Welsh mine tragedy: Coal price ‘driving new pits’
Energy stasis against new green and nuclear energy continues to drive up coal, creating deaths around the world and feeding global warming.
An expert says the rising price of coal is behind the reopening of small mines such as Gleision in the Swansea Valley, where four men died after it flooded.
Robert Murray Willis says the anthracite in such drift mines is high value as a dense smokeless fuel.
The former mining safety officer and engineering consultant said small mines tended not to have technological advances as they employed few people.
An inquiry has been announced into the deaths.
The miners would know of the potential dangers, but could only see as far as the rock in front of them, and not behind it, said Mr Murray Willis.
Mine rescue teams would have been faced with a “massive accumulation” of water, he told BBC Radio Wales.
The reason such mines were being reopened was because the price of coal is rising.
“Anthracite is the Welsh gold. It is smokeless, it is very dense and it is very environmentally friendly, as coals go. It has high value.