On Sunday, 27 March 2016 12:30:57 UTC+1, George Booth wrote:

As Jim says the coal was also supplied from the
large open cast mines. A very polluting power station according to SEPA.

Pollution is a matter of opinion. The problem is that when money and politics are involved looking after one's own backyard depends on what you are willing to put up with and what your neighbours let you get away with when you are rich and powerful you can even get away with murdering chilren by the classroomful.

Lord Robens for example the darling of Harold Wilson was too busy being invested with praise from rich and famous and powerful men to go to handle the slaughter/rescue reparation of Aberfan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred...fan_ Disaster

After the Clean Air Act and the birth of environmentalism the Aberfan disaster was the start of militant activity of the greenies.

However if you ever looked around you in the days when we had coal and wood fires -even today with gas chimneys on roofs, you can see that the most inhospitable environments are easily capable of producing plant life.

Whether it is worth the bother of using a commodity depends how clean or dirty you need to be.

Wind turbines, plenty of them seen from here.
They've certainly had a windy couple of years.
The question is what is their working life?

The real question is are they an alternative. If they are more productive than the OP stated that shouldn't be hard to prove.

Can they produce the pwer when you need it and can they do so profiably is the other. The working life depends on how much you are willing to spend on maintainance. With Aircraft these days there is no limit partly because they have to be in tip top condition at all times when in use.

With motor cars they only last as long as they don't cost more to repair than to replace. The reasoning being that improvements since the original design make upgrading more sensible, reliability being the other deciding factor.

In between you have stuff like ambulances which cost so much to kit out that keeping it in good repair is not a deciding factor since it has to be in good repair at all times the same as an airliner.

You can get away with a car so long as it isn't dangerous. If the police stop you for a defective light they generally allow you to go home in the car to get it fixed. If it has defective brakes or no insurance, not so much.

With a nuclear power station on the other hand they cost so much to repair and the profitability is so badly affected that the temptation is to tell porkies and ignore alarms.

And with coal mines they will let spoil heaps build up dangerously because large companies ESPECIALLY government run ones will ignore anything they can, because that is how governments work.

Consider they way the French government handled that whistle-blower in the news recently. Force-marched to prison and left in a state of torture while they all go on holiday.

It'sot just the French who can do that. Does anyone remember Caulder Hall?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire