time to draw a line in the sand is now. No new coal mining for any purpose. And the IEA agrees with us (p103).
If we must resort to a judicial review to prevent this coal mine, we intend to crowd-fund it and we hope you’ll share it widely. As well as stopping this coal mine extension, a successful legal challenge will dissuade the other coal companies which have conditional licences from the Coal Authority to attempt new coal mines. We would significantly raise the bar against new coal mines.
Check out what we're doing now to stop the Aberpergwm coal mine expansion.
...Whilst the Welsh and UK Governments continued to argue over which could stop it, The Coal Authority approved the full licence for an underground coal mine extension to Energybuild Ltd. The company can now mine a further 40 MILLION TONNES of coal until 2039, emitting an est. 100 MILLION TONNES of CO2 and up to 1.17 MILLION TONNES of methane emissions.
This is exactly what we warned would happen, but it’s not over yet.
We, at Coal Action Network, are taking action against this climate trashing project and want you to join in. This is a rapidly evolving issue, and we will post specific actions you can get involved with here on our website, as well as our social media platforms. Watch this space.
We will:
Published: 03/02/2022 updated 08/02/2022
