Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

Does the Energy Bill Herald An End To Opencast Mining?

Steve Leary | 05.12.2012 15:29 | Climate Chaos | Energy Crisis | Social Struggles | Sheffield | Wales

LAON's 17th Press Release analyses what the effect of implementing the 2012 Energy Bill will be on the UK Surface Mine Coal Industry. The prognosis is that it faces medium to long term decline. As a consequence, over time, the strength of the current 'Need for Coal' arguments will slowly weaken. However, it may not come soon enough to prevent two new 9 and 10m tonne surface mines from being developed, one in Scotland and the other in Wales.

THE LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

LAON PR2012 -17 5/12/12

THE ENERGY BILL: WILL IT REDUCE THE THREAT OF OPENCAST MINING NEAR WHERE YOU LIVE?

The Loose Anti Opencast Network is broadly in favour of the intention of the Energy Bill to reduce the reliance on coal in the UK‘s energy mix, as this will reduce the need for new surface mine sites in the UK. However it leaves local communities across the UK living on or near to shallow coalfields uncertain about how soon these reforms will result in reducing the risk of opencast mining in their area.

Despite the proposed legislation reducing the demand for coal, developers are proposing to operate at least 23 new surface mines across Britain over the next few years. Some of these proposals are for large, new opencast mines that will have a life span of 12 to 15 years – well into an era when the demand for coal will have fallen by 90 to 95%. Cauldhall, a new proposal announced by Scottish Coal near Rosewell in Midlothian in Scotland, is for a 10m tonne site covering 495 hectares, to be worked over a twelve and a half year period. Wales too has its monster-mine proposal for the Nant Llesg site near Rhymney in Gwent. Here Miller Argent plans to remove up to 9m tonnes of coal from a 1,200 hectare site over a 15 year period. These are the two largest opencast mine proposals at present, LAON know of 13 other proposals for England, 2 in Scotland and 5 in Wales.

A recent press release from Business Green suggests that the provisions in the new Energy Bill announced on the 29th November, which will restrict all new generating plants using fossil fuels to a maximum CO2 cap of 450gms per kilowatt hour (KWH) is the ‘death knell for king coal’. In addition to this, existing coal plants will have to conform to lower emission standards under the new European Integrated Pollution Control Directive for nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and dust, which will mean having to make a decision, by the end of next year, to fit expensive new equipment, convert to biomass or be decommissioned by 2023. To nudge the owners of power stations to make the right decision, the Government is introducing its Carbon Tax next year and a new subsidy system which rewards decisions to fully convert existing power stations to biomass rather than encourage ‘new build’ biomass power stations.

A recent calculation undertaken by the Department of Energy and Climate Change indicates that these changes will reduce demand for coal to insignificant levels, from the present 40.51mt in 2011, to 28.41mt in 2016 (a fall of 30%), to 9.68mt in 2021 (a fall of 77%) to 4.06mt in 2026 (a fall of 90%) and 1.96mt in 2030 (a fall of 95% on the 2011 figure).

If permission was granted in 2014 for the Nant Llesg site, by the time the last tonne of coal was dug out, national demand would just be about 1.38mt tonnes in 2029 and for Caudhall a little higher at 4.06mt tonnes in 2026.

If the demand for coal falls to these levels, will it have been appropriate to have given permission, back in 2014, to have exploited these surface mine sites, especially if, all or part of the site, is a green field site?

LAON hope that the future Parliamentary Debates on this Bill will include discussions about the impact this Bill will have on the Coal Industry, especially the surface mine coal industry and the demand for coal.

In our view, there must come a time when it is no longer thought necessary to allow green field land, in any part of the UK, to be sacrificed on the altar of ‘the national need for coal’ if the country loses its capacity to burn coal.

Communities across Britain, who live on or near the UK’s shallow coalfields in England, Scotland and Wales, will benefit from finding out when coal will lose its priority status in the planning systems of England, Scotland and Wales. We hope that a policy statement confirming the rate at which the use of coal for power generation purposes declines, assuming that there is no viable Carbon Capture and Storage system, will be forthcoming as the Energy Bill makes its way through Parliament.

A referenced version of this press release is available from  Infoatlaon@yahoo.com

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Opencast Network (LAON) has been in existence since 2009. It functions as a medium through which to oppose open cast mine applications. At present LAON links individuals and groups in N Ireland (Just Say No to Lignite), Scotland (Coal Action Scotland), Wales (Green Valleys Alliance, The Merthyr Tydfil Anti Opencast Campaign), England, (Coal Action Network), Northumberland, (Whittonstall Action Group, Halton Lea Gate (North Pennine Protection Group )) Co Durham (Pont Valley Network), Leeds, Sheffield (Cowley Residents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skelmansthorpe Action Group) Nottinghamshire (Shortwood Farm Opencast Opposition), Derbyshire (West Hallum Environment Group, Smalley Action Group and Hilltop Action Group) , Leicestershire (Minorca Opencast Protest Group), Wakefield (Stop Opencast in Sharlston) and Walsall (Alumwell Action Group).

Contacting LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordinator, at  infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now follow LAON on Twitter @  http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Steve Leary
- e-mail: infoatlaon@yahoo.com

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Promises,Promises? — Pat Judson

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech