UK Coal Promotes British Coal Supplies

UK Coal launched a new campaign today to encourage Brits to buy locally, in an attempt to reduce Britain’s energy dependency on Russian-imported energy sources.

UK Coal has said that by importing coal-produced energy from Russia, Britain is relying on energy with a large carbon footprint that could be damaging the environment.

“There is a chance for UK Coal to displace foreign imports from a security-of-supply perspective. It is 3km from Kellingley [colliery] to Ferrybridge [power station], which has got to be better than bringing supplies in from Siberia and Ukraine to East Coast ports,” he said.

UK Coal is not the first group to raise growing concerns about British reliance on Russian coal supplies. John Lloyd, the Chief executive for UK Coal,  said that coal products would continue to be a major part of the energy industry market, and that it makes more sense to encourage energy companies to buy coal locally as opposed to looking abroad for coal supplies.

Worry over gas supplied from Russia has already been the source of political tension in London, even though Russia only supplies 2% of UK’s gas, Lloyd points out. However Russian coal accounts for 38% of the total coal burned by Britain. Colombia and South Africa supply another 20%, and only 33% is supplied locally.

“I don’t think it is healthy. The UK should be far closer to self-sufficiency than it is,” Lloyd said

Thanks to guardian.co.uk for the above quotes, for more information on this story please visit their website.