At the beginning of the year coal was about $150 per tonne, now it’s about $400 per tonne due to the supply problems of other energy sources like Russian gas.
Makes sense to open up coal mines providing it costs less than $400 per tonne to extract it, including the cost of environmental control measures.
The UK has greenlit a controversial plan to open the country's first new coal mine in three decades, a little more than a year after the nation tried to convince the world to ditch coal at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.
Michael Gove, the UK housing and communities secretary, on Wednesday approved the plan to open the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria, a county in northwestern England that is home to the World Heritage-listed Lake District.
The controversial mine is expected to create more than 500 jobs. But the environmental trade-off is steep: The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent group that advises the government, has estimated the mine and the coal it will produce will emit around 9 million tons of planet-warming emissions every year.
Thing for me is Germany of all countries are investing more into their coal mining industry. Global capping my arse!
They are truly reliant on Russia for gas/oil etc so are looking back to king coal for their power. Soon other dominoes will start to tumble the same way now Germany have set the big ball rolling and sticking two fingers up to it all. Plus they've got plenty of immigrant man power to fill the job role.....now there's an idea for what's flooding into our country......oops hang on, didn't the Tories close all our mines.
Each to their own I suppose. I wouldn't my kids anywhere near a mine thanks.
The Tories and New Labour failed by not investing in cleaner alternatives.
Quick cut and paste but it's how I see it:
Putting death rates from energy in perspective
Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective.
Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’.
If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect at least 25 people to die prematurely every year from it. Most of these people would die from air pollution.
This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:
Coal: 25 people would die prematurely every year;
Oil: 18 people would die prematurely every year;
Gas: 3 people would die prematurely every year;
Hydropower: In an average year 1 person would die;
Wind: In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;
Nuclear: In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die.
Solar: In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die.