It was coal that put ‘Great’ into the name Great Britain, was how one miner at the Kellingley coal mine in Yorkshire, UK described the closure of the last deep mine in the country. It marked the end of a mining era in the country and miners are bitter that the government knocked them out when it could have done more to keep the mines alive. The source of this bitterness is the subsidies that are allocated to nuclear, solar and wind power. Coal was the fuel for the industrial revolution and till 19 December it was an inconceivable to separate Britain from coal power. None of the 3,000 miners, who will now have to look for alternate jobs, believe that the end was hastened by climate change. They think they could have gone on for another decade or so with subsidies. One of the reason for the closure is that British coal is expensive, thanks to high labour costs and safety regulations and it looks like the nation would prefer to import coal up till 2025 when it hopes to phase out coal fired electricity stations. The UK still has enough reserves and the recent discovery of a trillion tonnes of the mineral under the sea off Wales could power it for centuries. But that isn’t how the new government and the rest of the world view it. Climate change had placed new responsibilities on nations and cleaner energy is the buzz word. But for Britain the closure of Kellingley is, in many ways, a break with the past.
