Coal s Fight for Survival

nationalised fuel industries, which has been simmering for nearly a year, is now reaching boiling point. Basically the argument is about the effect on the coal industry of the nuclear energy progrartune and the discovery of large quantities of natural gas in the North Sea. The coal industry in Britain is the biggest in Europe and up till now few Governments have challenged the demand to protect it from direct competition with other, cheaper, forms of energy. After all, it was argued, coal was Britain's only indigenous source of energy and so for strategic reasons, if nothing else, it ought to be conserved.