@JBR @OldGreyFox , l suppose we could always go back to coal ??
Hang on, didn’t we dynamite all those instead of mothballing them ??
Wonder why they did that ??
Donkeyman! 
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I think they should have kept the mines serviceable, though mothballing and maintaining them would have been expensive for no immediate gain. Can you imagine a government doing that? They can’t think that far ahead.
It’s true that there are many years of coal supplies remaining beneath our feet.
Also, as I think someone mentioned elsewhere, where there’s coal there’s methane which can - and has been - extracted from coal mines to be burnt just in the way we still burn gas obtained from other sources.
Did they ? how deep into the mine ?
@caricature , l was talking about the power stations Mr C , not the mines ??
The mines should be reopened imo, allthough they will have a job to find
any miners now ?
But at least they could use them to store all the atomic waste they are
planning to create !!
I suppose they haven’t thought that far ahead though ??
Donkeyman! 
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What, extracting methane?
From the whole mine as it would be present throughout.
The advantage of methane is that it is lighter than air and so can easily be separated out.
I’m not sure exactly how they did this, though, but air was extracted using fans. At some point on it’s course the methane could have been collected in that way.
Ta, can be rebuilt though, its ill thought through .
Yes, and I have suggested that before. The best places would be the deepest and most stable. One argument against that is that coal mines are notorious for suffering water seepage and build-up, and you wouldn’t want any radioactive material to leech into that water.
On the other hand, I believe that waste radioactive material is permanently vitrified and then encased in stainless steel containers with the intention of effectively containing them for thousands (or millions) of years.
I agree. It was short-sighted to lose the benefits of those resources. It is also true that, although mines have a history of disasters and loss of life, the more recent ones have had a much better safety record.
It would have been far better to keep them operating.
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The thing is the reserves are still there , some one must be able to come up with an idea how to clean the air from power station stacks.
But going back to mining, who’ll go down pit now, has a generation been lost to that.
I believe that quite effective filters have been installed in the recent past.
In any event, at Drax I think they now burn wood chips brought across the Atlantic from America (producing toxins from the ships’ exhausts!) and the wood also creates pollutants as did the coal!
I’m sure that the government sees some logic in that!
Yes, I think it has.
On the other hand, as someone else suggested, perhaps we could extract the coal using fully automated machinery which could possibly be controlled entirely from the surface.
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Breaking news ,Germany sanctions Russia by banning russian coal imports ??
What hypocracy is this? while gas imports are still rising !!
Item; Rishi Sunak donates £100,000 to winchester college, which is the
most expensive private school in England, and one which he attended before
going to uni !!
Obviously he has no worries about his heating bills this year !!
Donkeyman!
@ JBR,. Ooooer, l see caricature has just beaten me to it,
With an identical post too !!
Donkeyman! 
I just read that the risk of blood clots is higher for six months after covid…I shouldn’t be surprised by that after my daughters experience. Makes me wonder though that Shangai s city of over 25 million is in complete lockdown and here we are in the UK just about ignoring our high infections…makes no sense…
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@summer , Yeah you are right summer, makes no sense to me either??
Either the whole thing was a con or UK is now bankrupt ??
Donkeyman! 
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Summer I remember reading that yesterday and thinking, oh no, as both my daugher’s and son’s family have just got over it (well son isn’t, entirely, but he’s got other health issues so to be expected). But then when I read further down the article it’s the old variants not the Omicron that’s in high prevalence here in the UK now. I do know loads of people who had the old variant though and who now have long covid, with varying complaints from still not getting their taste and smell back, to permanent kidney/liver damage to breathing difficulties. I also know two people who died with it.
Luckily there’s only 361 people in hospital needing ventilation now compare that to the thousands that there was previously. Don’t know how many of them haven’t been vaccinated, but earlier in the year it was reported that those who were on ventilators vast majority hadn’t been vaccinated.
This might also be a reason:
Only half of Chinese aged 80 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, highlighting a key vulnerability as the country grapples with its worst outbreak since Wuhan and the prospect of reopening to the world.
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