SLACC

Coal 1

Banners outside the High Court 17 July 2024

Banners and Maggie outside the High Court 17 July 2024 2

CUMBRIA Coal Mine Permission QUASHED

Mr Justice Holgate’s decision on SLACCs and Friends of the Earth’s legal challenges of Mr Gove’s decision was handed-down by email at 10.30 today (Friday 13th September). It follows the Hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on the 16th to 18th July this year, and WE WON.

See our press release on the Decision , reports from Cornerstone Barristers and Richard Buxton Solicitors , and Maggie Mason’s speech announcing the news in Kendal.

Now that Mr Justice Holgate has quashed the the previous planning permission, West Cumbria Mining have issued a statement that they are considering what to do next. Will they try to Appeal this decision? Angela Rayner , the current Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government. is now the decision maker on the planning application, if the mining company want to pursue the matter. She could call another Public Inquiry to invite additional information, given that Mr Justice Holgate said that the Environmental Statement should have included an assessment of the extent to which the Cumbrian coal would “substitute” or replace coal from the US or other sources. The four documents above provide more information on “substitution” that, in the July 2024 Hearing, was really the mining company’s only defence. Mr Justice Holgate’s powerful judgment will be a important precedent with, potentially, global implications. thank you so much to all our supporters , individual donors and funders.

Hugely important victory for SLACC and Friends of the Earth

The previous decision to grant permission for the mine was made by Michael Gove, then the Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC), on 7 December 2022. However the Supreme Court judgement, on the 20th June 2024, on the case of an oil well at Horse Hill Surrey made it clear that the downstream impacts of fossil fuel projects must be adequately considered in the Environmental Impact Assessment, and the decision maker should take that into account. This has, in the Government’s view, made Mr Gove’s decision unlawful. Friends of the Earth also won an important point on the use of carbon offsets from outside the UK, and also some recognition that UK based offets are limited and often may not be available.

KEY CONCEPTS RELEVANT TO OUR CHALLENGE

1. The “climate neutral” coal mine, is closely akin to the “climate compatible” oil or gas well. The current UK Government has used these terms in recent years to argue that UK fossil fuel extraction, including new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, are acceptable, and by implication don’t contradict UK climate commitments. A key element of those claims is that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from the USE of a fossil fuel can be left out, focusing only on emissions from operations. However the Supreme Court has just ruled that such emissions should be considered as an indirect effect of the extraction, and included in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

2. “Substitution” is the second key concept in the “climate neutral” mine or well. This is the claim that a coal, oil or gas from from a new mine or well doesn’t ADD to the global amount of coal, gas or oil used. That amount remains the same, it is claimed, even if a new mine opens, because an existing mine somewhere else in the world would close or reduce it’s output. If this were true, this claim continues, the mine or well would not result in ANY additional greenhouse gases or increased in harm to people or the environment. However, no evidence or quantification for this is provided.

3. “If this coal wasn’t extracted here it would be extracted somewhere else”, and ” its better to extract coal in the UK than import it”. These unchallenged statements guesstimate that “substitution” is real and near to 100%, and that emissions from any coal that IS additional are roughly equivalent to “GHG savings” from NOT importing coal. Not true. GHG from the USE of fossil fuel is much much higher than operational or shipping emissions, so an additional new mine increases global emissions,

4 Economics is clear, increasing supply lowers price. Owners of new and existing coal mines all try to continue to extract and sell coal, and lower prices delay the shift to modern ways of making steel (with little or no coal) . Every year of delay puts more GHG in the atmosphere. Refusing permission for a new coal mine i.e. limiting supply, incentivises the shift to technologies that emit less carbon into the atmosphere. SLACC and our allies in west Cumbria support new technologies, but also an active plan to improve steel recycling, retain UKs scrap steel and increase jobs in manufacturing steel products.

We also support a decent healthy environment for Whitehaven . Constructing a coal mine, and its large buildings, on the old Marchon chemical site is risker to the public than leaving the site alone and there is a better alternative.

The chemicals plant was closed down, after 50 years, in the 1990’s. There was minimal surface site remediation in 2012 with promises of public open space and willow coppicing to start in 2013. But a planning application was submitted for a new coal mine instead. By 2017 both West Cumbria Mining and Cumbria County Council were saying this was the only way the site could be restored, but the Environmental Statement and Consultation Reponses from the Environment Agency show that breaking into the site surface and remodelling the earth increases the risk of toxic chemicals ( cadmium and arsenic have already been identified) escaping into the air, streams and the Irish Sea. There is an alternative: In fact the site was safe enough for public open space as it was. IF THE COAL MINE CONSENT WAS OVERTURNED BY OUR LEGAL CHALLENGE. and a new Government helped secure new jobs on other sites, the broken fences could be removed , the concrete slabs left intact to contain any toxic soils underneath, and the site left to continue to re-wild. Residents of adjacent housing would not suffer the noise and dust of construction or coal handling, but continue to walk their dogs, enjoy the open space and access the west Cumbrian coastal path.

ACTION : Watch the lovely video, made by Jo Syz. There may be a new one to add to our You Tube library soon.

**This is not a climate neutral mine, and the coal is not needed for UK steel**. See video

WCM still need investors and insurers – another video

Six reasons why SLACC opposed the Cumbria coal mine

Our expert witnesses covered the issues below at the Public Inquiry held in September and October 2021. Subsequent events have largely proved us correct but the approaching Court Hearing cannot look at events since the Inquiry, it looks only at the lawfulness of Gove’s decision.

1. Greenhouse Gas Emissions

WCM and Michael Gove accepted that, over the lifetime of the mine, 220 Million tonnes of greenhouse gases would be released by USING the coal. CONSTRUCTING and OPERATING the mine would release 9 Million tonnes of emissions. Over 7 million tonnes of that is methane. But they claim that the new mine would be “climate neutral” and any impact on global heating could be ignored. How come? 1. they claim climate harm from the USE of a fossil fuel should NOT be considered as an indirect impact in the Environmental Impact Assessment . 2 they claim that the coal would substitute for other coal, rather than inhibit the use of low carbon alternatives for steel making. 3 They claim that they can and will capture 95% of those methane emissions, which has never been claimed or achieved before, and 4 that offsets would cancel out the rest.

2. Global Leadership

Government lawyers claimed that once the UK was no longer Chair of COP 26 the need to show climate leadership ended. But as SLACC predicted, the Cumbria coal mine decision has impacted on UK leadership. There is now a weak intention to stop “unabated coal for energy generation”: giving a green light for metallurgical coal for steelmaking, and a continued pretence that carbon capture and storage will stop emissions while new extraction continues. The UK Government’s claim that a new coal mine can be “climate neutral” is unfounded and unreasonable and has a toxic effect on global climate efforts.

3. Low Carbon Steel is the Future

Sweden’s progress on use of hydrogen, rather than metallurgical coal, to make steel; and that EU and UK blast furnaces would close to meet our carbon targets. We were right. Even before Gove approved the mine, the UK agreed to help both UK steel makers to shift to Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs). EAFs use hardly any coal, and not this type. Hydrogen-Direct Reduced Iron furnaces could have fed the UK EAFs and retained a full UK steel industry but that never happened. As confirmed in a recent report Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is NOT being added to blast furnaces in the UK or the EU. Apart from China and Asia steel makers prefer EAF and Hydrogen to CCS , as WCM’s own expert also predicted when they highlighted the costs and technical difficulties of CCS for steel plants. Mr Gove’s decision ignored all that evidence and was unreasonable

4. High Sulphur Content

The coal was never going to replace UK imports as supporters claimed. The targeted coal seams are too high in sulphur to be used by UK and European steel makers, except in very small quantities. Even early WCM “small print” admitted 87% would be exported, and subsequently British Steel said they couldn’t use any of it.. WCMs experts at the inquiry claimed it would still be cost effective for Asian blast furnaces in spite of higher delivered costs, assuming that those jurisdictions still have no controls on air pollution.

5. Jobs

WCM promised jobs, apprenticeships, and work for local suppliers, but admit there is no mechanism for ensuring these would benefit existing residents. Indeed WCM has plans for group accommodation, presumably for workers from overseas who would have existing experience of working in underground coal mines. West Cumbria does need jobs, especially well paid alternatives to the nuclear industry, but local support for the mine is strongly linked to a lack of faith in government supplying any good alternatives, not a burning desire to work in a deep mine under the Irish Sea. In any case coal is not the future, and the jobs at Whitehaven would not last until 2049. New jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency and a low carbon Cumbria would be preferred, and would not risk environmental harm from disturbing the highly polluted old chemical site where the mine would be constructed.

6. Ancient Woodland

SLACC argued that constructing the concrete enclosed conveyor belt through an area of Ancient Woodland would cause unacceptable harm. Ancient Woodland is literally irreplaceable, and planning regulation is very strict on forbidding any harm unless there are exceptional reasons to do so. We were clearly correct in our assessment, because just weeks before the Public Inquiry WCM started to mention an alternative proposal that tunnelled under the wooded valleys before continuing to the railway sidings where coal would be loaded onto wagons. Drawings including sections were produced in the days after the Public Inquiry closed, but no site investigations have been done. WCM is simply required to investigate and then develop a method. Even if it proves feasible, the costs of construction could be very high and the risks of harm to the woodland remain.

Delays in WCM’s progress with the mine. Was it just a bad idea?

2014: EMR Capital Ltd bought an Australian company with Coal Authority licences for Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) under the Irish Sea, and renamed the company West Cumbria Mining Ltd.
2016: Consultations with Cumbria County Council about an underground coal mine after the UCG process fell out of favour in the UK
May 2017: WCM submit first planning application
Nov 2018: WCM submit revised planning application that no longer “dewaters” or uses an old underground mine void
Mar and Oct 2019: Cumbria County Council approve the mine subject to a legal agreement being concluded
Mar 2020: WCM ask Cumbria CC to “set aside” their previous decision to allow WCM to amend the proposal
May 2020: WCM submit revised application to include a process to wash sulphur out of coal, and to increase % sulphur in final product.
Oct 2020: Cumbria CC approve the mine subject to a legal agreement being concluded
Mar 2021: Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) “calls in” the planning application following a number of requests.
Sep 2021: Public Inquiry – WCM offers further amendment to take conveyor belt under Ancient Woodland
Dec 2022: Sectretary of State of LUHC Grants Planning Consent including the final revisions.
Jan 2023: Legal challenges launched
Oct 2023: Hearings delayed by the Court
Jun 2024: Supreme Court rules greenhouse gases from USE of a fossil fuel must be assessed in the Environmental Impact Assessment of the well or coal mine.
Jul 2024: High Court Hearing of legal challenge of SoS’s 2022 decision to commence at Royal Courts of Justice

Latest News

Still Waiting for High Court Decision27 August 2024
Just in case you were wondering ! South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friends of the Earth are still waiting for Mr Justice Holgate’s decision on our Statutory Review of the 2022 planning consent for the Cumbria coal mine. We think it very likely that it will be announced before the end of September,… Read more: Still Waiting for High Court Decision