Britain’s coal fields once fuelled the industrial revolution, producing vast amounts of energy but also generating billions of tonnes of climate-warming CO2.

Now, decades after their closure, they are set to provide the UK with energy once again. Abandoned coal mines are estimated to lie under one in four UK properties and could be harnessed to fuel a heating revolution.

The new way to heat Britain’s homes would use floodwater from the old mines that has been naturally warmed by geothermal energy in the ground.

The ‘mine water heat technology’ extracts heat from the floodwater that has accumulated in abandoned mines, boosts it, and then uses it to heat homes.

And the success of the first largescale test of ‘mine water heat’ technology in Gateshead suggests it could play a crucial r

See Full Page