The protest during the climate camp against their attempts to see working class people lose their jobs reached a new stage today when the NUM confirmed that miners from other parts of the UK would be attending a protest at the camp on the 4th of August. Miners from Yorkshire and other areas are coming to help educate and inform the climate camp attenders of the realities of clean coal, the need for coal in the UK and the effects of working class communities of the destruction of the coal industry in the UK.
The British coal industry now has less than 3000 miners left, and the NUM organisd a Clean Coal conference in Sheffield 2007, they wish Clean Coal technology to be developed as a way of offsetting the drive for expanded nuclear energy production.
The British coal industry now has less than 3000 miners left, and the NUM organisd a Clean Coal conference in Sheffield 2007, they wish Clean Coal technology to be developed as a way of offsetting the drive for expanded nuclear energy production.
Chris Kitchen NUM National Secretary responded today to those protesting against the local council's decision to allow a new coal-fired power station to be built at kingsnorth in Kent. Chris said:
"As the local council gave the go-ahead for the development of the proposed coal-burning power station at Kingsnorth, near Rochester in Kent the no-coal at any price brigade came out in force. The Guardian and Independent newspapers made the protests by Greenpeace and the environment lobby the main story running the case against the power station rather than presenting the compelling case for it.
Anyone would think, listening to these crackpots, that we no longer burn coal in this country. The truth is we import 56 million tonnes of coal a year from places like Russia and South Africa and burn it in our coal-fired power stations to meet the nation’s energy requirements. If we did not burn coal the country would grind to a halt and the lights would go out tomorrow. Coal is our saviour as the price of oil, now more than $100 per barrel, and gas continue to rise in price and become harder to find.
What these protestors should be doing is supporting clean coal technologies to eliminate between 85% and 90% of carbon emissions. Britain still needs coal and will have to burn it well into the future but it can be done cleanly if new technologies such as carbon capture and storage are developed. These very technologies are being developed around the world and should be developed here.
Furthermore our country still sits on vast coal reserves which for a fraction of the cost of building new nuclear power stations could provide energy security well into the future and we must exploit them rather than import coal from around the world. Coal is the real fuel of the future. Those detractors who oppose the use of coal also oppose the use of any other form of energy apart from the utopian idea that windfarms and other renewables will meet all Britain’s energy needs – it is fantasy.
The Government should immediately finance at least 12 demonstration sites for the development of clean coal technologies and then exploit Britain’s vast deep-mined coal reserves."
COAL NEED NOT BE BLACK IT CAN BE GREEN.
We urge all those who support working class people, their jobs and their communities to respond to this influx of middle class, misinformed, Londoners by standing with the miners and their families.
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