Re: However...
Where he country would have been? In the pits ;-)
Honestly, I was in the UK in the 90es and it seemed like the main reason to defend the coal mines was for the mining jobs. I thought the first concern would be if it made economic sense, and to me it seemed to be an expensive way to produce polluting energy.
My native Denmark is far from perfect, but at least governments rarely got directly involved in industry.