Its the politics of environmentalism.
Doubt it. The closure of Riccall means that more lignite (worse to the enviroment) will be imported from Eastern Europe.
Or more open-cast pits in the U.K
If UKCoal cared about the enviroment, they'd be opening pits in the Neath area (Anthracite=less damaging to enviroment).
The truely stupid thing about the Riccall closure is the price of coal has soared recently...
Well.. if the mine is profitable I'm sure Fat Cats would tend to want to keep it open, and make more money. If its not profitable, who could keep it open, fat cat or not?
The Fat Cats that the Major Government flogged the pits to have the collective IQ of an unusually retarded chicken. That's also dead. With it's head cut off. And still running round the damn farmyard.
When Riccall was earmarked for closure two years ago, the price of coal was low and the pit was making a loss (mostly the fault of the incompetent twats in UKCoal... Tower Colliery (Worker Co-op owned pit in South Wales) has made a profit every year since '95 IIRC. And it's an old pit (first shaft was sunk in the 1880's). The Selby Complex was sunk in the late 1970's. Go figure).
At the moment the price of coal is high as there aren't enough mines in Europe to produce enough Coal for the power stations.
Riccall was starting to make a profit. Had it been left open, it could have made a big profit this year... anyone with half a brain would have kept it open, and maybe even expanded the workforce to get more coal out.
The executives at UKCoal do not possess half a brain between them
