Mining a hot new seam of success?

Who’d have thought the long dead mining industry could breathe new life into hopes of a green future?

As we reveal today, a pioneering project to use heat generated from within abandoned mines has been revealed.

A scheme in Seaham is ready to tap into this energy to help develop low carbon heating for homes.

The North East was once the hotbed of mining and, as such, many of our homes are built on top of abandoned pit shafts.

Where the mines are flooded, the water can be used as a sustainable heat source for heating systems that experts believe could replace conventional gas boilers for heating and hot water in homes and other buildings.

The Coal Authority’s head of innovation, Jeremy Crooks, said: “When miners were working in hot, dusty conditions, they would not have known that their efforts and the heat they worked in, would one day create a sustainable source of energy for hundreds of years to come.

“It’s ironic that mining coal, a fossil fuel, would provide access to a low carbon, clean air, energy source that will last far longer than the 200 years of intensive mining that created this opportunity.”

The Government has set out plans for as many as one in five buildings to use a largely low carbon district heat network by 2050. Disused mines are being earmarked as the source of heat for these amazing projects.

When they said ‘where there’s muck, there’s brass’ they were right … but little did they know there would be heat too!