I haven't found any data, to be honest I haven't actually looked, but I'm guessing that the cost and impact of hauling coal across a continent in trains, and then a ocean to get to the UK, is significantly more costly and environmentally damaging then a train ride down from Cumbria.
That said, anything, particularly figures that are published at this stage I would be sceptical of
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As former mining engineer, its pretty easy to knock holes in the most 'detailed' evaluation that involves going sub-terrainean I've been involved far to long to stick my hat on anything that's printed.
With the best will in the world, once you are underground, everything you may have planned for can go out of the window in an instant, if mother nature doesn't want to hang around while you take a large chunk out of the middle, there really isn't anything you can do about it.
They can plan, survey and drill as much as they like, but until you are down there, everything is nothing more than an educated guess.
That's the same for every mine in the world.
What I can say is that at full production, there is the potential for 3m tonne of low ash coal to be produced for the UK steel industry. At the moment every cobble is imported from somewhere else, mainly the US.
The surface exposure will be minimal, there will be no exposed stock yards, and no waste product to dispose of. Its not ideal, but if we consider the whole process on a global scale (as we should) it will be state of the art and significantly less environmentally damaging than those currently supplying the coal.
That said, compared to recycling, primary steel production in a blast furnace is always going to be more environmentally damaging. Unfortunately there aren't enough arc furnaces or recycled metals around to make blast furnaces redundant. If there was, it would certainly happen.
From an economical position, its hard to gauge, arc furnaces use a huge amount of electrical energy, whereas Blast Furnaces use COG from the coke making process, taking the syngas from the coal and using it to fire the furnace. Either way its a high energy and dirty business.
Every ton of primary steel produced needs around 750kg of coal for the manufacturing process, and the UK produces around 7m tonnes per year, all the coal in imported, as are the iron ore pellets.
The UK currently has 3 major mining projects being considered. WCM with the coal mine, a huge potash mine near Whitby.....the tunnel bringing the product to the surface is in Middlesbrough, and a Tungsten Mine ( 4th largest deposit in the world) near Plymouth. There are also lithium mines planned for Cornwall, mainly re-opening the old tin mines and using a hydro-cracking process to extract the minerals dissolved in water.
Do we stop all these projects? They will all be environmentally damaging. The tungsten mine is a particular ugly blot on the landscape.
I wish there was an alternative to mining as an industry. If you dig holes, surface or underground, it is damaging to the environment, but if we are determined to go to a carbon neutral future, (and that shouldn't even be questioned) then unfortunately we need these raw materials, and that means there are consequences.
The trick is to mitigate the consequences as much as possible, and we do that very well in the UK due to pretty strict regulations.
One final point, and an additional benefit of the Cumbrian coal mine is that it would probably kill of the possibility of a nuclear waste depository in the region for good. Its not a good idea to have nuclear waste being stored in the same place as mining is taking place....water can find its way into the most unusual places, mainly when you least expect it.
