Mainshill Eviction Date Given: Monday 25th January & research about expansion of open-cast mining in Britain

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has received a reli­able tip-off that the site will be evict­ed on Mon­day the 25th of Jan­u­ary.

We’re tak­ing this tip-off seri­ous­ly and are prepar­ing to resist any attempts to remove us from the area. Main­shill has stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty of Dou­glas for sev­en months and we’re not about to sur­ren­der to the wish­es of fat cat land­lords, scot­tish coal, or cor­rupt coun­cil­lors any time soon!

Please come help us defend the woods! Come to the pre-evic­tion Gath­er­ing and find out how to get involved

For more info: http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

For more info about com­ing to site please ring 07806926040.

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150 NEW OPENCAST MINES ON THE CARDS FOR THE UK BETWEEN NOW AND 2025 CLAIMS NEW REPORT FROM THE MINORCA OPENCAST PROTEST GROUP

To meet Britain’s ener­gy needs between now and 2025 a new study under­tak­en for the Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group argues that they are unlike­ly to be the only local­i­ty in the UK to expe­ri­ence the prospect of an open­cast mine on their doorstep. This new report “Open­cast / Sur­face Min­ing: It’s Role in Pro­vid­ing UK Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty” sug­gests that ten new open­cast sites a year will need to gain plan­ning per­mis­sion between now and 2025, mak­ing 150 sites in all, if tar­gets to ensure Britain’s Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty are to be met. Using Gov­ern­ment and Coal Indus­try data the report high­lights the fol­low­ing:

• Most British coal is already pro­duced by open­cast meth­ods.

• In future, of an expect­ed 20m tonne British coal pro­duc­tion, 10 ‑12m tonnes ini­tial­ly is expect­ed to be from cur­rent and future open­cast mines, pos­si­bly ris­ing to a 100% open­cast pro­duc­tion in the 2020’s.

• How­ev­er there are no cur­rent pro­jec­tions for the need for coal if CCS tech­nol­o­gy does not prove itself to be viable prac­ti­cal­ly or com­mer­cial­ly.

• Nor do cur­rent esti­mates for the demand for coal take account of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing new tech­nolo­gies that use coal such as Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion.

• Only sev­en deep mine are left work­ing in Eng­land.

• No new deep mine is like­ly with­out a pub­lic sub­sidy.

• Unless new invest­ment is under­tak­en the exist­ing deep mines have a lim­it­ed life and all could be closed by the end of the next decade.

• To ensure ener­gy secu­ri­ty, a mix of ener­gy sources includ­ing pre­dom­i­nate­ly open­cast British coal is need­ed accord­ing to the Gov­ern­ment.

• That the Coal Author­i­ty, respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing and safe­guard­ing coal, argued in 2006 that to ensure ener­gy secu­ri­ty, 10 new ‘low impact’ open­cast mines would be need­ed a year for the fore­see­able future.

• In the opin­ion of those opposed to open­cast min­ing, by increas­ing­ly rely­ing on open­cast coal to pro­vide ener­gy secu­ri­ty for the UK the Gov­ern­ment are con­don­ing the cre­ation of new coal sup­plies by meth­ods which are not only extreme­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive but will blight the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple over the next 15 years. Coal pro­duced by such meth­ods. ‘Clean’ coal? It is hard­ly that.

• Numer­ous areas of the UK are at risk of being the vic­tims of open­cast min­ing in the future, 9 coun­ties in Eng­land, 10 in Scot­land, 3 in Wales and 1 in North­ern Ire­land. In addi­tion 21 uni­tary author­i­ties across Eng­land Scot­land and Wales could also be affect­ed.

This, the sec­ond of MOPG’s Research Reports reach­es these con­clu­sions after under­tak­ing exten­sive research and analysing the results. It claims to be the first report of its kind on Britain’s Ener­gy Pol­i­cy writ­ten from the per­spec­tive of those who oppose open­cast min­ing.

Steve Leary, the Report’s author and MOPG Spokesper­son said

“This report demon­strates that those oppos­ing the Minor­ca appli­ca­tion in Leices­ter­shire are not just engaged in a ‘Nim­by’ issue. Oppos­ing the Minor­ca appli­ca­tion rais­es sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about the future ener­gy pol­i­cy the Gov­ern­ment is being locked into – a grow­ing reliance on open­cast coal pro­duc­tion. MOPG is to ask the House of Com­mons Select Com­mit­tee on Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change to enquire fur­ther on the find­ings of this report and to ask ques­tions about whether cur­rent pol­i­cy is worth the des­e­cra­tion of 10 new open­cast sites a year for the fore­see­able future.”

This 32 page report can be down­loaded from the fol­low­ing web page:
http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-reports.html
It will be avail­able on the MOPG web site short­ly at this site address
http://mopg.co.uk/MOPG-Research-Reports.php