Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
The Thatcher Government closed the mines because they were uneconomical, however, after chatting to a retired miner, he says there was plenty of coal left in them and millions of pounds worth of equipment was left down there because it was cheaper than recovering it.
He said that many mines will have flooded by now, so I can't help but wonder if it was a mistake to have closed them in the first place.
The uneconomical cost of mining our own coal will be dwarfed by the now extortionate cost of energy & any loss of gas to industry.
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The quantity of coal and the cost of extraction are not necessarily linked. It absolutely was not a mistake to close the mines - even if they could quickly be reopened now, coal is an environmentally disastrous fuel which we should only contemplate using in a dire emergency.
This present crisis will not be severe or long-lasting enough to justify what it would have cost to keep those mines ticking over for the past 30-40 years.