Putting the 'Pits' back in Talke?

Rugeley Power Station

Coal mining played an important part in the history of North Staffordshire, but I was more than a little taken-aback when a leaflet dropped through our door a few days ago suggesting that it might have a part to play in its future too, and rather close to home.  It seems that UK Coal have plans to surface mine if not literally 'in our back yard', certainly within a mile of our back garden.

I attended one of their public consultation events today and spent quite a long time talking to several UK Coal people about their proposals.  They were all thoroughly charming chaps, painfully conscious that they're perceived to be fire-breathing climate villains.  Had there been a tree handy, I got the distinct impression they would have been hugging it, as well as building deluxe bat-boxes, excavating ponds for natterjack toads, sowing wild-flower meadows and then skipping through them with the fluffy bunnies, they were at such great pains to reassure me on issues such as noise, dust and pollution, traffic density and the restoration of the site to its former glory.

And despite the spot of sarcasm there, I believe they were entirely sincere in all their replies.  No, this relatively small, relatively short-life scheme isn't a 'Trojan Horse' to get work on site, only for it to morph into a mega pit operating for years and scalping a vast scar across our green fields.  Yes, they are aware that the A34 is already a very busy road and they will plan truck movements to avoid busy times.  Yes, they are looking at reinstating the rail sidings so that there's minimal additional road traffic as a consequence of the extraction.  And no, they really won't need to bring in landfill materials in order to restore the site to its former contours at the end.

The last point seemed ridiculous when the proposal is to remove up to 450,000 tonnes of coal.  As a gardener, I know perfectly well that if you dig a hole or trench, then refill it, even if you do a pretty good job of tamping it down, you always end up with a higher profile at the end, unless you take some spoil away.  But 450,000 tonnes?

Ah, explained the very nice man from UK Coal, you have plenty of material to refill with because what you're excavating is very compacted indeed, and actually, the proportion of material you're removing from site is relatively small - perhaps one tonne for each sixteen or seventeen excavated.  So there's plenty of scope to remodel the terrain as you found it.

At that point, having been reassured on that matter, the absurdity of the entire situation hit me like a thunderbolt.  In order to extract one tonne of coal to burn for energy, we'll expend the fuel and power to move sixteen tonnes of other spoil, twice (once to dig it up, once to put it back) and then more still to ship the coal off site and away to the power station.  Despite the assurances that the coal from this site is very good quality, the energy expended in getting it out seems extraordinarily high.

But 450,000 tonnes is a lot, isn't it?  Well, the Office of National Statistics gives the UK's annual demand for coal in 2011 as 51,514,000 tonnes of which 41,857,000 is for power generation.  So our pit, at UK Coal's estimated production, potentially contributes 1.07% of the coal required for one year's electricity generation.  I can't help thinking some smart energy efficiency initiatives would deliver that far more efficiently, and sustainably rather than as a 'one off'.

The other thing that struck me as I looked back over our village from the community centre on the next hill south where the consultation was happening was the array of unobstructed south-facing roofs facing towards the proposed pit site.  I know I complain about the rain up here, and I know its been a dull summer, but you don't need blazing tropical sunshine to make photovoltaics work.  If UK Coal changed its name to UK Energy and offered to rent our roofs for some solar panels instead of digging up our fields, I for one would be much more comfortable with their proposals.  That would be my idea of power to the people!

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