Ab. Trigg et Wr. Dubourg, VALUING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF OPENCAST COAL-MINING IN THE UK -THE CASE OF THE TRENT VALLEY IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE, Energy policy, 21(11), 1993, pp. 1110-1122
The environmental costs which often accompany opencast coal mining are
generally excluded from financial appraisals of opencast projects. We
examine an opencast proposal for the North Staffordshire coalfield of
the UK. A survey of local estate agents suggests that, as measured by
the impact upon local house prices, the monetary environmental costs
of the project could be sufficient to reduce substantially its economi
c viability. Moreover, opencast coal in North Staffordshire is almost
certainly more costly to produce than equivalent deep mined coal. If t
he UK government wishes to support the market for domestic deep mined
coal, it could do so at zero effective cost simply by restricting open
cast production.