Climate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen opencast site

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

17th August 2010
Activists from Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru invad­ed Nant Helen open cast coal mine in south Wales ear­li­er today.

Despite dis­pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing at the 2010 camp, groups of activists per­sist­ed in their objec­tives to wit­ness the destruc­tive oper­a­tions at Nant Helen open cast mine, owned by Celtic Ener­gy.

The activists entered the coal hole at Nant Helen, where 450,000 tonnes of coal per year are dug out of aClimate Camp Cymru invades Nant Helen open cast coal mine hole approx­i­mate­ly 150m deep and 1.5 x 1 km wide. Celtic Ener­gy have applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion for the mine to expand.

This coal is most­ly des­tined for Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion, to be burnt for elec­tric­i­ty, which is one of the dirt­i­est and most car­bon
inten­sive indus­tri­al process­es.

Activist Ffion Dafys said “rip­ping up moun­tains to dig holes hun­dreds of meters deep destroys the land­scape and the local
envi­ron­ment. The coal removed and burnt will gen­er­ate mil­lions of
tonnes of CO2 over the next four years.”

“Coal seams in Glynn Neath will con­tin­ue to be exploit­ed and extend­ed by open cast min­ing cor­po­ra­tions like Celtic Ener­gy, caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion until these oper­a­tions cease. Observ­ing from the bot­tom of the coal hole real­ly brought home the enor­mi­ty of the destruc­tion.”