In the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and throughout the 21st Century 2000- 2026 Arthur Scargill has made it clear that the UK could produce clean coal with no carbon emissions.
He not only told miners but also told Government Select Committees. At the time,he was described as talking nonsense.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences at Shenzhen University have produced coal which converts – coal- into electricity without any carbon emissions. (See link below).
Scargill was supported by Tony Benn in two public inquiries at Sizewell and Hinckley Point Nuclear Power Stations.
The SLP’s policy is to eradicate fuel poverty by taking all forms of energy production and energy supply into public ownership. The cost of providing heat and power should be subsidised so that people have one standard affordable supply of energy which is not designed to make profits for shareholders or pay millions in salaries and bonus to people who control energy industries.
The situation has become worse during the past 10 years, particularly because of the slaughter of Britain’s deep mine coal industry, the most efficient and economic deep coal industry in the world.
We were told that the closure of Britain’s 170 coal mines with the loss of 170,000 jobs and the destruction of mining communities should improve our environment by reducing CO2 emissions. It is therefore surprising – to some – that in 2015 the level of pollution, in particular the level of CO2, in cities like London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff saw an increase in CO2 levels.
However, all this technology has been abandoned. As a result, the UK is now dependent on imported coal (4 million tonnes per year), imported gas including LPG gas, imported oil and imported electricity from French nuclear power stations, a policy which is costing UK taxpayers a fortune.
Having taken the decision to destroy our valuable indigenous deep mine coal reserves we now see 80% of CO2 emissions directly related to the use of oil and gas – while the Government desperately continues to pursue a nuclear power programme, apparently oblivious of the nuclear disasters at Windscale (now called Sellafield in 1957); Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl, (1986) and Fukushima (2011); disasters which resulted in Germany, Italy, Japan, and many other nations abandoning nuclear power.
The price for deadly nuclear power is astronomic. It is more expensive than coal produced with carbon capture, and more expensive than gas. For years Britain subsidised its nuclear power industry to the tune of £1.3 billion a year and is now subsidising the development of a new nuclear power station at Sizewell with others mooted. This is despite further serious nuclear incidents in Ukraine and particularly in France in a nuclear power station which is the same type as the Sizewell project.
While developing properly our renewable energy sources – in particular, solar power – Britain needs a long-term integrated energy policy based on a deep mine coal industry, publicly owned and controlled, fitted with carbon capture technology which would produce the cheapest electricity from reserves that would last a thousand years.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/chinas-converts-coal-into-electricity
Socialist Labour Party