Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley,, is a British science writer, journalist and businessman. He is known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics and has been a regular contributor to The Times newspaper. Ridley was chairman of the UK bank Northern Rock from 2004 to 2007, during which period it experienced the first run on a British bank in 130 years. He resigned, and the bank was bailed out by the UK government; this led to its nationalisation.
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a 'pit', and the above-ground structures are a 'pit head'. In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.
Drax power station is a large biomass power station in Drax, North Yorkshire, England, capable of co-firing petroleum coke. It has a 2.6 GW capacity for biomass and 1.29 GW capacity for coal. Its name comes from the nearby village of Drax. It is situated on the River Ouse between Selby and Goole. Its generating capacity of 3,906 megawatts (MW) is the highest of any power station in the United Kingdom, providing about 6% of the United Kingdom's electricity supply.
The Hazelwood Power Station was a decommissioned brown coal-fuelled thermal power station located in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria, Australia. Built between 1964 and 1971, the 1,600-megawatt-capacity power station was made up of eight 200MW units, and supplied up to 25% of Victoria's base load electricity and more than 5% of Australia's total electricity demand. It was a 'subcritical' pulverized coal-fired boiler. The station was listed as the least carbon efficient power station in the OECD in a 2005 report by WWF Australia, making it one of the most polluting power stations in the world. At 1.56 tonnes of CO2 for each megawatt hour of electricity, it was 50% more polluting than the average black coal power station in New South Wales or Queensland. Hazelwood emitted 14% of Victoria's annual greenhouse gas emissions and 3% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest coal mining business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in Harworth, in Nottinghamshire. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The successor company that contains the former property division, Harworth Group, is still listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Mining in Australia has long been a significant primary sector industry and contributor to the Australian economy by providing export income, royalty payments and employment. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged population growth via immigration to Australia, particularly the gold rushes of the 1850s. Many different ores, gems and minerals have been mined in the past and a wide variety are still mined throughout the country.
Solid Energy was the largest coal mining company in New Zealand and is a state owned enterprise of the New Zealand Government.
The Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme is a major opencast coaling operation to the north-east of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. The contracted excavator/reclaiming company is Merthyr Ltd, which is owned by Gwent Investments Limited, a privately-owned family business based in South Wales. The scheme development is the last part of the East Merthyr Reclamation scheme, and will extract 10 million tonnes of coal over 15 years, with the intention of using part of the revenue to redevelop the current former industrial workings into residential and recreational use.
Coal is mined in every state of Australia. The largest black coal resources occur in Queensland and New South Wales. About 70% of coal mined in Australia is exported, mostly to eastern Asia, and of the balance most is used in electricity generation. In 2019-20 Australia exported 390 Mt of coal and was the world's largest exporter of metallurgical coal and second largest exporter of thermal coal. While only employing 50,000 mining jobs nationally coal provides a rich revenue stream for governments.
The Banks Group is a family owned business headquartered in Durham, but working across Scotland and the North of England, established in 1976. Banks develops and operates in a variety of business areas including property development, renewables generation, flexible energy generation and storage, and mineral extraction and infrastructure services. The Banks Group was founded by Harry Banks OBE DL with his brothers Graham Banks, Joe Banks and Bruce Banks.
Blagdon Hall is a privately owned English country house near Cramlington in Northumberland. It is a Grade I listed building. The house and estate have been in the ownership of the White Ridley family since 1698. The present Viscount Ridley is the science writer and hereditary peer Matt Ridley.
Lynemouth Power Station is a biomass power plant which provides electricity for the UK National Grid. Until March 2012, it was the main source of electricity for the nearby Alcan Lynemouth Aluminium Smelter. It is located on the coast of Northumberland, north east of the town of Ashington in north east England. The station has stood as a landmark on the Northumberland coast since it opened in 1972, and had been privately owned by aluminium company Rio Tinto Alcan throughout its operation until December 2013, when RWE npower took over. In January 2016 it was acquired by Energetický a průmyslový holding.
Selby coalfield was a large-scale deep underground mine complex based around Selby, North Yorkshire, England, with pitheads at Wistow Mine, Stillingfleet Mine, Riccall Mine, North Selby Mine, Whitemoor Mine and at Gascoigne Wood Mine. All coal was brought to the surface and treated at Gascoigne Wood before being distributed by rail. The primary purpose of the pit was to supply coal for electrical power generation; much of it was used in the nearby Aire valley power stations.
Mining in New Zealand began when the Māori quarried rock such as argillite in times prior to European colonisation. Mining by Europeans began in the latter half of the 19th century.
Mining in the United Kingdom produces a wide variety of fossil fuels, metals, and industrial minerals due to its complex geology. In 2013, there were over 2,000 active mines, quarries, and offshore drilling sites on the continental land mass of the United Kingdom producing £34bn of minerals and employing 36,000 people.
Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom is in decline, and is planned to end in November 2023. Output has fallen every year since 2010. In 2010, the United Kingdom was forecast to produce about ten million tonnes of coal a year from open-pit mines. Most came from Scotland, with the largest operator there being the Scottish Coal subsidiary of Scottish Resources Group. Actual production in 2010 was over 13 million tonnes but this has declined to less than 8 million tonnes in 2014.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal – mostly for electricity – fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to 18 million tonnes in 2016, of which 77% was imported from Colombia, Russia, and the United States. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, and to 2,000 in 2015.
Northumberlandia is a huge land art sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was completed in 2012, near Cramlington, Northumberland, northern England. It is in the care of Northumberland Wildlife Trust.
The Carmichael coal mine is a coal mine in Queensland, Australia which produced its first shipment of coal in December 2021.
Woodhouse Colliery, also known as Whitehaven coal mine, is a proposed coal mine near to Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. The proposal is for the first deep coal mine in England since Asfordby pit in 1986. The coal mine has been advertised as bringing jobs to a deprived area but has also come in for criticism by green campaigners. In 2019, Cumbria County Council granted the planning permission for the venture.
